Serial Killer Documentary - Robert Napper

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15th July 1992, London, England. On a summer morning, 23-year-old
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Rachel Nickell was walking her dog Molly across Wimbledon Common
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with her two-year-old son Alex.
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What started off as such a normal day had become
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an incredible human tragedy.
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A man appeared from the undergrowth, stabbing Rachel nearly 50 times,
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then sexually assaulting her.
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It's an act of the most unspeakable violence.
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He's doing it to desecrate her body and he's doing
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it in front of her son.
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He takes the breath away.
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Rachel's young son, Alex, was left alone, clinging to his
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mother's blood-soaked body.
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The level of violence used is absolutely horrific and it's
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something that really did shock the nation to the core.
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The depraved killer was 26-year-old Robert Knapper. 16 months later,
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he would strike again, killing a 4-year-old child, Jasmine Bissett,
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and her 27-year-old mother, Samantha, who was brutally dismembered.
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Leaving a woman posed in a way that robbed her
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of dignity, that is beyond simply wanting rid of somebody.
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That is truly evil.
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Robert Knapper was a rapist who sadistically attacked mothers in
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front of their children. He brutally killed two women, then
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desecrated their bodies, making Robert Knapper one of the world's
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most evil killers. When Rachel Nickell's murder hit the news,
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the public were appalled. Her toddler Alex was found alone
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by a passer-by pleading with his dead mother to get
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up mummy.
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This was the killing of.
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A young woman in front of her infant son, broad daylight,
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a sunny day in July, on Wimbledon Common, not.
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Far from the tennis.
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I mean, this is desecration of everything that people in
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Britain hold dear.
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It literally hypnotised the nation.
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This was a murder that really did shock because it's
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that stranger violence that when it happens, it makes us
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all question our own daily activities. It makes us think
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about our own level of risk. And while somebody is
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out there who is preying on strangers, everybody has something
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to fear.
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In the desperate hunt to find Rachel's murderer, police became
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fixated on an innocent man called Colin Stagg. Meanwhile, the
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real killer, Robert Knapper, slipped under their radar. Just over
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a year later, he brutally killed and sexually assaulted Samantha
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Bissett and her four-year-old daughter, Jasmine. Forensic psychologist Lawrence Allison
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was part of Colin Stagg's defence council.
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A real human tragedy in the sense that whilst all
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the attention was being allocated to Stag, right on the
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very doorstep of this was another very similar offence. A
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horrific mutilation attack on a young woman.
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The scene was something out of Dante's Inferno. Her body
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was cut completely open. The ribcage had been taken out.
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The legs had been severed at the knees. The internal
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organs had been torn. pulled about and repeatedly stabbed. It
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was beyond belief.
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Fingerprints left at the scene identified Robert Napper as the
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depraved killer, but it wasn't until a cold case review
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of Rachel Nickell's murder that DNA evidence finally led to
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Napper's conviction in 2008 for one of Britain's most notorious crimes.
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There is something about Napper that, still to this day
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sends a shiver down my spine.
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In that sense, he is a satanic figure.
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This killer's story began on the 25th of February 1966.
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Robert Clive Knapper was born in Erith, south-east London, and
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grew up on the nearby Abbey Wood estate. He was
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the eldest of four, with two brothers and a sister.
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His parents had a violent relationship. His mother was terrified
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of the father, and this so upset the children that
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they were all subjected to some counselling through children's psychiatrists.
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The other children seemed to have got over it quite well,
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but Robert Knapper continued to display behaviour which was unusual
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for a child of his age.
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At one point, he turned to his father and said,''
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They think I'm mad.'' His father thought it was a joke.
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But the awful truth, the reality, is that Knapper probably realized,
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even at a very young age, that he had the
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capacity for something quite extraordinary.
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At the age of 12, his parents divorced and his
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father left the home. Young Knapper found it difficult making
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friends and preferred to spend time on his own. Eventually,
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he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.
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Asperger's syndrome we know is a social disorder, very difficult
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to make connections with people. He was very isolated at school,
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very remote figure, and that seems to have carried forward
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all the way through his life.
