Chilling map kept by ‘modern-day Jack the Ripper’ who killed Rachel Nickell revealed
Warning: This article contains discussion of rape and murder which some readers may find distressing.
The murder of Rachel Nickell was a crime that shook Britain to its core.
The 23-year-old mother was stabbed 49 times while walking her dog on Wimbledon Common in broad daylight, with her two-year-old son beside her.
The year was 1992, and it would take 16 long years to catch the person who did it.
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That man's name was Robert Napper, and he's the subject of a brand new Netflix Documentary, The Murder of Rachel Nickell.
The documentary revisits one of the most disturbing, and most badly mishandled, cases in Metropolitan Police history.
It's a story about a predator hiding in plain sight, about a catastrophic misidentification that let him kill again, and about a child who had to watch his mother die.
What happened in the Rachel Nickell murder?
On July 15, 1992, Rachel was walking with her son Alex and their dog Molly when she was attacked. Alex, two years old at the time, later described the moment to CBS.
They had both sensed something, and half turned round they noticed a man running towards them.
"I was grabbed and thrown roughly to the ground," Alex said. "Seconds later, my mother collapsed next to me."
Rachel had been stabbed more than 40 times and sexually assaulted.
Alex watched the attacker wash his hands in a nearby stream before running off. He tried to wake his mother. When paramedics arrived, they found a receipt placed on Rachel's forehead, something Alex had put there, trying to help her. It would take him years to process what he saw, and he would grow up knowing the killer was still out there.
What went wrong in the Rachel Nickell murder investiagtion?
Forensic psychologist Paul Britton joined the investigation within weeks and built a profile of the killer, under 30, socially isolated, possibly interested in martial arts. That profile was broadcast nationally.
What followed was one of the Met's most humiliating chapters.
Officers arrested Colin Stagg, an innocent man, and prosecuted him in a case that collapsed at the Old Bailey. He spent a year in prison, with DNA evidence later clearing him entirely.
All the while, the real killer was free.
Napper, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic living in Plumstead, was already known to police in a different context.
He was the prime suspect in a string of sexual assaults known as the Green Chain Rapes, targeting women walking through southeast London, often with their children.
Crime writer and ex-detective Luke Delaney, who investigated the case, said Napper had even told his own mother he had committed one of the attacks.
And at some point, officers searching his home found a London A-Z, with locations circled across southeast London, apparently a map marking the gruesome sites where he had carried out assaults.
How many people did Robert Napper murder?
In November 1992, four months after Rachel's murder, Napper tracked 27-year-old Samantha Bisset to her home and stabbed her to death. He also killed her four-year-old daughter Jazmine. The crime scene was so disturbing the police photographer assigned to it reportedly couldn't work for months afterwards.
When officers later searched Napper's property, they found a crossbow, a loaded firearm, and ammunition.
Delaney, who has written about the case, described Napper as the most violent killer Britain has produced since Jack the Ripper.
"Peter Sutcliffe and others are all household names," he said. "He is by far the scariest, most violent murderer I can think of."
Napper was eventually arrested in 1994 after a fingerprint at Samantha's home was traced to him. He was convicted of both murders, along with rape and attempted rape charges. It wasn't until 2008 that DNA from Rachel's killing was linked to him - finally securing that conviction too.
He is currently held at Broadmoor on an indefinite hospital order. He will not be released.
Alex Nickell, who has spent his adult life trying to make sense of what happened that morning, worked with Netflix on a companion series called The Witness, which tells his story. He told CBS: "I had to accept that this case might never be resolved, so I was forced to find that closure and peace of mind within myself."
The Murder of Rachel Nickell is streaming on Netflix now.
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org
Topics: Crime, UK News, True crime
Thomas Bamford