But he didn't kill her. No siree. ''I just found her like that officer'' That's was the excuse of Cocaine addict MarkDixie, 37. I know how he feels. I see roadkill and I just can't help myself. Anyway turns out he did kill her. Read the full story here.
The distraught mum of murdered Sally Anne Bowman reduced a court to tears yesterday with the eloquence of a grief that will never die.
Declaring "my heart will never mend", Linda Bowman, 45, told how she and daughter Michelle saw the body of the 18-year-old model lying in a mortuary.
She said: "I could only look through a thick piece of glass at Sally Anne lying in a body bag on a cold slab of metal.
"Her long blonde hair was still wet, having had the blood washed from it, and tied back from her face.
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"She was so pale and so still. I pressed my hands on the glass, wanting it to break so I could hold my little girl."
Linda said Michelle, then 21, screamed "Mum, please wake her up again!" before clinging on to the door frame with her knuckles turning white.
She went on: "I had one more look at Sally Anne and told her how much I loved her. As I looked back through the glass I saw the biggest, brightest, bluest eyes.
"My baby girl had gone. I cannot understand why she was taken from me in such a brutal and depraved way.
"What am I going to do without her?"
As she spoke from behind a screen at the Old Bailey, unable to even look at maniac sex killer Mark Dixie, Linda trembled and shook with emotion.
Jurors wept alongside court staff.
Cocaine addict Dixie, 37, who stabbed Sally Anne seven times before having sex with her as she lay dead, stared stonily ahead betraying not a hint of shame.
He was jailed for life for murder and must serve at least 34 years. Judge Gerald Gordon said: "No words of mine could remotely match those of Mrs Bowman.
"What you did that night was so awful and so repulsive I don't propose to repeat it. Your subsequent conduct shows that you had not the slightest remorse for what you had done - quite the contrary."
Outside court, Sally Anne's father Paul, 45, said: "Sally Anne, you may have been taken from us but rest assured you will forever be missed and never forgotten. In the words of the song, 'Your heart will go on'."
Sally Anne was knifed and assaulted in September 2005 by father of three Dixie in the drive of her digs in South Croydon, Surrey, as she returned with her boyfriend after a night out.
Linda, also of Croydon, told how three police officers came to the door to break the awful news.
Her voice cracking with emotion, she said: "I felt an immense pain in my heart.
"From that moment on, my life was over. All I wanted was to hold her in my arms again.
"There is so much I never got to tell her.
I need to feel her soft beautiful skin, smell her favourite perfume and run my fingers through her beautiful long hair."
Linda described driving to the cemetery with the urn carrying her daughter's ashes strapped in the passenger seat.
She said: "I wanted to protect her and keep her safe until the end."
As she drove, she played a recording of her daughter singing the Celine Dion hit My Heart Will Go On.
She added: "She had the singing voice of an angel, which is very fitting now."
With Michelle and daughters Danielle, 27, and Nicole, 25, weeping beside her Linda went on: "It was bad enough knowing that she had been stabbed to death.
"But then to be told that after her death he raped her, leaves me feeling that he took her last dignity." She begged: "Please can you ask him 'Why did you kill her?' and 'Why did you do these things?'"
Although Paul and Linda have split, they sat side by side.
Saying her former husband was the only man Sally Anne ever truly loved, Linda added: "He was her king in her castle and she was his beautiful blonde, blue-eyed princess."
Touchingly, she said that even now she sleeps with Sally Anne's pillow by her side so she can feel close to her.
Yesterday's guilty verdict was greeted with wild applause in the public gallery where dozens of Sally Anne's school friends were watching.
There were cries of "Scum!" and "Rot in hell, pervert!" from two men.
As he was led away Dixie, of no fixed address, turned and snarled at them.
Dixie is feared to have carried out a string of sex assaults and may even have killed before, knifed and raped a Thai student in Australia in the 90s. She survived to give evidence against him.
He was arrested nine months after killing Sally Anne when a DNA swab taken from him after a pub brawl in Crawley, West Sussex, matched a sample at the murder scene.
The chef then put forward the disgusting defence that he had chanced upon her dead body while high on a cocktail of lager, scotch, sambuca, cocaine and cannabis. Although he had sex with her, he said, he did not kill her.
Det Supt Stuart Cundy, who led the investigation, said: "There've been some horrific sex attacks, but nothing like this.