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As Napper entered adolescence, his isolation continued. The young loner
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was mercilessly bullied at secondary school.
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He was despised at school, there's no question about that.
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People wouldn't play with him, they wouldn't sit with him.
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He was the archetypal outsider.
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Knapper was teased and bullied a lot in school, which
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is always devastating for people. These types of things that
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go on in early childhood are very impactful for how
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somebody develops later.
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On in life.
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He spent quite a lot of time in and out
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of foster care.
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And what tends to happen when children come from those
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kind of backgrounds is that they develop this very defensive
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attitude and outlook. Nobody is going to be there to
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look out for me, so I have to retaliate first.
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I have to always be on the attack.
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Young Knapper's anger at the world escalated following a trauma
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he suffered at the age of 12. He was sexually
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assaulted by a family friend on a camping holiday.
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Now, that may have given him a distorted view of sexuality.
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It may have triggered some kind of reaction in him
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that identified all sex as somehow abusive. It's possible he
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had a completely distorted vision of women.
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As Knapper progressed through his teenage years, the angry victim
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of abuse emerged as the abuser.
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There were early indications of violence towards his siblings. I
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believe that he discharged an air gun at the face
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of one of his siblings.
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It's pretty clear that he was a bully.
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He bullied his brothers and he spied on his sister.
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He was a voyeur. He started peeping at his own
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sister and then emerged from that.
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And that aspect of voyeurism plus a very uncomfortable adolescence
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led to Napa becoming effectively a time bomb.
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The troubled Napa left school at 16 and took a
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job at a local warehouse. Soon he was stalking the
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streets of southeast London, spying on women he saw at
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home alone.
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This was a man who, as he emerged into adulthood,
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was literally a volcano.
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One day, his peeping-tom behavior focused on a house next
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to Wynne's Common and turned into something more sinister.
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In August 1989, a woman was upstairs drying her hair,
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and her two children were downstairs. The napper broke into
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the house through the rear door, which they'd left open.
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He'd walked past two children who were having breakfast at
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the table, went upstairs, raped his victim, and then said
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to her, you should keep your door locked, walked back downstairs,
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passed the children, out, back over onto the common. He
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blamed the victim.
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He never should have left the door open. Do you
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know how many times I've heard that from offenders over
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the years? They blame the victim, and it's a way
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to rationalize, well, they're not fully responsible. You hear time
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and time again.
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But Knapper couldn't keep his dark secret. A few months later,
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he confessed to his mother.
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His mother was so concerned, she reported it to Plumstead
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Police Station. She was told... at the time, that a
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rape hadn't happened on Plumstead Common.
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The police could find no trace of the rape in
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their records, so Knapper's confession was never followed up. But
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his mother was so concerned about her son's mental state
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that she sent him back to a psychiatrist.
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She certainly was worried enough to refer him again to
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the Maudsley Hospital for further treatment, which he did go
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back to. but discharged himself after a short period of
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analysis and counseling.
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As Knapper's mental health deteriorated, his mother cut off contact.
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He continued his stalking behavior and marked his hunting grounds
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on an A to Z, His favourite was the green
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chain network of footpaths that winds its way through parkland
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across south-east London.
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This is a sexual predator on the loose.
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In the first months of 1992, he commits a series
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of attacks, attacking women chillingly, almost caressing his victims with
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a knife blade. He's a man out of control and
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absolutely consumed by sexual lust. not for a relationship, but
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simply for the power. By March, he'd made two attempted rapes.
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He really didn't penetrate the victim sexually because he was
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impotent at the crime scene in.
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Almost all of the cases.
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What does that mean? The violence takes the place of it.
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He was becoming, I think, increasingly frustrated, feelings of rage,
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and that violence was bubbling beneath the surface.
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His attacks became progressively more violent. He changed his targets,
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aiming for a different type of victim.
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His fantasies rotated around young mothers with young children. And
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in May 1992, he ties a ligature around a 22-year-old.
