We’ve dug up murdered Sally to beat grave ghouls
SALLY Anne Bowman’s ashes have been exhumed because sick vandals kept desecrating her grave.
The murdered 18-year-old’s mum Linda said: “There are some cruel people.”
WHEN Sally Anne Bowman’s parents laid her to rest after she was murdered, they thought the grave would always be a peaceful spot as beautiful as she had been.
But the mum and dad have had her ashes exhumed because the headstone at the cemetery was being repeatedly smashed by sick thugs.
Appalled mother Linda said: “There are some cruel people out there who get a kick out of these things. So she’s no longer there.”
Linda now has her daughter’s ashes at home after ghouls desecrated the grave of the model who was 18 when she was stabbed to death and raped outside her home in 2005.
One theory is that perverts with a bizarre interest in Sally Anne’s death were behind the disturbing vandalism. Linda revealed the grave was damaged four times in six months.
She said: “We had to have Sally Anne’s remains exhumed and her ashes brought home because someone kept destroying her grave and her headstone.
“We used to have funny men hanging around over there.
“Myself and her dad had to go through the Ministry of Justice to have it exhumed.
“I won’t say where in the house but she is home.” She said the grave had been “attracting absolute fruit loops”.
Linda added: “It was bad enough when I first took Sally Anne’s ashes to have her laid to rest.
“Then to have to bring her back here it was another day when everything came flooding back. Me and [Sally Anne’s dad] Paul spoke about it in depth and decided it was the right thing to do to bring her home.”
The mum also said vandals scattered smashed pots on the grave in Croydon, South London.
She added: “These people were coming at night after I had left because I was there all the time. They were chucking dirt and dead flowers over her grave. They would completely cover it.
“They would also leave cards with her name in red writing. We’d just had enough.”
In 2008, 6ft 4in pub chef Mark Dixie was convicted of murdering Sally Anne. It emerged last week that in 2015 the monster finally admitted to the crime. Our sister paper the Sunday Mirror revealed how Dixie gave harrowing details during his confession to police of how Sally Anne fought for her life as he repeatedly stabbed her. He told detectives that after having sex with the body he sat beside Sally Anne and smoked cannabis. Dixie added that the next morning he ate breakfast at a cafe at the end of the road and watched as officers worked at the crime scene. He said he hid behind a hedge before attacking Sally Anne as she walked towards her house in Croydon after her ex-boyfriend had driven off. Linda said: “It was bad enough to hear from witnesses of her screaming and gurgling, but then to hear from him how he attacked her and what he did with her... She was so tiny and the knife was about a foot long, it went straight through her. She had done nothing wrong. There was nothing she could have done against someone that size.”
The fact Dixie has confessed emerged in court as he admitted two earlier sex attacks.
He raped a woman in a Croydon car park in 1987 when he was 16.
The court heard he left her tied up in a car after setting fire to the front seat, but she escaped. In the second attack, in 2002 also in Croydon, he fractured a woman’s skull by repeatedly smashing her over the head with a knife sharpening tool. Dixie told her: “I’m going to kill you.” He then sexually assaulted her. Police believe he may be guilty of more attacks including murders.
Dixie, 46, will be sentenced in September for the two crimes.
He was jailed for life, with a minimum of 34 years, for murdering Sally Anne. At the trial, he denied killing her, claiming he found her dead then had sex with her.
Linda, who thinks Dixie admitted the earlier crimes to help his chances of being released from jail, said: “He is never going to walk free from that prison.” She said the family dug up the ashes four years ago.
Sally Anne’s sister Michelle, 32, has recently had a baby who has been named Lulu Anne Sally in memory of her aunt.
Bringing her ashes home was another day when it all came flooding back MUM LINDA ON THE AGONY OF HAVING THE ASHES EXHUMED