CT Jones
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Rachel Nickell and Alex Hanscombe Courtesy of Netflix On the morning of July 15, 1992, 24-year-old British mother Rachel Nickell and her two-year-old son Alex Hanscombe stood on the stoop of their home and waved goodbye to Rachel’s partner and Alex’s father, André Hanscombe.
Rachel and Alex planned to spend the day going through their usual routine, playing inside before taking a long walk with their dog Molly through Wimbledon Commons, a popular park in southwest London. But when André called home to check in, Nickell didn’t answer the phone. It was a police officer with devastating news — Nickell was dead, and Alex was the only witness to the murder.
Now, Netflix is revisiting the brutal killing of Nickell and the subsequent police investigation that captured national attention as it moved from an active manhunt to a years-long cold case. On June 4, the streaming giant released two projects. The Witness, created by Rob Williams (Suspicion, Killing Eve) and directed by Alex Winckler (Mary & George), is a dramatized version of Nickell’s murder and investigation. But The Murder of Rachel Nickell uses first hand interviews from André, Alex, and the police officers involved to walk through the unrelenting media attention and inquiries that defined the case.
Here’s four things we learned from The Murder of Rachel Nickell.
The size of the crime scene made initial searches difficult
Nickell and Alex were walking in Wimbledon Commons when the young mother was attacked from behind. A jogger stumbled on the body — with Alex clinging to her — and called the police.
According to Paul Penrose, a detective sergeant assigned to the case, Nickell’s body was found on its back, in an unnatural position. Her hands were up towards her face, like in her last moments she was still attempting to fight. Her clothing had been ripped from her and there were signs of sexual assault. She was stabbed 49 times.
Rachel Nickell and her partner André Hanscombe holding their son Alex Hanscombe Courtesy of André Hanscombe/Netflix The park was a public space that young families would often use to run around. But it is also made up of grassy land and wooded areas that span more than 1,000 acres. More than 40 officers were called to do an initial search of the area, but little to no physical evidence was found. Police opened a tip line for residents to submit any information they had or report suspicious activity, which was immediately flooded with calls, but there were no initial suspects.
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Police believed Alex could help identify his mother’s murderer
With Alex as the only witness to Nickell’s murder, police believed that the two-year-old had seen important clues that might lead them to a suspect.
When André first arrived at the hospital where Alex was being kept after the muder, a doctor emphasized that he had to be honest with the young boy and tell him from the start that his mother was dead. According to André, Alex never once asked where his mother was, making him believe that his son already understood some aspect of death.
The biggest conflict in the early months of the case was the police pressure for answers and the delicate ecosystem of a child that’s just experienced a major trauma. Alex had several sessions with a child psychologist, who wrote down questions she then had André ask Alex. Alex gave some answers, like the “bad man” appeared from behind, possibly washed his hands in a stream, and was wearing a belt over his shirt, but he wasn’t able to provide much more intel.
André was focused on Alex’s healing and was reluctant to retraumatize his son by getting him to recall his memories of the stabbing. So when police had André and Alex return to Wimbledon Commons to see if he could retrace their steps and Alex began to scream and cry, André cut the questions. Members of the media followed the family constantly, hounding them for quotes. But when a local photographer published an identifiable photo of Alex’s face, André feared for their safety and moved out of England entirely to a remote part of France.
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The Police Department relied on serial killer psychology to try and create a profile of the killer. They landed on local man Colin Stagg
At the time of Nickell’s murder, intense pressure from the local community pushed police to identify a suspect as quickly as possible. The officers consulted with a popular forensic psychologist, Paul Britton, who had become famous for creating profiles of serial killers. Britton described Nickell’s killer as someone who lived close to the area, who struggled with dating, and perhaps didn’t have close friends or relationships. After police released a sketch of a man seen walking away from Wimbledon Commons the day of Nickell’s murder, a tip line call said that local 29-year-old Colin Stagg fit that description.
When officers searched Stagg’s flat, they found Satanic imagery, a sign that said “Christians beware,” and strange symbols drawn on the carpet and around a survival kit. Convinced he was the murderer but lacking any solid evidence, a female officer using the name Lizze James began sending letters to Stagg in an effort to get him to confess.
The officer encouraged Stagg to write about his sexual fantasies, which became violent in nature. While he never confessed to Nickell’s murder, police believed his sexual fantasies involving blood and knives were enough to implicate him. He was arrested on Aug. 17, 1993 and was held in prison for over a year. But just as the trial was about to begin, a judge threw out the case — calling the police methods entrapment.
In the Netflix documentary, Stagg says that the allegations against him ruined years of his life. When speaking to the press, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon said he stood by his officers actions — implying that Stagg was still guilty but had escaped justice.
“I’d never had a proper girlfriend up to the point of 29, so when I received a letter from Lizzie James I just felt really happy that a woman had shown interest in me,” Stagg explains in the documentary. “I had low self-esteem before this all started. And this knocked me back further.”
Police had multiple chances to arrest Rachel’s killer before her murder
After Stagg went free, Nickell’s case was closed for more than eight years. But in 2002, a review of the forensic evidence taken at Nickell’s crime scene, combined with advancements in technology, led to a breakthrough. Police found a DNA match to Robert Napper, a man who had lived near Wimbledon Commons at the time of Nickell’s murder, but was by then serving time in jail for multiple rape and murder convictions.
The same year Nickell was murdered, Napper was linked to another murder of a mother and child, 27-year-old Samantha Bissett and four-year-old Jazmine Bissett. Both Samantha and Jazmine were assaulted and murdered.
In the documentary, André says a member of the Crown Prosecution Service showed him a report that police negligence was partially to blame for Nickell’s murder. Around 1989, over 70 women were raped in a string of incidents police referred to as the Green Chain rapes. Napper matched a description given by a witness, but when police went to his home, they asked him to come to the station and give blood and DNA voluntarily instead of arresting him. After he didn’t show up at his appointed time, officers returned to his home, but it was empty. Napper had fled. If he had been arrested before he could leave, he wouldn’t have had the chance to murder Nickell, Samantha, or Jazmine.
