A walk in the park turned into a TRAGEDY. The TERRIBLE story of Rachel Nickell

This atrocious

story

that took place in England has become one of the most famous criminal cases in the country over the years. A young woman was murdered while

walk

ing through the

park

with her two-year-old son. The only witness was her son and the police couldn't. They did not find the culprit for 16 years when the case was solved the police were accused of catastrophic for their professionalism it

turned

out that they had made a large number of mistakes that had cost several lives in this video we tell you how a murder

story

became something bigger over 16 years and how it all ended Rachel Jane Nichol was born on November 23, 1968 in a village near Colchester England she grew up in a complete and decent family her father was an army officer and her mother a housewife from an age early the young woman participated in several volunteer programs helping the elderly and children with disabilities at the age of 11.

She enrolled at Colchester High School for Girls, where she was active in dancing, singing and acting. All of her teachers insisted that the young girl had real talent and she should develop in it. However, in that direction, Rachel devoted herself more deeply to the study of history and English. After school she got a job as a lifeguard at a pool in Richmond. Rachel later planned to try hosting a children's television show in 1988, when she was 20 years old. Old Rachel met her future husband Andre, the couple began dating and a year later they had a son, Alex.

She then moved to an area of ​​London called Belham, by then she had already been offered a job as a model, but she decided to dedicate herself completely. She cared for her family for a few years and then tried to get a job in television one summer morning on July 15, 1992. Rachel took her son and her Labrador for a

walk

in the local

park

when Alex She was only a month away from having her third child. birthday, this park in the common neighborhood of Wimbledon was popular with locals, there were always many people there during the day, mostly parents with children and dog walkers, despite this, due to the large area and abundance of vegetation, it was always possible to get away from prying eyes. eyes and enjoy nature and solitude unfortunately, this had a drawback, around 10:30 a.m. m., a woman walking in the park noticed a gruesome scene: a young woman was lying on the ground, there was a lot of blood around her, and a small child was sitting next to her.

For her, the victim was Rachel, several dozen police officers arrived at the scene, they had to cordon off an area of ​​four square kilometers where there were hundreds of possible Witnesses and possibly the murderer detective soon realized that none of the visitors to the park had seen the moment either. of the attack or the murderer no one except one witness, Rachel's son Alex, were to obtain all the information from the two year old child, of course this was extremely difficult to do, the child was first admitted to the hospital for examination . make sure he wasn't hurt later the detectives got some information from him, he said he and his mother were approached by a tall, thin, white man with brown hair, everyone in that park was questioned.

It took the police almost an entire day, but it only took a few hours for the journalists to get the entire country aware of this horrific crime. Rachel's case instantly caused a wide resonance, which is not surprising that a young mother died in front of her son in one of the most popular parks in London. The residents of Great Britain were even more shocked when the information of the pathologist's report Rachel had been stabbed 49 times with a sharp object was leaked in the newspaper, there was enormous pressure on the Metropolitan Police Society, they demanded that the sadists be captured and punished as quickly as possible and the detectives had to work at an accelerated pace, in the first weeks they interviewed 548 men, 32 of whom were even arrested for a short period of time, but all in vain, the police It simply had no clues, the only thing the experts could find was a small piece of organic matter. material they thought might be linked to the killer, but 1992 technology simply didn't allow them to study it in September.

Investigators ran out of suspects, so they enlisted the help of Paul Britton, a renowned profiler, to compile a description of the killer. what he came up with is a man between 20 and 30 years old, he most likely lives alone, all his hobbies are also not socially related, he is interested in knives and the occult and has sadistic fantasies, in addition, he lives near the park At the request of the police department this profile along with this capture was shown on television after they received at least four calls all with the same name Colin Francis Stagg, in addition to the fact that he fit the sketch, the police reviewed his name and realized that he had already been on his radar, the fact is that a deer had tried to enter the park the day Rachel was killed.

Colin Stegg, 27, had led an isolated lifestyle, had lost his job and was struggling to find money to pay for housing and food, he had a dog. that he walked every morning through Wimbledon Common Park, according to his testimony, the day Rachel was killed he went there with his dog, but due to a severe headache he quickly went home and left to the bed. By nightfall he felt better and decided to take his dog. He went out for a walk again, however, as he approached the park he was stopped by the police stake. He calmly answered all questions and gave the details about him.

The police had no evidence against Egg, but he seemed to them a suitable candidate for the role of the murderer. Furthermore, the press continued to put pressure on law enforcement and they urgently needed a breakthrough in the case. That same day, Stag was taken to the police station where he was detained for three days. When questioned, he denied any involvement in the murder, but detectives were increasingly beginning to believe otherwise. First, occult books were found in his house, which coincided with the profiler's suggestion. Second, police were able to find two women who gave some disturbing details about the deer.

