Mark Dixie was born in Streatham, South London, on 24 September 1970. His parents separated when he was only 18 months old, and he grew up with a stepfather and two half-brothers. From a young age, Dixie led a troubled life marked by drug and alcohol abuse. His criminal behavior began early, with his first conviction at age 16 for mugging a woman at knifepoint. Over the years, he racked up numerous convictions including burglary, robbery, indecent assault, indecent exposure, and assaulting a police officer.

In 1993, Dixie moved to Australia, overstaying his visa and continuing his pattern of sexual offenses. He was deported back to the UK in 1999 after being convicted of a sex offense. Despite a growing rap sheet, he managed to avoid prison time for many of these early crimes. At the time of the 2005 murder, Dixie was working as a chef in Surrey. He had three children and lived under various pseudonyms, attempting to mask his identity from authorities.

On the night of 25 September 2005, 18-year-old singer and model Sally Anne Bowman was attacked just yards from her home in South Croydon after a night out. She had been stabbed multiple times and left to die. Almost a year later, Dixie was arrested in Crawley after a pub fight, and his DNA was taken and entered into the UK database. It matched DNA found on Bowman’s body, leading to his arrest for murder.

Dixie denied murdering Bowman, instead telling a bizarre story that he had stumbled upon her already-dead body and had sex with her corpse, not realizing she was dead. His defense was dismissed, and the forensic evidence—particularly DNA—was overwhelming. In 2008, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 34 years.

Dixie’s DNA later connected him to a 2003 rape in Spain, for which a Dutch man, Romano van der Dussen, had wrongly been imprisoned. In 2016, van der Dussen was exonerated and freed after 12 years behind bars.

In 2017, Dixie was convicted of two more rapes—one from 1986 and another from 2002—further sealing his fate as a violent, long-active predator. These new convictions resulted in two more life sentences.

Although formally ruled out as a suspect in Australia’s Claremont serial killings, a woman in Australia testified that Dixie raped and stabbed her in 1998. DNA confirmed his involvement, though he has not yet been charged in that case.

In January 2015, Dixie finally confessed to the murder of Sally Anne Bowman, nearly a decade after the crime. His case sparked debate in the UK about the creation of a national DNA database, with investigators arguing that such a system could have prevented further victims.