Milly Dowler: 20 year anniversary of teenage schoolgirl's disappearance
The 13-year-old went missing in March 2002
Monday (21 March) marks the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of 13-year-old Milly Dowler.
The 13 year old vanished in broad daylight as she walked home from Walton-on-Thames in Surrey - sparking one of the county's biggest police investigations. The FBI were also called in to help review CCTV evidence.
When she went missing Surrey Police questioned friends, family and local registered sex offenders - of which there were around 50 in the Walton area at the time.
Officers carried out more than 3,000 house to house inquiries with many reports of possible sightings and over 5,600 statements were taken.
21 March 2002
On the 21st of March 2002 Amanda 'Milly Dowler' got off the train one stop earlier that usual at Walton station to get chips with a school friend where she called her dad to let him know she would be home soon.
As Milly walked home she was abducted and when she failed to return home, she was reported missing.
A nationwide search for her followed, with 100 police officers and helicopters searching fields streets and rivers around Hersham.
Police and the Dowler family made many appeals for information, including a reconstruction on the BBC's Crimewatch UK.
18 September 2002
On the 18th of September 2002, six months after her disappearance the body of Milly Dowler was found by mushroom pickers in Yateley Heath Woods.
No items of Dowler's clothing or possessions — the purse, rucksack or mobile phone — she had with her at the time of her disappearance have ever been recovered.
It wasn't until 2011 that Milly's killer Levi Bellfield was brought to justice.
Bellfield was found guilty on 25 February 2008 of the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
On 23 June 2011, Bellfield was further found guilty of the murder of Milly Dowler.
On both occasions, the judge imposed a whole life order, meaning that Bellfield will serve the sentence without the possibility of parole.
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