Zoe Buttigieg was murdered in her bed by a party guest

INSIDE the suburban house where a trusted party guest created a family’s nightmare when he raped and killed their 11-year-old girl.

Murdered 11-year-old Zoe Buttigieg’s mother posted this picture saying it was a ‘a very special photo, my last day with my beautiful girl’. Picture: Facebook

HE WAS an apparently normal party guest invited to celebrate a Saturday evening in an ordinary suburban house where he raped an 11-year-old girl and then ended her life.

The nightmare on Inchbold Street in the north-eastern Victorian town of Wangaratta which occurred on the morning of October 25 has shattered a family.

The mother of the fourth grader, Zoe Buttigieg, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in her own bedroom, has not ceased to ask why her adored daughter had to die.

In a constant show of photographs of her beloved Zoe posted on her Facebook page, Janelle Saunders has continually mourned her daughter’s senseless murder.

On June 17, Ms Saunders posted a picture of her daughter smiling into the camera above three crying emoticons, with the words: “So unfair. You should be here with me”.

Zoe Buttigieg, 11, with beloved dog Jax at home in Wangaratta, where she was murdered by prison parolee Bowe Maddigan. Picture: Facebook

Nightmare on Inchbold street: the suburban house where Zoe Buttigieg was raped and murdered by a party guest. Picture: Google

Zoe was killed by a trusted guest in her own home. Picture: Facebook

Zoe, with her dog Jax, was described by friends and neighbours as a happy normal little girl. Picture: Facebook

Last week, beneath a photograph of Zoe glowing in the light of a blazing birthday cake, Ms Saunders wrote “Can’t believe It’s all most your birthday and your not here [sic]”.

On Thursday, a picture of a grinning Zoe aged about four was added to the page and on Friday, the family received the news that the man who destroyed their lives has pleaded guilty to murder.

It was a warm Saturday evening in Wangaratta when Ms Saunders and her partner invited friends around for drinks.

Bowe Maddigan, 29, was new in town and not long out of a Victorian prison where he had served time for drug charges.

Maddigan had met Ms Saunders, who worked at Wangaratta’s Big W, a week earlier through a mutual friend.

Zoe’s mother Janelle Saunders (centre) is supported by friends and relatives at the funeral of her murdered daughter, 11, in Wangaratta. Picture: Channel 7

Zoe Buttiegieg as a baby pictured with her father who died in an accident six years ago. Picture: Facebook

Zoe Buttiegieg was a popular fourth grader and netball player before she was cruelly murdered. Picture: Facebook

A life cut short: Images of Zoe Buttigieg posted on Facebook by her grieving family following her murder in October last year. Picture: Facebook

On the Saturday night, Ms Saunders and her partner were having friends around for drinks — not an uncommon occurrence — although supporters of the family were later to deny one neighbour’s description of the Inchbold home as “a party house”.

In evidence later given at Wangaratta Local Court, Ms Saunders and her guests enjoyed a marathon drinking and cannabis session that lasted well into the morning of Zoe’s rape and murder.

Ms Saunders said she had engaged in conversation with Maddigan, who she described as “very deep” and “artistic”.

She said he had been drinking and smoking cannabis, jumping from topic to topic as they talked in the hours before the murder.

When Ms Saunders went to bed at 7am on Sunday, October 25, she had been drinking bourbon and coke for almost 12 hours.

At 11am, she awoke and went into her daughter’s bedroom and found Zoe’s dead body. Bowe Maddigan had left the house.

Bowe Maddigan, pictured at Wangaratta Court, portrayed himself as artistic before he murdered Zoe, 11, after smoking cannabis. Picture: Channel 7

Zoe, pictured at a younger age, was a smart and well-respected student. Picture: Facebook

Zoe’s mother has written on Facebook about the injustice of her little girl’s murder. Picture: Facebook

Neighbours heard a scream, and then police and an ambulance arrived.

Medical examiners would find that Zoe had been sexually penetrated before she was killed.

Meanwhile, police had been called to the Hume Highway near Glenrowan, 16km south of Wangaratta, where a dishevelled and barefoot man had been seen wandering along the highway.

Maddigan was shoeless and wearing cargo pants and a singlet and behaving erratically when police and paramedics picked him up about a kilometre south of Glenrowan’s BP service station.

Zoe Buttigieg was a happy and popular little girl. Picture: Facebook

He was admitted to Wangaratta’s Kerferd psychiatric clinic and, later, when police made the link between Maddigan and the murder of Zoe Buttiegieg at the Inchbold Street house, he was placed under police guard.

Maddigan made his first appearance in Wangaratta court four days later, arriving in the back of a police paddy wagon from which he screamed “F**k you. Die in hell, you dog” to waiting media.

For Zoe’s family, her absence has been a living hell, which Maddigan’s guilty plea may do little to end.

Ms Saunders has posted photographs of Zoe with her father, who tragically died suddenly in an accident six years ago.

On January 27 this year, she posted a photograph of her daughter sitting between two friends with four emoticon hearts and the words, “a very special photo, my last day with my beautiful girl”.