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As she pushes her baby daughter in a buggy, he
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pulls her into the undergrowth, strips her, rapes her, beats her.
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She begs for her life and he runs off.
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He viciously assaulted her. When she arrived at a relative's house,
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she wasn't recognized initially. She was so badly injured.
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The child was absolutely terrorized and that was just another
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level of sadistic gratification for Knapper.
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But soon, sexual assaults and beatings wouldn't be enough to
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satisfy the depraved urges of the mentally unstable Robert Knapper. Soon,
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he'd feel the need to carry out the ultimate of
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his sadistic fantasies, murder. By now, police had linked these
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sexual attacks and in June established Operation Eccleston to investigate
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the so-called Green Chain Rapist. But Robert Knapper remained at large,
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and on the morning of the 15th of July 1992,
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he set his sights on another young mother walking with
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her child on Wimbledon Common. 23-year-old ex-model Rachel Nickell The
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events that followed would make an indelible mark on the nation.
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So this was any normal day in July. It was
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a nice sunny day. Rachel's walking with her son and
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their dog across the common for what should have been
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the most normal walk in the world.
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This is a place where she went often. It was
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somewhere she felt safe, she felt secure. And it's quite
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likely that Napa had been stalking Rachel for some time.
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Napa was lurking in the undergrowth nearby. He was clearly
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looking for a victim. But this time, it wasn't so
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much the sexual urge, it was the fantasy of killing
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a woman that had come into its fullest.
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Napa waited until Rachel and her young son, Alex, came
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close and then attacked.
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He prodded her in the back with a knife to
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move her to a sort of cop's slightly more secluded area,
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forced her to kneel down and attacked her. He slit
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her throat and then stabbed her nearly 50 times in
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front of her son, a really horrific, disturbing offense.
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She was stabbed in the abdomen many times after she
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had obviously been killed. She was sexually assaulted and then
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left in the company of her child whilst he made
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good his escape.
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A witness saw Knapper washing Rachel's blood off his hands
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in a nearby stream.
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It was an act of such callousness and such bravura.
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He didn't run.
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He walked calmly away from this obscenity that he'd committed
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without apparently a moment's hesitation or looking back.
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He just calmly walked away.
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Two-year-old Alex was left alone holding his mother's dead body
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until an elderly walker found him amidst the horrific scene.
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Absolutely heartbreaking stuff.
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He's thinking that she's asleep or she's unconscious, and she's
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basically lying there, and he's saying, wake up, Mommy. You know,
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this is really horrific. He wouldn't really know how to
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make sense of this.
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Soon, the news spread of Rachel's death. Stories about the
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abhorrent crime continually hit the headlines in the weeks that followed.
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It absolutely captured the public imagination. Unprovoked attack on a
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young woman and her child. in broad daylight on Wimbledon Common,
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and the stories of the boy saying, wake up, mummy,
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get up, mummy, I mean, touched the heartstrings of the nation.
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It occupied everyone's mind.
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I think there was a huge amount of pressure on
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the police to solve the crime, and the difficulty was
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that the killer had actually left no forensic clue that
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was capable of being detected at the scene at all,
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and the police really had absolutely nothing to go on.
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Pressure to solve the case was mounting. In an effort
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to determine the type of individual most likely to be
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Rachel's killer, the Metropolitan Police brought in a psychological profiler.
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Between the police and the profiler, they constructed a profile
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00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:09.929
of the offender, a guy in his late 20s, early 30s,
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00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:13.450
an individual that didn't have very successful relationships with women,
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00:16:13.889 --> 00:16:16.289
that may well live on his own and was interested
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00:16:16.429 --> 00:16:19.529
in strange things such as Satanism and so on.
250
00:16:20.129 --> 00:16:24.149
An e-fit photograph was constructed based on the suspect seen
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00:16:24.250 --> 00:16:27.289
washing his hands, and this was sent out across the
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00:16:27.350 --> 00:16:32.429
national media. 30-year-old local man Colin Stagg was named in
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00:16:32.509 --> 00:16:34.669
several phone calls to the police.