A woman accused him of exposing himself in front of her at that very moment. In his defense, Collins said that he was just sunbathing in a secluded place in the park and that the woman arrived herself; another woman reported that she had been exchanging intimate letters with him for some time, in one of them she confessed that she dreamed. of having sex outdoors, all this was already enough for the police to consider Colin a pervert and finally believe in his involvement in Rachel's murder, except they knew that all these circumstantial arguments would not stand a chance in court , for this reason the man had to When he was released on the advice of his lawyer, he agreed to pay a fine for exposing himself to a woman in the park, although he continued to insist on his innocence.

Detectives along with a profiler came up with a very unusual plan that was supposed to help force a confession. A Metropolitan Police officer under the pseudonym Lisi James began writing columns of intimate letters, he said he knew the woman had corresponded. Before, despite the ridiculousness of the situation, the plan worked. Colin responded to all the letters and each time his dialogues became more and more explicit and perverted, Lizzie played the role of a woman with violent and sadistic hobbies, sometimes even illegal, and their communication lasted five months during all this time. The deer insisted that they finally meet in person and the detectives decided that he could actually help extract a confession. the location completion date was set at a park.

Lizzie didn't go there alone, but the deer didn't know that plainclothes officers were watching them in case the man decided to attack his colleague during their conversation. Lizzie, on the provider's advice, shared with Colin a fictional story about her secret hobbies; she revealed that her ex-boyfriend was interested in the occult and that together they performed a ritual sacrifice on a living person. The deer took this information quite calmly, at least he kept in contact with Lizzie and they spent a few more hours together and parted ways, after that they met a few more times and finally the police decided to move on to the final part by walking through the park.

Lizzie talked to Colin about Rachel's murder. She told him that she wished he had been the murderer because the idea of ​​the crime excited her, but it didn't work. The deer apologized to her and told her that he had nothing to do with her murder. Lizzie tried to get her to confess several more times, but he continued to deny her involvement. It seemed as if the police had botched a six-month operation, they couldn't get any evidence that Stake had killed Rachel, but the detectives were still convinced they were right, which is why they arrested him in August 1993.

On interrogation, Colin was told all the letters and that all this time he had been in correspondence with a police officer, he was read extracts from these letters describing various perversions and he was also introduced to the real Lizzie. The deer was surprised, but on the advice of the lawyer he refused to answer the police's questions, the investigators were hopeful. until the last one who under so much pressure would confess to the murder but he didn't the only thing they had to do now was take the case to trial all this dragged on for a year which fillet spent in custody when the case finally went to trial his lawyers They destroyed the prosecution's arguments, even the judge was forced to admit that the entire operation with Lizzie James was exaggerated and that the police had behaved in an extremely unprofessional manner.

In September 1994, Colin was cleared of all charges and released. Lizzie James later resigned from her position. the police cited severe psychological trauma from the operation the police who had spent over £3 million on this investigation were at a standstill they did not have a single suspect and most detectives still believed that what was at stake was the murderer and They were not alone in this opinion, the newspapers and the public continued to blame him for what happened, every time he went out into the street he caught the bitter looks of passersby, almost the entire country believed that the murderer had gotten away with what had happened and this only increased the hatred.

But this continued for years, Rachel's nickel case was finally hanging in the balance and the police made little effort to look for new suspects. Why, when everyone was already sure of Colin's involvement, Rachel and Alex's husband had gone to live in Europe for various reasons, first of all, he was constantly harassed by journalists, which reminded his son of the murder from his mother, secondly, the father felt that it was not safe for a son to remain in London, he was the only person who saw the murderer for a long time, no one knew in which country.

They had moved to Spain and France. In 2000, Scotland Yard took over the case and assigned a new team. They studied all the collected material and witness statements, but were unable to find a new suspect, just three years later they announced that they had found DNA from an unknown man and Rachel's clothing analysis technology had just matured to such a capability and in 1992 such a discovery was simply impossible, even in 2003 this small sample that experts It took 18 months to find was not enough to establish the identity, the data from that sample was only enough to rule out unsuitable people and a year later, in 2004, the police finally had a new suspect.

His DNA was already in the database and a comparison with a sample of Rachel's clothing showed mixed results that the man was Robert Knapper, 38, a convicted murderer and serial rapist who by that time had already spent 10 years in a rehabilitation center. His biography draws attention in two ways: the cruelty of his crimes and the ease with which he later evaded justice because of this. This caused the police to face a wave of public outrage. Napper first came into the hands of authorities in 1986. He was then given a suspended sentence for assault with a BB gun. In 1989 he broke into the home of a young mother and abused her for the next four years.

There were a series of similar attacks, but the police did not put them together and were unable to locate the suspect. What followed was something truly surprising. Napper confessed to his mother that he had carried out all these attacks, she called the police and told him. They told them everything and what do you think? They found no connection between the crimes and the woman's story, so they did not investigate Napper's involvement. The only thing the mother could do was convince her son to see a psychiatrist when Napper re

turned

from there. that the specialist thought he was crazy but took no further action shortly after he assaulted and abused a woman and her child in Crystal Palace Park.

