Inquiry
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Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy
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Dixie's arrest
When Dixie was first arrested following a fight in Ye Olde Six Bells pub in Horley, officers said he was crying at the police station.
It puzzled them at first but when a DNA test linked him to the murder of Sally Anne two weeks later, it soon became clear why.
Detective Suptintendent Stuart Cundy said:
“He had his mouth swab taken then and I think he knew then that it could all be over.
“He was in tears in the interview. I think he knew but then when after a couple of days there was no knock on the door he thought he had got away with it.
“People seem to think that DNA is instant but in fact a two-week turnaround was quick for us. He has got away with so much that I think he thought he had got away with this as well.”
However, it was claimed this week that the case could have been solved within days if a vital piece of evidence about Dixie had been known.
The court heard that Dixie had been staying in Avondale Road the night Sally Anne was killed.
When officers were making door-to-door enquiries, Dixie’s friends, who lived in Avondale Road, forgot he had been there that night and failed to tell police.
D Supt Cundy said:
“That little piece of information on day five of this investigation could have helped this to have been solved within a week or so.
“But his friends had no reason to suspect him, they all described him as a really nice, normal guy.”
Dixie 'enjoyed reliving attack'
Police believe Mark Dixie pleaded not guilty to the murder of Sally Anne Bowman because he enjoyed reliving the brutal attack.
After a DNA match linked Dixie to the murder scene police thought he would plead guilty.
But instead Dixie claimed he had stumbled upon Sally Anne’s body while out searching for cocaine and believing she had simply passed out he “took advantage of the situation”.
D Supt Cundy said this week:
“As the trial has gone on I wondered why he was pleading not guilty. I wondered whether he had convinced himself that he wasn’t guilty. But as it went on I realised that he wanted it to be relived.”
In his evidence about the attack on Sally Anne, Dixie acted out to the court how he had lifted up her legs while he sexually assaulted her that night on the driveway of her home in Blenheim Crescent.
He told the jury: “All I saw was a pair of legs, naked genitalia, skirt up over her waist and I took advantage of her. I crouched down behind her back and I took full advantage of someone I shouldn't have.”
Detective Inspector Chris LePere, who also worked on the case from the beginning, said the attack on Sally Anne was the epitome of Dixie as a character.
He said: “Dixie is a freeloader. He will use people and move on.”
Officers traumatised by Sally Anne's murder
The murder of Sally Anne Bowman left senior police officers traumatised because of the pure violence and the sickening nature of the attack.
Police officers who attended the scene on September 25, 2005, have told the Croydon Guardian the sight they were faced with was one of the worst they would ever see in the line of duty.
Sally Anne’s bloodied body was lying on the pavement with a trail of dried blood leading down the driveway to her body.
She had been stabbed seven times with such force that the knife passed through her body.
Concrete lumps from a nearby skip had been lined up along her thighs and inserted into her vagina and her mouth.
She had also been bitten several times.
D Supt Stuart Cundy said:
“There have been other horrific offences up and down the country but I have never seen anything quite like this. It was sheer violence. The pathologist who dealt with Sally Anne’s body has said he had never seen anything so horrific.
“I don’t ever want to see anything like that again or to sit through some of the stuff that Mark Dixie has spoken about.”
Dixie not linked to Oz murders
Police have ruled Mark Dixie out of the Claremont murders which took place in Western Australia in the 1990s.
Dixie had become a suspect in the case after police arrested him for the murder of Sally Anne Bowman and discovered he had been living in Western Australia at the time.
The Claremont murders have never been solved. Two women were murdered and a third woman disappeared in Claremont, Western Australia, in 1996 and 1997.
All three women disappeared from night spots in Claremont, a wealthy western suburb of Perth, approximately 9km from the city centre.
They disappeared in similar circumstances, leading police to believe that an unidentified serial killer may be behind the crimes.
A fourth woman who disappeared in 1988 has also been linked to the case as another possible victim.
However, after investigations the Met have ruled out Dixie as a suspect.
D Supt Cundy said this week:
“We were mightily interested in these murders. The Australian Police do not believe that Mark Dixie is a suspect and I do not believe it either.
“They are very different to the attacks Mark Dixie does, he always does it close to home. The Claremont murders were quite different to that, he is not a suspect.”