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00:16:35.649 --> 00:16:38.529
Colin lived within about two miles of the offence. He
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00:16:38.580 --> 00:16:42.259
was also picked out in an identity parade and subsequently
256
00:16:42.299 --> 00:16:43.379
was interviewed by the police.
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Police visited his flat.
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00:16:45.710 --> 00:16:49.330
They felt that the flat was odd, partly because Colin
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00:16:49.350 --> 00:16:52.090
Stagg had one of the rooms painted black and on
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00:16:52.929 --> 00:16:56.470
some of the walls there were some seemingly strange chalk drawings,
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00:16:56.529 --> 00:16:58.549
which we now know were part of the Wiccan religion
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00:16:58.600 --> 00:17:01.580
but were interpreted in more sinister ways by the police
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00:17:01.620 --> 00:17:02.120
at the time.
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They had no real evidence apart from identification evidence of
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00:17:07.940 --> 00:17:10.680
one witness who put him on the common at the time.
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00:17:11.259 --> 00:17:15.750
So they made a decision to try and draw that
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00:17:15.910 --> 00:17:20.970
evidence from him by introducing an undercover police officer to
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00:17:21.029 --> 00:17:24.329
get him to confess to the murder. It was all
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00:17:24.430 --> 00:17:27.430
sanctioned at the very highest level at New Scotland Yard.
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00:17:28.250 --> 00:17:33.210
Under Operation Edsel, a young blonde female detective was sent
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00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:38.259
undercover using the pseudonym of Lizzie James. In a so-called
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00:17:38.460 --> 00:17:42.660
honey trap operation, she approached Colin Stagg through a dating
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00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:44.660
section in the local newspaper.
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00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:50.369
Very risky, very unusual operation. And the idea, essentially, was
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00:17:50.569 --> 00:17:54.630
to befriend Stagg through a series of letters, through a
276
00:17:54.670 --> 00:17:55.549
Lonely Hearts column.
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00:17:55.849 --> 00:17:56.869
And the intention of the.
278
00:17:56.849 --> 00:18:01.029
Undercover operation was to establish whether Stagg would know something
279
00:18:01.089 --> 00:18:04.950
about the offence that only the offender would know. And secondly,
280
00:18:05.339 --> 00:18:09.059
would he, in his dealings with Lizzie James, show any
281
00:18:09.099 --> 00:18:12.569
of the sexual fantasies or behaviours that the profiler had
282
00:18:12.609 --> 00:18:16.519
predicted that this sort of offender would be interested in.
283
00:18:17.490 --> 00:18:21.690
The police now seem fixated on proving Colin Stagg's guilt
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00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:27.779
using the relatively new trend in criminal investigation, psychological profiling.
285
00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:33.960
In any case where profiling becomes prominent in an investigation,
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00:18:34.259 --> 00:18:38.769
you're headed for disaster. Profiling behavior can be useful, but
287
00:18:39.069 --> 00:18:41.710
only as an add-on. It's just a way to give
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00:18:41.769 --> 00:18:46.549
the police another way to look at things. Profiling should never,
289
00:18:47.190 --> 00:18:51.069
ever take the place of time-tested investigative techniques.
290
00:18:51.849 --> 00:18:56.670
Meanwhile, Rachel's real killer, Robert Knapper, was still on the loose.
291
00:18:57.420 --> 00:18:59.480
So obviously part of the problem with the fixation on
292
00:18:59.579 --> 00:19:01.960
Colin Stagg at the time was that Napa must have
293
00:19:01.980 --> 00:19:05.180
been thinking, wow, this is fantastic. You know, all the
294
00:19:05.220 --> 00:19:07.319
heat's off me. No one's looking at me. So I
295
00:19:07.380 --> 00:19:09.359
suspect that this emboldened Napa to go on.
296
00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:14.579
At the end of August 1992, Napa did, however, come
297
00:19:14.660 --> 00:19:18.660
onto the police radar, but this was under Operation Eccleston,
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00:19:18.980 --> 00:19:23.329
the team investigating his earlier rapes along the Green Chain Walk.
