The Murder of Rachel Nickell

Dad?

Yeah?

Are you up here?

Mm-hmm.

Dadda, can you help me draw Mummy on this piece of paper?

Alex, look at me.

When you saw the bad man, was he in front of you like I am?

Or was he on this side, or was he on that side?

- He was in front of me. - He was right in front of you?

- Mm-hmm. - Did Mummy see him?

I don't think she did.

No? Did you see him first?

Yeah, I saw him first.

Did he have a bag?

Yeah.

And did he open it, or was it already open?

He opened it.

And what did he get out?

A knife.

- What did he do to you? - Knocked me over!

- He knocked you over? - Yeah.

The bad man was sticking his things in her.

What was he sticking in her?

A knife. There's his knife.

Did you see it?

Yeah, I saw the knife.

Did you see all the times?

I saw it… Yeah, I saw it all.

My son witnessed his mother's murder.

But nobody could have possibly known

how long it was gonna take to find the person who did this.

Oh!

What… What have you got?

- I've got a camera. - What for?

Take pictures of you.

Cuddles.

Hmm?

We don't like those much, do we, Alex?

- Oh! -

Rachel and Alex were, you know, they were a unit.

He was the center of Rachel's attention every day.

She wasn't at all drawn to the sparkly things.

She just really enjoyed the simple things of life.

Enjoying the company of the people she really cared about.

This was someone who could really squeeze fun

out of the simplest of things.

Can't wait.

Sleep. Need…

Give Molly a nice stroke. Lie down and give her a nice stroke.

At the time, I went to work five days a week as a dispatch rider

and travelled all over the country.

So I was down getting my bike out, ready for the day.

And, uh, even though we'd already said goodbye,

they both appeared.

Came down the stairs and, uh, waved me off.

That's my lasting memory, yeah, of them smiling.

Standing on the steps, hand in hand.

You know, Alex completely relaxed and Rachel looking lovely.

It was their routine to visit Wimbledon Common.

It's always had a reputation of being a safe place.

And, uh, Alex, he needed as much exercise as the dog did.

Otherwise, they'd both be bouncing off the walls.

That day, I happened to be in London,

and I was sent to the outskirts.

It's pre-mobile phone.

So a couple of times a day, I'd phone in to make sure everything was all right.

Late in the morning, I stopped,

found a phone that was working.

- Rang the number. -

A man's voice answered the phone.

And my blood ran cold.

I just knew immediately that something was seriously wrong.

He said, "I'm a policeman."

So I said, "Where's Rachel?"

And he said, "There's been an accident."

I said, "Is she dead?" He said, "I can't tell you that."

I said, "You just did."

And I asked, "Where's Alex?"

He said, "Alex is safe. He's at the hospital."

He said, "Stay where you are. We'll send a police car to you."

The moment I put the phone down, I collapsed to the floor and broke down.

André, I'm right up on your stomach.

Press pause.

Hey, I don't…

I don't know what you say.

We like that bit.

- You like that bit? - Yeah.

Every belief I had about, you know, the firmness of reality disappeared.

I was in a state

which you can only describe as bordering on the edge of insanity.

15th July '92,

I was informed that a body has been found on the common by a… a dog walker.

It… it's our job, um,

to, to deal with these situations as, as a professional.

To stand back from what you see as a fellow human being.

I was walking through grass,

and then I sort of turned right into a small, um, glade.

It really was the worst crime scene.

It… it just looked like a frenzied attack.

The victim had been attacked, dragged,

stabbed 49 times in and around the neck and chest area.

And she lay with her hands sort of up in front of her face,

as if she was still trying to protect herself.

It was monstrous.

The detectives told me that Rachel had been attacked from behind.

She'd been… …stabbed multiple times

and that she'd been assaulted.

That Alex had been found clinging to his mother's body.

And that they had to basically prize him away

to attend to him.

Alex had been taken to this hospital.

When I got there,

they said that they would like me to speak to a psychologist before…

before I saw Alex.

The psychologist said, first of all, children are resilient.

They can get through the worst of things.

He said they need to know

that this is definitive, that this person is not coming back.

Alex came out in the arms of a nurse, and he looked incredibly subdued.

He had cuts under his eyes. He had bruises on his cheeks.

And, uh, he had an intense look in his eyes, you know,

like a… a very old person in a very young body.

And I picked him up and basically recited what the psychologist said.

There's been an accident,

that Mummy's dead, that she's not coming back.

And he just kept staring. He didn't ask any questions.

But it was clear that he was telling me, "I already know that."

You know? "That's something you really don't have to explain to me."

Alex, turn around and wave to me.

Wave.

He never asked again where his mother was. Not once.

- -

Police sealed off Wimbledon Common

moments after the woman's half-naked body was found by a passer-by.

Detectives say she'd been murdered in a frenzied attack,

which was witnessed by her two-year-old son.

The news editor called and said,

"We've just read on the wires

there's been some sort of fatal stabbing on Wimbledon Common."

"We need you to go with a crew now."

Wimbledon as a place,

it's very affluent, very beautiful houses.

Wimbledon Common is something like 1,100 acres of parkland,

literally right on the edge of Central London.

The murder happened in broad daylight,

and police say they're certain the killer would have been heavily bloodstained.

Eve Richings, Sky News.

It was palpable how shaken the police officers on the scene were.

A passer-by found her half-naked,

and clinging to the body was a small boy.

Superintendent Bassett,

who was, um, the lead officer in charge of the investigation,

he was the one that gave the first briefing.

The small boy was caked in mud and blood,

the blood possibly coming from the mother.

I was a detective sergeant and, at the time of the inquiry,

was John Bassett's right-hand man.

When we arrived at the scene,

I could see that she had suffered horrendously

during this attack.

When we looked closely at her body, her body was in a not-natural position.

Her clothing had been ripped from her.

There was moistness in and around her body.

That indicated there's possibly a sexual connotation to this.

It was frightening to think that somebody who could commit that sort of crime

was on the loose.

Obviously, if you've got somebody who's gonna do this,

then that's likely to happen again,

and the pressure is on to get this man, uh, before he does it again.

Police teams spent a second day combing 1,000 acres of Wimbledon Common

for clues to the savage killing.

The size of Wimbledon Common,

straight away, I realized that we had a difficult job on.

Normally when a murder breaks,

you probably get 10, 15 officers.

On this, I think we had about 40.

And it was quite obvious from the start that this was gonna be a big one.

They officially named the murdered mother as Rachel Nickell.

Her body was identified today by the father of her small son.

To see pictures of Rachel Nickell,

to see what she looked like,

she sort of shone with vitality.

People could project… themselves into that life.

They could remember being 23

or remember being a new parent.

We were getting a love story in the pictures that they released.

It was an instant connection.

It was… You know, I'd never had that experience before,

and I've never had it since.

We were inseparable. We did feel that we just bonded completely.

This is the experience that people, you know, they… they dream of having.

You know, falling head over heels in love and feeling so complete with someone.

So we both felt blessed to have that.

When Rachel became pregnant, it was a shock.