Rachel Nickell murder case

On July 15, 1992 , Rachel Nickell, 23, was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in a Wimbledon park . As a result of the investigation, there were high-profile charges against Colin Stagg, who were acquitted. In 2008, 41-year-old Robert Napper was found guilty of the murder of Rachel Nickell.

The murder

The former model Rachel Jane Nickell (born November 23, 1968 in Tooting , part of the London Borough of Wandsworth ) was on July 15 with her two-year-old son and her dog in a park in Wimbledon when she was attacked. The attacker sexually assaulted her, stabbed her 49 times and cut her throat. Her body, to which her son was clinging, was later found by a passerby.

Investigations

Scotland Yard officials took over the investigation. After questioning 32 men in connection with the murder case, investigators decided on the unemployed Colin Stagg from Roehampton as the prime suspect, who regularly took his dog for walks near the crime scene.

The forensic investigation had revealed no connection between Stagg and the murder. Therefore, the police had a criminal psychologist Paul Britton made a perpetrator profile , which was then considered to be appropriate for Stagg. The police then asked Britton to help plan an undercover operation to arrest Stagg. This was later referred to as the Honey Trap by the judge and the media .

An undercover of the Metropolitan Police contacted Stagg under the alias Lizzie James . She posed as the friend of one of his personals acquaintances, feigning romantic interest in him and trying to get information out of him. Over a period of five months, they met, talked on the phone, and exchanged letters of sexual fantasies. Stagg later testified that he only acted because he wanted to continue the romance. According to his own statements, the criminal psychologist Britton did not agree with the dispatch of the letters and did not know anything about them before they were sent. The investigator gained Stagg's trust and was able to elicit violent fantasies from him, but Stagg did not confess to the murder. Police later released a sound recording of a conversation between James and Stagg in which the undercover agent said she enjoyed hurting people. Stagg murmured: “Please explain this to me, I live a quiet life. If I have let you down, please don't ditch me. I've never seen anything like this before. " Also at the insistence of the investigator to confess to the murder of Nickell in order to win her over, Stagg replied: " I'm really sorry, but it wasn't me . "

The police and prosecutors still believed they had sufficient evidence. Stagg was arrested and charged. However, when the case was heard at the Old Bailey in 1994 , the judge found that the police had acted with "blind zeal" and tried to incriminate a suspect through "misleading behavior of the worst kind". The evidence obtained from the case was excluded from the trial and prosecutors withdrew the charges against Stagg.

After the trial of Stagg

An internal review by the Metropolitan Police revealed that the case had cost three million pounds to investigate and that the police were unable to provide vital scientific information. Colin Stagg decided to sue the police for up to £ 1 million in custody compensation for the 14 months he was in custody. However, the case was postponed because the investigation was ongoing. To this day, Stagg has sought an apology and has written several books on the case in collaboration with journalists and authors. In 2007, the Home Office announced that Stagg was entitled to compensation for false charges.

The investigator called "Lizzie James" left the police force in 1998 and went into early retirement. Before her case, in which she was prosecuting the Metropolitan Police - supported by the police union - she was paid £ 125,000 by the Metropolitan Police in 2001. Her attorney noted that the fact that the Metropolitan Police had shown their willingness to pay substantial amounts of compensation indicated that the police were aware of the significant psychological injuries "Lizzie James" had suffered.

Britton's role has been investigated by the British Psychological Society, but charges against him were dropped in 2002.

André Hanscombe, Rachel Nickell's husband, wrote a book "The Last Thursday in July" about his life with Rachel. In 1996 he moved to France with his son, claiming to have escaped the media. Hanscombe has since worked as an author and illustrator of children's books.

In 2003, police found traces of male DNA on Nickell's clothing that could not be traced back to her husband or son.

Robert Napper

In July 2006, Scotland Yard interrogated convicted sex killer Robert Napper for two days. The forty-year-old diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia had been an inmate in a Berkshire mental institution for over ten years.

