I looked out and saw a pair of legs. It was Sally Anne's body

Ann Hardy said her reaction was to think: "Oh, poor darling."

Mrs Hardy told how she had heard a girl's screams on the night Miss Bowman, 18, was attacked but loud noises were not unusual in the south Croydon road and she went back to sleep.

Next morning Mrs Hardy pulled back her curtains and saw a "pair of legs". She went out to investigate in her dressing gown and slippers.

"I felt I knew what I was going to see. It was not a model or a mannequin because I related it to the screams," she said.

"It was Sally Anne's body. I didn't know her but I knelt down. It was the natural thing to do." Mrs Hardy told her husband, who rang the police.

Earlier, another neighbour, June Cumpper described how she saw a dark-haired man in the street minutes after hearing screams.

Mrs Cumpper told the court: "I was awoken by a noise. I didn't know what it was. It was a funny noise, a strangled noise. In my mind I thought it was a fox, but then I heard a scream. I didn't think, 'Oh my God, something dreadful had happened', but I decided to get up and take a look. I looked out of the window, the clock said 4.20am."

The court has heard that Miss Bowman, who hoped to become a model, was stabbed to death and her body desecrated early on 25 September 2005 in the driveway of her Blenheim Crescent home.

She was attacked shortly after being dropped off by her boyfriend, Lewis Sproston, 22. Mrs Cumpper told the jury the man she had seen was walking in an " unhurried way" as if he was looking for something with his arms outstretched and his head moving from side to side. "He never looked up, he never caught my eye," she added.

Mrs Cumpper described him as white with a swept back, short-back-and-sides hairstyle. He was "not ugly or bad looking, just even featured".

The man was aged from mid-twenties to 30, of medium build and about 5ft 10 to 6ft tall.

Pub chef Mark Dixie, 37, of no fixed address, has pleaded not guilty to murder. Dixie has a 20-year history of violence against women and is linked to a stabbing and sex attack on a Thai woman in Australia, the court has heard.

He had spent the night of 24 September at a friend's house in Avondale Road, south Croydon, only 400 yards from the scene of the murder.

Dixie, who had worked at the Ye Olde Six Bells pub in Horley, Surrey, and the Rose and Crown in Crystal Palace, has admitted that he had sex with Miss Bowman's body while high on drink and drugs after celebrating his 35th birthday.

He denies the single charge of murder. He claims that although he had sex with Miss Bowman, she was already dead when he found her body. The case continues.