This happened just a fewweeks before Rachel's murder, but again the police failed to see the connection. This was not at all. It marks the only attack of its kind in Crystal Palace Park and the police at some point discovered that a man was committing the crimes from the words of witnesses, they compiled a portrait of him after publication in the newspapers, several residents of Napper contacted the detectives they all pointed out. When the man and the police called Napper to ask for a blood sample, he simply ignored the request and the detectives did not come looking for him, they simply forgot about him in November 1993.

London was rocked by another high-profile crime that, As it later turned out, it was also committed by Napper, a young mother, Samantha Bessette, was attacked in her room. Furthermore, the perpetrator did not spare his little daughter. What he did to them surprised even seasoned detectives. The police photographer who arrived at the scene was unable to return to work for several months because Despite the shock of what he saw, the same profiler who had been hired to investigate Rachel's murder worked on all of these cases and believed that all These attacks had nothing to do with each other, the detectives also didn't see any possible connection to Rachel's case because they were 100% sure that Colin Stay was guilty, the team of investigators who handled the attack in Crystal Palace Park also didn't see any connection.

Napper was almost 190 centimeters tall andAccording to the testimony of a witness, the perpetrator was shorter, but the maniac made a mistake in the attack on Samantha Bessette. He left a fingerprint in his apartment that allowed her identity to be analyzed in the database. Napper had previously been fingerprinted after harassing a woman on the street. He was not arrested until May 1994. When questioned he denied his guilt and was extremely calm in his apartment. They found maps of London on which the locations of the attacks and murders were circled, including the place where Rachel was murdered. They also found several nodes on how to properly abuse women shortly before police found a knife in the same park where Rachel was murdered, fingerprints on the handle matching those of Nappers, but even that wasn't enough for him.

Detectives considered him the murderer because they were still convinced that Colin Steg was guilty. However, Napper was still considered a suspect in Rachel's murder for a time, but those charges were quickly dropped. The thing is, Napper said he was at work that day in 1995. Napper went on trial for the murder of Samantha and her daughter. The prosecution reached an agreement. with him in which he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and the court sent him to a closed psychiatric hospital instead of prison, the fact is that Napper had been diagnosed with a number of disorders, including Asperger's syndrome and schizophrenia, so that the maniac could have avoided prison anyway with or without confession, as a result, the judge sent him to provide more psychiatric hospital for treatment without time limit.

Detectives later wanted to question him about Rachel's murder, but doctors forbade this because they feared it would aggravate Napper's mental state. It dates back to 2004, the new team. Detectives on the Rachel Nickel case finally began taking a closer look at Napper as a suspect after comparing his DNA to a small sample found on the young woman's body. The results were very contradictory, that sample was not enough to confirm the similarity. It was only enough to rule out other suspects in the Namper case. The results did not match with one hundred percent certainty. The investigators continued investigating more using new technology on Rachel's clothing.

They managed to detect a microscopic piece of paint. The experts examined it and concluded. which matched the painting on Napper's iron toolbox before his arrest he worked as a grocer for the Department of Defense. It's not entirely clear how we could have gotten a job there with his array of mental disorders, but the fact is that he combined assault and murder with his day job. It took Scotland Yard three years to prepare this case for trial and in 2007 Napper was charged with the murder of Rachel Nickel; During the first hearing he pleaded not guilty, which prolonged the trial for almost a year;

In the end, Napa accepted the same deal as him. They offered him 12 years before a change of plea to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for a confession on December 18, 2008. 16 years after the murder he finally confessed by Napper himself, the verdict did not change anything, they left him in the same hospital under heavy surveillance as much as possible. It is likely that he will never be made known, but the news made a lot of noise throughout Britain. The police suffered the most, becoming obsessed with Colin Steg and completely ignoring Colin Stag and other serious leads. Instead, the investigation was divided into three separate lines that each team of detectives pursued. different criminals while behind all the attacks and murders was Napper that same year 2008 the deer sued the police department for 706 thousand pounds a record for Great Britain for unjustified criminal proceedings the Metropolitan Police also issued him a public apology later he wrote several books about his life In them he described what it was like to be accused of murder.

Stag admitted that for 10 years his life was effectively ruined by journalists and the police after all of Britain finally believed in his innocence he decided to spend all the compensation on expensive trips. cars and other things that brought him joy in 2010 a special commission issued a report criticizing the actions of homicide detectives this document was called a catalog of wrong decisions and errors and the reason for this is not only the fact that the murder was not was able to solve For 16 years, the point is that if the police had done their job correctly, they could have arrested Napper before he killed Rachel Samantha and her daughter.

No disciplinary action was taken; However, all of the detectives involved in the case retired and one of the lead investigators died. As for Rachel's son, Alex, he didn't give his first interview until 2017. 25 years after the incident, he said that growing up without his mother had been problematic, but that he had found the strength to let go and move on shortly before the interview. to which he went. to the same place where his mother was murdered and at that moment he was finally able to let go of the weight of the past. We can only hope that this story, like others like it, serves as a lesson to law enforcement agencies around the world.

It's too late to speculate on whether or not the police could have saved Rachel and Samantha, but it's never too late to draw conclusions and prevent future crimes. Take care and thanks for watching.