By Andrew Hough

LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - A British chef was found guilty on Friday of murdering an aspiring model, despite his defence that he did not kill her but instead had sex with her corpse.

Police now fear that Mark Dixie, 37, has murdered before, possibly in Australia where he lived for most of the 1990s.

The verdict was met by cheers from model Sally Anne Bowman's family. Judge Gerald Gordon will pass sentence later on Friday.

Bowman was stabbed outside her south London home before dawn shortly after being dropped off by her boyfriend.

Dixie, who has previous convictions for a string of sex crimes, had said he "took advantage of the situation" after discovering the 18-year-old's body in the street in September 2005.

In a defence labelled "disgusting" by his own lawyers and "desperate" by prosecutors," Dixie told the jury he had stumbled on the woman's naked corpse by chance as he staggered home drunk and high on cocaine after celebrating his birthday.

He said he did not realise she was dead until after he stopped having sex with her.

Bowman, who was working as a hairdresser and part-time model at the time of her death, was discovered by a neighbour.

DNA tests on semen linked Dixie with her body, which was found with stab wounds in the neck and abdomen.

Outside court, Bowman's father Paul, speaking on behalf of the family, said: "I hope that now Sally Anne can rest in peace and those affected so deeply by her untimely and brutal death, can be afforded the chance to begin to grieve in earnest."

Senior Scotland Yard detectives, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the nature of the crime suggested Dixie had killed before, possibly in Australia.

He had already been a suspect in a serial killer case in Perth, Western Australia, where three woman were murdered in the mid 1990s -- the same time he lived in the city.

He had been cleared by Australian police of any involvement in those crimes, for which no one has ever been charged. (Editing by Stephen Addison and Jeremy Lovell)

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