“A man accused of murdering teenage model Sally Anne Bowman confessed to having sex with her after she was killed, a court has been told. Miss Bowman, 18, was repeatedly stabbed and bitten outside her home in Croydon, south London, in September 2005. Chef Mark Dixie, 35, of no fixed address, denies murdering Miss Bowman. Prosecutor Brian Altman said: ‘The defendant confesses that he had sex with Sally Anne and that he had sex with her after her death.’ The court heard Mr Dixie had said he had been drinking, took drugs and had ‘taken advantage of the situation’. Mr Altman said: ‘That astonishingly is his defence. It is born out of desperation.’ Miss Bowman had been driven home after a night out in Croydon Town Centre by her boyfriend Lewis Sprotson at about 0400 BST, the court was told. The couple began to argue as they sat in the car outside Miss Bowman’s house with each accusing the other of seeing other people, Mr Altman added. She had tried to stop Mr Sprotson driving off by sitting on the bonnet of the car, but as he left he had seen Sally Anne walking into her drive. Mr Altman said Lewis believed someone had been watching them and at one stage had ‘looked angrily’ into the car. Neighbours heard screams at about 0420 BST but it was not until over two hours later that the ‘gruesome discovery’ of the model’s body was made. The defendant’s DNA was found on Miss Bowman’s body, his bloody fingerprint on her shoe and his bite marks on her cheek, neck and breast, the jury was told.” — BBC (UK)

(Thanks to Furpo and to Peter for the link.)

There is no silver bullet, but the evidence against Mr. Dixie is pretty compelling. His semen was discovered “in various parts of Bowman’s body.” The victim had been stabbed with a knife that Dixie may have used in his job as a chef. Dixie has a history of prior assault and a DNA match with a violent crime in Australia. A postmortem exam revealed that “lumps of concrete had been placed in Sally Anne’s mouth and vagina.” It’s like an alienated parody of the dressing a chef might give a roast — instead of an apple in the mouth of a pig, a bit of concrete in the orifices of the dead model.

And then there is the little matter of the soiled newspaper:

When Dixie was arrested, nine months after the murder, police found a digital camera among his possessions. On it, they found a video file showing a pornographic film being played on a television, while a man records himself masturbating over a copy of the Daily Mail bearing a photograph of Bowman.
Police later discovered a copy of the Daily Mail of March 22 2006 which had a “sticky substance” on the front page featuring Bowman. DNA analysis proved this to be Dixie’s semen.

None of this proves that Mr. Dixie murdered the pretty Ms. Bowman. Theoretically it is possible that he violated her cadaver and then relived the experience by jerking off on newspapers that featured stories about her murder. But how far do you have to extend the “innocent until proven guilty” precept before it becomes absurd?

This is especially true when Mr. Dixie’s “confession” — admitting that he exploited her dead body but not that he killed her — is absurd too. There are indeed some scavengers in the small world of necrophiles. For example, there was the guy who really did find a cadaver — his friend’s girlfriend — and proceeded to splatter it with his DNA. But probably such scavengers are far rarer than homicidal necrophiles, if for no other reason than the fact that you just don’t stumble on that many dead bodies in the course of a lifetime. It all makes the scavenger defense that much more absurd. It didn’t work for the guy who claimed he didn’t kill a child but just raped its body when he happened on it. It won’t work for Mr. Dixie either.

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