Details of the teenager's final hours being raped and murdered by Levi Bellfield emerge in a statement from her family.
20:06, UK, Wednesday 10 February 2016
Teenager Milly Dowler's family have spoken of their "torment and pain" after Levi Bellfield finally admitted murdering her.
Her body was found 25 miles away in Yateley Heath, Hampshire, and experts were unable to say how she died.
Bellfield was convicted in 2011 for Milly's murder but denied any part in it until January this year, when it was revealed that he had finally admitted to police that he had abducted, raped and killed her.
The admission came during a police investigation into whether he had an accomplice after he bragged to a fellow prison inmate about the crime.
He had given police a harrowing account of the final hours of Milly's life: how he had kidnapped her, assaulted her at his flat near Walton station and then driven her to his mother's house where he raped her.
He had told how he raped and tortured her at another location for a number of hours before strangling her to death.
Milly's family - parents Bob and Sally Dowler and her sister Gemma - said in a statement: "Now we know the final hours of Milly's life, perhaps her soul, at long last, can finally rest in peace."
The family said they had learned how she had died just a few days after they learned police were investigating the possibility that Bellfield had an accomplice.
"Hearing Bellfield's account of how Milly spent her final hours before being murdered was shocking enough, but the news that there could have been another individual involved was devastating.
"There are no words to describe the additional torment and pain we have been going through since we were told this information.
"We had to remain silent for eight months whilst the police conducted their investigation."
Eventually the suspected accomplice was released without charge due to lack of evidence.
"The pressure this has put us under as a family has been unimaginable and has taken its toll on all of us."
They added: "The general public have always played a huge part in supporting us, for which we are eternally grateful and thankful. We believe that they should know what Bellfield did to our beautiful daughter and sister Milly."
Bellfield lived 50 metres from where Milly went missing but he did not become a suspect until he was arrested by police in London for the other crimes in 2004.
When Bellfield went on trial seven years later, he was already in jail for the murders of Amelie Delagrange and Marsha McDonnell, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy.
In February 2012 he lost a bid to challenge his conviction for Milly's murder and police are looking into a number of other crimes as a result of his confession.
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