One sunny morning in 1992, Rachel Nickell and her 2-year-old son, Alex, are on a leisurely stroll in London when the unthinkable happens. A stranger assaults and kills Rachel in broad daylight, leaving Alex as the only witness to the horrific crime. The Murder of Rachel Nickell, directed by BAFTA nominee Lucy Bowden (One Born Every Minute), examines the yearslong path to justice that followed, including several investigative missteps during the highly publicized case. The documentary, a true crime counterpart to the three-episode dramatic limited series The Witness, unveils the real story through exclusive archival footage, insights from police and forensic experts, and interviews with family members — including Rachel Nickell’s partner, André Hanscombe, and her son, Alex Hanscombe, now an adult himself. 

“We can never express how indebted we are to everyone who’s been a part of this, for the kindness and generosity they’ve extended to us, for the chance they took with us in bringing our story to the screen, and for the care they’ve taken,” Alex and André tell Netflix. “We hope that audiences will be left with a testament to the tough battle of life we all face and to the power of faith, hope, love — and never giving up.”

When will The Murder of Rachel Nickell be released?

Stream the documentary now.

The Witness, a fictionalized retelling of how André and Alex managed to rebuild their lives after unimaginable loss, is also available to stream now.

Where can I find the trailer for The Murder of Rachel Nickell?

Check it out at the top of this page. 

Who’s interviewed in The Murder of Rachel Nickell?

• André Hanscombe, Rachel’s partner
• Alex Hanscombe, Rachel and André’s son
• Ron Turnbull, Metropolitan Police forensics detective
• Eve Richings, Sky News reporter
• Paul Penrose, Metropolitan Police detective sergeant
• Jean Harris-Hendriks, child and adolescent psychiatrist
• Paul Britton, consultant forensic psychologist
• Micky Banks, Metropolitan Police detective superintendent
• Roger Boydell-Smith, Metropolitan Police detective sergeant
• Dr. Angela Gallop, forensic scientist 
• Colin Stagg

What happens in The Murder of Rachel Nickell?

The documentary centers on the murder case of Rachel Nickell, who was killed in London’s Wimbledon Common on July 15, 1992, in front of her young son. She was discovered when a dog walker came across 2-year-old Alex clinging to her body. Investigators determined she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed 49 times, all in front of her young son — the only witness to the incident. Police requested her partner André’s permission to question Alex with the help of a child psychologist to see if he could provide any identifying information about the assailant. At such a young age, Alex could do little more than recall details about what the man was wearing. But after repeated interviews led to little else and a visit to the crime scene further traumatized the child, André declined to have Alex continue to participate in the investigation. 

When investigators released a composite sketch to the public drawn from Alex’s descriptions and a psychological profile, they received calls from concerned citizens that the sketch and profile pointed to a local man named Colin Stagg. Police brought Stagg in for questioning, but without physical evidence tying him to the crime scene, they were unable to charge him. Instead, investigators set up an undercover operation: A woman officer sent Stagg a letter pretending to be part of a local “lonely hearts club” (one Stagg was a member of), in which participants exchanged letters with strangers in hopes of making a romantic connection. Stagg played into the trap and began an exchange with the officer. When his letters grew more violent and sadistic in nature, 13 months after Rachel Nickell’s murder, detectives arrested him.

On Nov. 6, 1993 — as Stagg awaited trial in prison — Samantha Bisset and her 4-year-old daughter, Jazmine Bisset, were both assaulted and killed in their Southeast London home. Forensic evidence from the crime scene pointed to Robert Napper, a local with a criminal history. Noting the significant overlap in methodology and victim type, detectives on the Bisset case asked those who’d worked the Nickell case to consider whether the two could be connected. What followed was not only a shocking miscarriage of justice but a yearslong wait for answers for André and Alex — who had moved to France to escape intense public interest in the case — until new DNA evidence was revealed in 2004.

“The police washed their hands of their responsibility and their failure to do their job to serve and protect,” Alex tells Netflix. “They failed to take the killer off the street years before the attack on my mother and me, despite as many as 90 other attacks taking place.… The police have never acknowledged the extent of their failings or the wrongs they did in a true spirit of contrition.”

What happened to Colin Stagg?

After a judge ruled that police attempted to incriminate Stagg by “deceptive conduct of the grossest kind,” Stagg was released; he’d spent 13 months in prison awaiting trial. Once the judge threw out all entrapment evidence, the prosecution had no other option but to drop the case. Though Stagg received £706,000 (equal to more than $1 million at the time) in compensation, he says that he remained “Britain’s most hated person for about 15 years.” Police eventually issued a public apology to Stagg, stating that he was “completely innocent” of any wrongdoing or involvement in the murder of Rachel Nickell. 

What happened to Robert Napper?

Napper pleaded guilty in 1995 to the manslaughter of Samantha and Jazmine Bisset. He also admitted to three unsolved sexual assaults that occurred in 1989 along the Green Chain Walk, a stretch of parkland across Southeast London. Due to his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, the court sentenced him to indefinite confinement at Broadmoor, a psychiatric hospital.

When a forensics team reexamined the Nickell cold case in 2002, they spent two years developing a method to multiply DNA found at the scene, which eventually led to confirmation that Napper was responsible for the crime. Napper eventually pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell in 2008, for which he was given an additional lifetime sentence of confinement at Broadmoor. He’s currently serving out his sentence there.

Where are André and Alex Hanscombe now?

After spending some time in France, André and Alex moved to Spain. They served as consultants on both The Witness and The Murder of Rachel Nickell. 

“My parents believed in the infinity of the spirit, that my mother would be with me always, wherever I went,” Alex says in the documentary. “My father sacrificed everything for me and for what he believed in, without any guarantees of how it would turn out. He was brave enough to do what he felt was right in his heart. I’m forever indebted to him for that.”

Is The Murder of Rachel Nickell based on a book?

No, the documentary is not based on a specific book. However, its dramatized counterpart, The Witness, is based on Alex Hanscombe’s 2017 memoir Letting Go: A True Story of Murder, Loss, and Survival by Rachel Nickell’s Son. His father, André Hanscombe, also wrote a memoir titled The Last Thursday in July: The Story of Those Left Behind, which was published in 1996. 

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