Netflix is launching a new three-part series that revisits the devastating killing of a young mother, carried out while her two-year-old son was nearby.
On July 15 1992, Rachel Nickell set out for a walk with her two-year-old son, Alex, heading to Wimbledon Common.
During the outing, the 23-year-old was attacked in public and fatally stabbed. She was stabbed 49 times, and was also sexually assaulted.
Netflix has now produced a dramatised retelling of the crime and the intense investigation that followed, as detectives worked to identify the person responsible.
The drama is titled The Witness and stars Jordan Bolger, Max Fincham, and Neil Maskell. It is being released on June.
A separate documentary, The Murder of Rachel Nickell, has also been made about the case.
Alex later became part of the inquiry after police learned he had seen what happened. Officers questioned him repeatedly over time while trying to build a clearer account and track down the attacker.
More than three decades later, Alex spoke to UK newspaper The Times about the long-lasting impact of losing his mother so violently, and about having to revisit the day repeatedly during police interviews.
“I was not always protected,” he said. “I was able to provide a picture-perfect description of the assailant, the weapon, his movements, so there was little more I could offer the police but I was asked to constantly relive my worst day and there was a cost.
“There was something demonic in taking a child back to it again and again.”
Investigators questioned 32 men as part of the murder inquiry. Early attention turned to Colin Stagg, who had been walking his dog on the common.
But with no forensic evidence linking him to the crime, police leaned on a psychological profile written by criminal psychologist Paul Britton, and then proceeded with an undercover operation.
It would take another decade before the case moved forward. Advances in DNA analysis allowed officers to take a fresh look at the evidence, and Stagg was ultimately ruled out.
The investigation eventually identified Robert Napper as the killer. Napper was being held at the UK’s high-security Broadmoor Hospital and had previously been sentenced for the killings of Samantha and Jazimine Bissett, a mother and daughter.
Napper pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to paranoid schizophrenia, and also admitted rape and attempted rape.
In 2008, he received an order for indefinite detention at Broadmoor Hospital for Rachel’s killing.
The Witness will be available to stream on Netflix. from June 4.