The Murder of Sally Anne Bowman

This was a case that grabbed the national headlines, and the aftermath MAY uncover a serial killer, though this as of yet, is unconfirmed.  What is now known, is that the killer was a serial sex offender.  Sally Bowman, born 11th September 1987, had just previously celebrated her 18th birthday, but had the awful tragedy of coming across the path of a predator.  Sally was found in Croydon on 25th September 2005.  She had been  robbed and stabbed.  She had also been raped.  Her handbag and some of her clothes were missing.  The immediate suspect was her boyfriend, Lewis Sproston, as he had admitted that they had been arguing, but four days later, DNA testing cleared this young man of this terrible crime.  But the DNA database the following year, brought up a match to a chef named Mark Dixie, who worked at The Olde Six Bells pub in Horley, Surrey.

    What threw up the name of Dixie was that he was arrested after a fight, during the viewing of an England game in Crawley.  He was charged with the murder of Sally Anne.  His defence was that he had been drinking and taking drugs, then went out to get Cocaine, when he came upon the already dead Sally Anne.  Then he claimed he raped her body, which accounted for his DNA being there. His DNA also matched a sexual assault in 2001, in which he was said to have masturbated in front of a woman in a telephone box.  The Jury did not believe him and convicted him.  He was sentenced to a minimum of 34 years in prison.  During the trial at The Old Bailey in 2008, a Thai woman gave evidence of being attacked by a burglar, in her home in Western Australia.  Dixie lived in Australia from 1993 to 1999, when he was deported.  She was raped and stabbed.  Dixie was not yet been charged with this offence but the DNA on her clothes, matches Dixie.  He is also suspected of being the Claremont Serial Killer in Western Australia, as he was reportedly in the area at the time of the murders.  This, as yet, is unconfirmed.

    Sally Anne had attended the BRIT School of Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, and in January 2005, had signed up with the Pulse Model Management.  Then in April, she attended the Swatch Alternative Fashion Week, and was one of the fortunate models selected by designers to model their products.  Then she has the misfortune to come face to face with a deviate.