Sally Anne's killer jailed for life
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:52 amSex-obsessed Mark Dixie has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years for murdering model Sally Anne Bowman.
The partially naked body of the 18-year-old was left in a pool of blood in a driveway. She had been subjected to a gruesome sexual attack when she was dead or dying from seven stab wounds.
Dixie, a 37-year-old chef with an obsession with violent sex, denied killing her, claiming he found the teenager, thought she had passed out drunk and had sex with her.
He told the Old Bailey he did not realise she was dead until after he had sex with her in front of her home in Croydon, south London.
But the jury of seven women and five men found him guilty of the September 2005 murder in Blenheim Crescent.
Dixie had a string of previous convictions for sex offences. Detectives believe he may even have killed while living in Australia in the 1990s.
He was brought to justice for Sally Anne's murder by chance when he was arrested nine months later after getting into a minor scuffle over a World Cup football match at Ye Olde Six Bells pub in Horley, Surrey, where he was working.
His DNA was taken and matched to the murder when it was put on the police national computer 12 days later.
Detectives are furious Dixie made Sally Anne's mother Linda, father Paul and her three sisters Danielle, Nicole and Michelle, sit through a trial and hear the horrific details of the attack.
Members of her family shouted angrily as Dixie was taken down. One said: "Rot in hell, pervert."
The partially naked body of the 18-year-old was left in a pool of blood in a driveway. She had been subjected to a gruesome sexual attack when she was dead or dying from seven stab wounds.
Dixie, a 37-year-old chef with an obsession with violent sex, denied killing her, claiming he found the teenager, thought she had passed out drunk and had sex with her.
He told the Old Bailey he did not realise she was dead until after he had sex with her in front of her home in Croydon, south London.
But the jury of seven women and five men found him guilty of the September 2005 murder in Blenheim Crescent.
Dixie had a string of previous convictions for sex offences. Detectives believe he may even have killed while living in Australia in the 1990s.
He was brought to justice for Sally Anne's murder by chance when he was arrested nine months later after getting into a minor scuffle over a World Cup football match at Ye Olde Six Bells pub in Horley, Surrey, where he was working.
His DNA was taken and matched to the murder when it was put on the police national computer 12 days later.
Detectives are furious Dixie made Sally Anne's mother Linda, father Paul and her three sisters Danielle, Nicole and Michelle, sit through a trial and hear the horrific details of the attack.
Members of her family shouted angrily as Dixie was taken down. One said: "Rot in hell, pervert."