"I can't believe Sally Anne was Dixie's first murder. It doesn't feel right."
The distraught mum of murdered Sally Anne Bowman reduced a court to tears yesterday with the eloquence of a grief that will never die.
Declaring "my heart will never mend", Linda Bowman, 45, told how she and daughter Michelle saw the body of the 18-year-old model lying in a mortuary.
She said: "I could only look through a thick piece of glass at Sally Anne lying in a body bag on a cold slab of metal.
"Her long blonde hair was still wet, having had the blood washed from it, and tied back from her face.
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"She was so pale and so still. I pressed my hands on the glass, wanting it to break so I could hold my little girl."
Linda said Michelle, then 21, screamed "Mum, please wake her up again!" before clinging on to the door frame with her knuckles turning white.
She went on: "I had one more look at Sally Anne and told her how much I loved her. As I looked back through the glass I saw the biggest, brightest, bluest eyes.
"My baby girl had gone. I cannot understand why she was taken from me in such a brutal and depraved way.
"What am I going to do without her?"
As she spoke from behind a screen at the Old Bailey, unable to even look at maniac sex killer Mark Dixie, Linda trembled and shook with emotion.
Jurors wept alongside court staff.
Cocaine addict Dixie, 37, who stabbed Sally Anne seven times before having sex with her as she lay dead, stared stonily ahead betraying not a hint of shame.
He was jailed for life for murder and must serve at least 34 years. Judge Gerald Gordon said: "No words of mine could remotely match those of Mrs Bowman.
"What you did that night was so awful and so repulsive I don't propose to repeat it. Your subsequent conduct shows that you had not the slightest remorse for what you had done - quite the contrary."
Outside court, Sally Anne's father Paul, 45, said: "Sally Anne, you may have been taken from us but rest assured you will forever be missed and never forgotten. In the words of the song, 'Your heart will go on'."
Sally Anne was knifed and assaulted in September 2005 by father of three Dixie in the drive of her digs in South Croydon, Surrey, as she returned with her boyfriend after a night out.
Linda, also of Croydon, told how three police officers came to the door to break the awful news.
Her voice cracking with emotion, she said: "I felt an immense pain in my heart.
"From that moment on, my life was over. All I wanted was to hold her in my arms again.
"There is so much I never got to tell her.
I need to feel her soft beautiful skin, smell her favourite perfume and run my fingers through her beautiful long hair."
Linda described driving to the cemetery with the urn carrying her daughter's ashes strapped in the passenger seat.
She said: "I wanted to protect her and keep her safe until the end."
As she drove, she played a recording of her daughter singing the Celine Dion hit My Heart Will Go On.
She added: "She had the singing voice of an angel, which is very fitting now."
With Michelle and daughters Danielle, 27, and Nicole, 25, weeping beside her Linda went on: "It was bad enough knowing that she had been stabbed to death.
"But then to be told that after her death he raped her, leaves me feeling that he took her last dignity." She begged: "Please can you ask him 'Why did you kill her?' and 'Why did you do these things?'"
Although Paul and Linda have split, they sat side by side.
Saying her former husband was the only man Sally Anne ever truly loved, Linda added: "He was her king in her castle and she was his beautiful blonde, blue-eyed princess."
Touchingly, she said that even now she sleeps with Sally Anne's pillow by her side so she can feel close to her.
Yesterday's guilty verdict was greeted with wild applause in the public gallery where dozens of Sally Anne's school friends were watching.
There were cries of "Scum!" and "Rot in hell, pervert!" from two men.
As he was led away Dixie, of no fixed address, turned and snarled at them.
Dixie is feared to have carried out a string of sex assaults and may even have killed before, knifed and raped a Thai student in Australia in the 90s. She survived to give evidence against him.
He was arrested nine months after killing Sally Anne when a DNA swab taken from him after a pub brawl in Crawley, West Sussex, matched a sample at the murder scene.
The chef then put forward the disgusting defence that he had chanced upon her dead body while high on a cocktail of lager, scotch, sambuca, cocaine and cannabis. Although he had sex with her, he said, he did not kill her.
Det Supt Stuart Cundy, who led the investigation, said: "There've been some horrific sex attacks, but nothing like this.
"I can't believe Sally Anne was Dixie's first murder. It doesn't feel right."