Killer ... Facebook monster Peter Chapman

RAPE fiend Peter Chapman was online friends with more than 6,000 women and teenage girls, The Sun can reveal.

The balding killer, 33, reeled them in by posting a picture of a hunky teenage lad with his top off - and claiming it was HIM.

Schemer Chapman called himself Peter Cartwright - and claimed he was 17, single, a window maker and part-time DJ from Liverpool.

Lies ... Chapman claimed to be this hunk

His lies conned Ashleigh Hall into meeting him near Sedgefield, Co Durham last October - then bespectacled Chapman kidnapped, raped and murdered her.

Beefcake ... girls were lured by photo

Chapman, who drove to meet her in his Ford Mondeo car, confessed all when he was hauled into Middlesbrough Police station the next day.

As he began a 35-year jail term last night, it emerged Ashleigh was one of the 6,000 friends - ALL women - he was in contact with through TEN social networking sites.

He flirted through Facebook, Bebo and others, claiming to be slim and toned. He listed his interests as cars and girls.

Chapman's friendly online style was designed to win confidence - and to disguise his sick past as a sex attacker first quizzed over an assault when aged just 15.

He sent messages rating his friends '10 out of 10' to flatter them into replying.

One girl who saw his hunky teen snap replied: "woooooowwwwww ur sexy welll i willl almost defo rate u a ten."

But he also asked many for their private email addresses to enable him to send more intimate messages.

Some of the girls were even asked to complete a sleazy questionnaire. He asked: "Would u have sex with me the first night u met me?" and "Would u mind if we did it like a porn star?"

Women told The Sun how Chapman was a manipulative monster who could turn nasty if they rebuffed his advances.

One, a 39-year-old mum-of-three, told how he begged to meet her just days before he murdered Ashleigh.

She said: "If I'd agreed to meet him instead of cancelling at the last minute he might have raped and murdered me.

"I feel awful for poor Ashleigh and I also felt partly responsible. If I'd agreed to meet him perhaps he wouldn't have gone up north."

Murdered ... Ashleigh Hall

She added: "I'm freaked out by what's happened and I don't go on Facebook much anymore. I don't talk to blokes online unless I know them."

Chapman met the mum, of Newbury, Berks, after downloading a flirt application on Facebook called Social Me.

She said: "He seemed nice enough. He chatted me up for a few weeks and was constantly sending me messages.

"It wasn't sexual to start with, but soon he started dropping hints saying how long it had been since he'd been with a woman."

She agreed to meet for a coffee at a service station last summer. They went for a drive, and as soon as they parked up Chapman changed.

She said: "He tried to kiss me and fondle my boobs and tried to get his hands down my trousers. I pushed him off and said I wanted to go back."

A month later they met again - and yet again Chapman turned into a sex pest.

She said: "We parked by this common and in an instant he turned from being this pleasant, charming bloke into a monster. He was saying he'd never felt like this about anyone before. I nearly burst out laughing - it was only the second time we'd met.

"He tried to kiss me and put his hands down my top and my trousers. I told him if he carried on I'd start screaming."

Nicked... warped sex monster Chapman is booked in at Middlesbrough police station

She did not hear from him for a few months, until he sent a message a week before Ashleigh died.

He said: "Hi its Pete the one you went for coffee and drive with how you doing ? x."

She agreed to meet, before reconsidering. She thought nothing more of it until she heard he'd been arrested over Ashleigh's death.

The horrified mum said: "I can't believe how silly I was. I feel so stupid now, but at the time he gave me so many compliments. He told me how he was looking for a long-term relationship."

It was me... head bowed, Chapman confesses to murder of Ashleigh

Another woman friend from Facebook told how she was having sex with Chapman within hours of meeting him.

She said: "He said he chatted to a lot of women on the internet, but had never met up with anyone."

The 46-year-old, from Chippenham, Wilts, said sleazy Chapman pressured her to ask her friend to join them for a threesome.

She said: "I told him I wasn't into that." She never saw him again and was stunned to learn of his arrest. She said: "I can't believe I slept with him. It makes you feel dirty."

The woman added: "He was obviously skilled at putting women at ease. We got on straight away. It just makes you realise how clever and manipulative he really is."

Mess ... tape in Chapman's car used to kill Ashleigh

Chapman began his cruel, calculating style early - stealing from his family to buy drugs. He was finally kicked out of home at 16 when he was found to have swiped his seven-year-old brother Daniel's pocket money.

By then he already had a string of run-ins with a police - and had been quizzed over a sex assault at 15 although the case never went to court. Aged just 19, in May 1996, he robbed and raped a 17-year-old hooker at knifepoint in Middlesbrough. Convinced he had got away with it, the c**ky monster carried out an identical attack on a 23-year-old prostitute two days later.

Both girls bravely reported the attacks and Chapman was arrested and sentenced to seven years in jail.

He was released in 2001 - then was held in 2002 and 2003 on suspicion of two more rapes and kidnaps of hookers - but both cases were dropped. In July 2004 he was back behind bars - sentenced to 15 months for resisting arrest and failing to notify a change of address.

Once he was free again, police were aware he was a threat, but on the web Chapman could create a new persona to lure potential victims.

Another Facebook pal, Vicky Hester, 25, from Harlow, Essex, said Chapman begged her to meet up for kinky sex. The mum of one said: He'd tell me he thought I was dirty. "In all of his messages he was begging me for sex. As soon as he found out I was 25 he backed off. Vicky added: "He was obviously looking for younger, more vulnerable girls." Most of Chapman's targets were unsuspecting mid to late-teenage girls, although one was just 13 years old.

Ashleigh Hall, 17, told her mum she was going to sleep at a friend's house when instead she had arranged a secret Facebook rendezvous with Chapman. Hours later, her body was found on a farm track.

A Facebook spokeswoman said: "We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of Ashleigh Hall."