SALLY ANNE KILLER: I WAS RAPIST AT 16
SALLY Anne Bowman’s killer Mark Dixie first raped a woman when he was just 16 years old.
He confessed to the 1987 attack yesterday as a court heard he has finally also admitted to the rape and murder of 18-year-old Sally Anne in 2005.
Dixie, 47, was seven years into his minimum 34-year term for the murder when he made his confession in 2015.
It meant the teenager’s family were needlessly put through 10 years’ extra agony as he denied his sickening crime.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC told the court yesterday: “In January 2015, the defendant wrote to the police indicating that he wanted to tell the police the truth about what had happened to Sally Anne because at the trial he denied being responsible for the murder.” Sally Anne’s mum Linda, 55, blasted the monster, saying: “This man has put us through 10 years of hell before he admitted what he did. The police have done all they can to keep this animal behind bars – because that’s all he is.”
Dixie is feared to have attacked more women here and overseas. He spent time in Australia and Spain where he is believed to have attacked at least four.
Sally Anne’s partially naked body was left in a pool of blood just yards from her home in Croydon, South London.
Dixie subjected her to the sexual attack as she lay dead or dying.
He was arrested the next year but refused to admit to his crimes, forcing Linda, Sally Anne’s father Paul and sisters Danielle, Nicole and Michelle, to endure the ordeal of a trial.
The killer appeared in Southwark crown court via video-link from HMP Frankland yesterday to plead guilty to rape, causing grievous bodily harm with intent and indecent assault. The first rape was in an isolated Croydon car park in 1987 when he was 16.
When his victim pleaded to be released, Dixie told her: “I can’t, you will go to the police.”
He left her tied up in a car after setting fire to the front seat but the woman managed to escape.
Dixie had left a handprint at the scene but it was only shown to be his in 2009 after developments in forensic technology.
In the second attack in 2002, also in Croydon, he fractured a woman’s skull by repeatedly smashing her over the head with a chef ’s knife sharpening tool.
As he hit her, Dixie – who worked as a chef at the Six Bells pub in neighbouring Horley – repeated: “I’m going to kill you.” He then sexually assaulted her. Dixie will be sentenced for the two offences in September.
Linda Bowman said from her home: “Our heart goes out to his victims. We can’t thank them enough for how brave they’ve been. They would have known that at any point he could have said ‘not guilty’ and put them through a trial.
“They must be extremely strong women to take this up now.”
Senior investigator Chris Le Pere said: “Dixie is a dangerous sexual predator, who I believe carried out attacks on other women.”