An Old Bailey jury found 37-year-old Mark Dixie guilty of murder, after former teenage model Sally Anne Bowman was found stabbed to death outside her South London residence in September 2005. Dixie denied any involvement in the crime other than finding the girl lying there and having sex with her corpse.

According to his side of the story, Sally Anne was already dead when he found her, but as he was returning from his birthday party drunk and looking for drugs, he thought she had passed away or tripped and went on with his perversion. It was only afterwards that he supposedly realized the girl was dead.

Detective Stuart Cundy, lead investigator in Sally Anne’s murder, said they had strong reasons to believe the girl wasn’t his first victim, not only in terms of sexual assault, but also in terms of murder. Dixie had been moving around a lot, from Britain to Australia and back, and everywhere he went, unsolved crimes started to appear.

Dixie has been in trouble with the police ever since he was a teenager and had his first sexual attack conviction in 1986 and the series of indecent exposure continued throughout the 1990s. Unfortunately, simple coincidences linking him to several female deaths were not substantial enough to accuse Dixie, and the suspect managed to escape every time.

Scotland Yard investigators said Dixie possibly committed a series of murders in Australia. He might actually be the notorious “Claremont” serial killer that has not been identified. The suspicions were based on the fact that the patterns of the attacks were rather similar to Dixie’s mode of operation, but that will be almost impossible to prove.

What is even more outrageous is that had the suspect not been involved in a 2006 pub fight, where police took a DNA sample, the investigation in Sally Anne Bowman’s case would have continued probably for several more years. The family of the victim was pleased with the jury’s decision, and said Sally Anne could finally rest in peace.