Police investigating the murder of teenage model Sally Anne Bowman yesterday released a second e-fit picture of the man they suspect carried out the frenzied attack on her six months ago.

The 18-year-old was sexually assaulted, bitten and repeatedly stabbed outside her house in Blenheim Crescent, south Croydon, in the early hours of September 25th. DNA found at the scene linked the killer to an indecent assault at nearby Purley Cross in July 2001 when a man exposed himself to a woman inside a phone box.

The new e-fit is based on a description given by the woman in the Purley Cross incident. “The victim has made every effort to recall the attacker’s description,” Scotland Yard said in a statement. “It is believed this is what Sally Anne’s attacker looked like in July 2001.”

The image shows a thick-set man with dark, slicked-back hair and gapped teeth. “The victim of the 2001 attack is the one person I know who definitely saw the face of Sally Anne’s murderer,” said Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Cundy.

“This is a man who may appear quite normal and may never have been in trouble with police before.” “However, he is also out and about in the side streets of south Croydon during the early hours, he has carried a knife, he has exposed himself before, his behaviour may even have changed since September last year.”

Police believe Bowman was killed by a man who either lives locally or is a regular visitor to south Croydon.

Last month, police set up a DNA screening centre in Croydon and asked local men to come forward voluntarily for testing so they could be eliminated from the inquiry.

To date, 771 men have come forward and Cundy urged the public to report any person they suspected might be the murderer.

An earlier e-fit picture, released last October, was compiled by the victim of a nearby street robbery which happened less than an hour before Bowman’s murder and which police think was committed by her killer.