Sally Anne Bowman
The murder of Sally Anne Bowman shocked the nation when she was stabbed to death outside her Croydon home on September 25 2005.
Sally Anne was discovered in a pool of her own blood, partially concealed behind a skip, after being stabbed seven times and then sexually assaulted on her driveway in the early hours of the morning. The Forensic Science Service were quickly called in by the Metropolitan Police Service to assist in the investigation and worked in close partnership with the force until chef Mark Dixie was convicted of her murder on March…2008.
The key evidence in the case proved to be a full DNA profile gained from bite marks and semen on intimate swabs taken from Sally Anne shortly after her death. These swabs were sent to The Forensic Science Service’s Lambeth facility for analysis. A full profile was obtained within two days by the FSS’s London Homicide Service and became the key to unlocking the mystery of Sally Anne’s killer.
A DNA sample was taken by police from Sally Anne’s boyfriend Lewis Sproston soon after the murder, which was sent to the FSS for profiling. Lewis had admitted he and Sally Anne had been arguing near to the murder scene shortly before her death and he was the last person to see her alive, bringing him under suspicion. However, his profile was quickly discovered not to match the DNA found on Sally Anne and, thanks to this discovery, police were able to eliminate him from enquiries. Samples were also taken from two of Lewis Sproston’s friends, but they too produced no match to the male profile on Sally Anne’s body.
As soon as the offender profile was produced by the FSS it was searched against the National DNA Database. No match to an individual was generated, however the profile did match a DNA profile obtained during the investigation of an indecent assault in 2001. With no conclusive witness reports or other evidence, the opportunities for exploiting this crucial DNA profile were examined further.
The FSS also carried out ethnic inference analysis and familial searching, but neither were of great assistance. The FSS sexual offences intelligence team trawled through similar crimes in the area, where no useful DNA profile had been obtained, to see if any could possibly be linked.
The profile was submitted to Interpol in order to be searched against its international database and came up with one match to a crime in Australia. A Thai student had been repeatedly stabbed and then raped in an offence clearly similar to that committed against Sally Anne – however, no offender had been convicted for that crime either. The search continued.
A woman had been attacked earlier in the night, near to where Sally Anne was found. She produced an E-Fit of her attacker as it was thought it may have been linked to Sally Anne’s murder.
Police decided at this stage to launch an intelligence led screen in the area around the murder scene, in consultation and agreement with the Forensic Science Service. Men between the ages of ?? and ?? were contacted and asked to come forward and give a voluntary DNA profile, in order to eliminate themselves from enquiries.
The FSS received a steady stream of mouth swabs for analysis and using its mass screening service was able to eliminate people swiftly. Police believed that Sally Anne’s killer lived in close proximity to the murder scene and that there were between 2,500 and 4,000 men in the area potentially fitting his description. The DNA profile produced by the FSS gave them a strong tool to worth with.
Due to the publicity received via newspapers and the BBC Crimewatch programme a number of men were nominated as possible suspects in the murder of Sally Anne, however they were all quickly eliminated using DNA profiling, usually within a day or two.
Mark Dixie, who was at this time still living near to the murder scene, fled abroad to Amsterdam in an attempt to evade detection. However, upon his return he became embroiled in a pub fight and was arrested. A routine mouth swab was taken from him and sent to the National DNA Database – where it immediately hit against the profile from the crime scene in the Sally Anne Bowman case. The police were able to arrest Dixie with the evidence that there was only a one in a billion chance that his profile would have been obtained if the semen belonged to anyone other than him.
In court, his defence was that whilst he had stumbled across Sally Anne’s body and sexually assaulted her, she was already dead when he found her. So strong was the DNA evidence, he was unable to contest the fact that it put him at the crime scene.
However, police had worked closely with the Australian authorities since his arrest and urgent work was carried out at the FSS to re-examine the evidence from Australia to allow it to be used in this country. The Thai student who had been raped in Perth appeared in court to give evidence against Dixie. The fact that a full profile matching Dixie had been found on semen in her knickers, as well as on Sally Anne, proved to be compelling evidence. The jury swiftly found him guilty of the murder of Sally Anne Bowman. He was jailed for life on March ? 2008.
Julie-Ann Cornelius, the FSS forensic scientist who worked on the DNA aspects of the case, said it was very satisfying to have worked in partnership with the Metropolitan Police Service to achieve a conviction.
“At a very early stage we had a full DNA profile we believed was from the killer and we always knew it was just a matter of time until we caught him. A lot of intelligence work was carried out prior to Mark Dixie’s arrest, which allowed innocent men to be quickly eliminated from the enquiry. I think this case illustrates a side of forensic science that many people don’t appreciate – that we don’t just help convict offenders, we help exonerate the innocent too. The National DNA Database is a very effective tool in the fight against crime and without it, the first step in convicting Sally Anne’s killer may never have been taken.
Hopefully, knowing that Sally Anne’s killer has been brought to justice will help her family and friends with their grieving process.”