Zoe Buttigieg's tragic last hours: How the 11-year-old was 'sexually abused and murdered after a marathon drinking binge' at her family home

  • Bowe Maddigan, 30, pleaded guilty to the assault and murder of a girl, 11
  • Maddigan had been drinking with the girl's mother when he disappeared  
  • It is believed the two had been drinking and smoking until about 7am
  • They met only a week earlier, just after Maddigan was released from jail 
  • Zoe Buttigieg was found dead in her bed at 11am the next day 

By Hannah Moore For Daily Mail Australia

Published: | Updated:

A man raped and murdered 11-year-old Zoe Buttigieg after spending hours drinking bourbon and smoking cannabis with her mother at a 'rowdy party' at her home. 

Bowe Maddigan, 30, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday to indecently assaulting and murdering 11-year-old Zoe Buttigieg. 

The girl's mother, Janelle Saunders, told Wangaratta Magistrates Court in May she and Maddigan had been drinking and smoking until about 7am on the morning Zoe was murdered.  

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Zoe (pictured) was only 11 years old when she was brutally assaulted and murdered the morning after her mother hosted a 'rowdy party'

Zoe (pictured) was only 11 years old when she was brutally assaulted and murdered the morning after her mother hosted a 'rowdy party'

Bowe Maddigan (pictured in October 2015) pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Zoe Buttigieg on Friday

Bowe Maddigan (pictured in October 2015) pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Zoe Buttigieg on Friday

She is believed to have been killed after a party at the house, where an altercation broke out just after midnight.

Neighbours described the house as a party house where gatherings happened 'every second weekend'.

The court also heard Maddigan vanished between 4am and 5am, after vomiting in the backyard of the Wangaratta house in north-east Victoria.

Ms Saunders went to bed about 7am on October 25, and woke four hours later to find her daughter had been murdered in her bed. 

Ms Saunders had met Maddigan a week prior through a mutual friend. 

The 30-year-old man had only been released from prison a week earlier.

In May he pleaded not guilty to the attack in north-east Victoria but he changed his plea to guilty on Friday, the Herald Sun reported.

The girl's body was not found until hours later when her mother woke up about 11am

The girl's body was not found until hours later when her mother woke up about 11am

Police found Maddigan barefoot and walking along the Hume Highway in a paranoid and erratic state. 

When police found him, he was not wearing any shoes and was dressed only in cargo shorts and a singlet.

Ms Saunders said in court last year that Maddigan was extremely talkative earlier in the night.

'He was full of stories and he was just rambling and rambling and you couldn't get a word in…He was very attention seeking,' she said. 

Zoe's mother, Janelle Saunders, had been drinking and smoking cannabis with Maddigan in a marathon session the night before he daughter died 

Zoe's mother, Janelle Saunders, had been drinking and smoking cannabis with Maddigan in a marathon session the night before he daughter died 

Ms Saunders moved into the house with Zoe between three and four years ago. 

She has since received psychological counselling.

'We don't know how she is, we haven't heard anything since it happened,' a close friend of Ms Saunders said at the time. 

'This is a very tight little street.'

One neighbour who lives off Inchbold Street said ice had made huge inroads into the suburb known as 'Wang'.

'You'd have a couple of users on just about every street, ' the neighbour, who didn't want to be named, said.

One 30-year resident of the street where Zoe lived, Heather Mann, said the area attracted some dangerous characters and that she had been threatened with assault recently.

'It's required intervention orders,' she said. 'Alcohol and ice and the two together are a problem here.'  

 Maddigan is next set to appear at his sentencing hearing on November 11 at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Wangaratta.

Maddigan was picked up by police around the time of the murder, walking barefoot down the Hume Highway and acting paranoid and erratic

Maddigan was picked up by police around the time of the murder, walking barefoot down the Hume Highway and acting paranoid and erratic

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