Napper was convicted of the murder of Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter in 1993, a year and a half after Nickell's murder, and is suspected of multiple rapes. On November 28, 2007, he was charged with the murder of Rachel Nickell. He pleaded not guilty but was found guilty of the murder of Rachel Nickell on December 18, 2008, with reduced guilt at the Old Bailey.

literature

• Laurence J. Alison, Marie Eyre: Killer in the Shadows: The Monstrous Crimes of Robert Napper . Pennant Books 2009, ISBN 978-1-906015-49-7 .
• Kevin Brewer: Psychology and Crime . Heinemann Educational Publishers 2000, ISBN 978-0-435-80653-8 .
• Paul Britton: The Jigsaw Man . Corgi Books 1998, ISBN 978-0-552-14493-3 .
• Colin Evans: A Question of Evidence: The Casebook of Great Forensic Controversies, from Napoleon to OJ Wiley 2002, ISBN 978-0-471-44014-7 .
• Mike Fielder: The Murder of Rachel Nickell . John Blake 2000, ISBN 978-1-85782-338-7 .
• Alex Handscombe: Letting Go: A true story of murder, loss and survival by Rachel Nickell's son . Harper Element 2017, ISBN 978-0008144296 .
• André Handscombe: The Last Thursday in July . Century 1996 / Arrow 1997, ISBN 978-0-09-917512-4 .
• David Kessler: Rachel Nickell , House of Solomon Ltd, 2001, ISBN 978-1-904037-03-3 .
• Keith Pedder: The Rachel Files , John Blake 2002, ISBN 978-1-904034-30-8 .
• Keith Pedder: Murder on the Common: The Secret Story of the Murder That Shocked a Nation . John Blake 2003, ISBN 978-1-84454-057-0 .
• Colin Stagg, David Kessler: Who Really Killed Rachel? Greenzone Publishing 1999, ISBN 978-0-9582027-2-5 .
• Colin Stagg, David Kessler: The Lizzie James Conspiracy . House of Solomon 2001, ISBN 978-1-904037-00-2 .
• Colin Stagg, Ted Hynds: Pariah: Colin Stagg . Pennant Publishing 2007, ISBN 978-1-906015-10-7 .
• Brent E. Turvey: Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis Academic Press 2002, ISBN 978-0-12-705041-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tragic Rachel Nickell's son breaks 18-year silence over her murder Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tragic- rachel-nickells-son-breaks-173778 # ixzz2Z7vAeBnf Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook , accessed July 15, 2013
2. ↑ 'I can still see the knife in the killer's hand and my mother covered in blood': Rachel Nickell's son - the only witness to her murder - breaks his 18-year silence , accessed July 15, 2013
3. ↑ Police quiz new suspect in Wimbledon Common murder case | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
4. ↑ Police ignored clues that could have led to Rachel Nickell's killer, | The Independent on Sunday
5. ↑ With police and tabloids in cahoots, Colin Stagg became a sacrificial lamb | The Observer
6. ↑ Police hunting killer of Rachel Nickell question inmate at Broadmoor - Independent.co.uk ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ Still no apology from police, says Rachel suspect | The Daily Mail
8. ↑ BBC News Rachel Nickell detective quits at 33
9. ↑ Police quiz new suspect in Wimbledon Common murder case | Guardian Unlimited
10. ↑ BBC NEWS | Stagg storms out of the 'Cracker' hearing
11. ^ News - Telegraph
12. ↑ Police quiz new suspect in Wimbledon Common murder case | Guardian Unlimited
13. ^ News - Telegraph
14. ↑ Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ↑ Broadmoor sex killer questioned over Nickell murder - Times Online
16. ↑ Police ignored clues that could have led to Rachel Nickell's killer, | The Independent on Sunday
17. ↑ BBC NEWS | Man denies Rachel Nickell murder