299
00:19:24.190 --> 00:19:28.710
After publicising an e-fit of the suspected rapist, Napa's name
300
00:19:28.730 --> 00:19:31.190
had been put forward by two of his neighbours.
301
00:19:32.150 --> 00:19:35.690
Napa is invited to the police station and asked to
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00:19:35.730 --> 00:19:36.559
give a blood sample.
303
00:19:37.079 --> 00:19:41.140
He doesn't turn up. He's invited again. He doesn't turn
304
00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:41.519
up again.
305
00:19:42.619 --> 00:19:46.920
There are countless occasions in which Napa is identified as
306
00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:48.240
a possible suspect.
307
00:19:48.799 --> 00:19:49.630
He slips through the net.
308
00:19:50.700 --> 00:19:55.740
Eventually, in late October, the police wrongly concluded that Napa
309
00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:56.799
wasn't their man.
310
00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:02.589
The description given by all of the victims, except one,
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00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:08.609
was that the attacker was approximately 5 foot 10 inches tall.
312
00:20:09.150 --> 00:20:12.930
So a policy decision was made that anyone below five
313
00:20:12.970 --> 00:20:16.549
foot six and over six foot would be eliminated from
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00:20:16.569 --> 00:20:20.029
the inquiry. He was described as being over six foot one.
315
00:20:20.569 --> 00:20:24.339
So on that and that alone, he was eliminated from
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00:20:24.380 --> 00:20:24.970
the inquiry.
317
00:20:25.690 --> 00:20:29.390
Now Robert Knapper had escaped the police's watchful eye, he
318
00:20:29.430 --> 00:20:33.259
was free to roam the streets unhindered once again. Using
319
00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:37.799
his trusty A-Z map, he continued to stalk southeast London,
320
00:20:38.339 --> 00:20:42.000
marking places he'd spotted more potential victims.
321
00:20:42.759 --> 00:20:45.640
So it's very common to engage in what we call
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00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:48.900
behavioral tryouts. So if they're going to attack a particular victim,
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00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:51.180
they won't suddenly go out one day and make that attack.
324
00:20:52.019 --> 00:20:57.329
They will stalk, track, observe, and all the indications are
325
00:20:57.390 --> 00:20:59.809
with Napa that he was doing that. He would go
326
00:20:59.849 --> 00:21:02.769
for walks, he would select victims, heaping tom behavior, looking
327
00:21:02.789 --> 00:21:08.109
through windows, selecting victims, targeting specific houses, was all very
328
00:21:08.289 --> 00:21:10.349
significant in Napa's criminal repertoire.
329
00:21:11.809 --> 00:21:16.859
In July 1993, Napa's name came onto the police radar
330
00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:20.740
once again when he was reported prowling and spying on
331
00:21:20.779 --> 00:21:24.940
a house near Plumstead Common. The police officer who investigated
332
00:21:25.259 --> 00:21:29.180
reported him as a potential rapist. Once again, no further
333
00:21:29.299 --> 00:21:36.450
action was taken. Now Napa was stalking homes around one
334
00:21:36.490 --> 00:21:38.910
of his favourite haunts, Wynne's Common.
335
00:21:39.269 --> 00:21:41.069
He was looking for his next victims.
336
00:21:42.579 --> 00:21:46.599
Napa is hiding in the bushes again and sees a
337
00:21:46.619 --> 00:21:52.700
27-year-old woman called Samantha Bissett, who has a daughter, Jasmine. Well,
338
00:21:52.779 --> 00:21:55.640
one version of it is that he sees Samantha making
339
00:21:55.700 --> 00:22:00.420
love with her boyfriend through the window and is so
340
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:01.660
aroused by this.
341
00:22:03.619 --> 00:22:06.390
One night, Samantha Bissett said to her then partner, I've
342
00:22:06.410 --> 00:22:08.809
seen someone at our window, looking in at the window.
343
00:22:08.910 --> 00:22:11.289
We now know that that was Robert Knapper. So again,
344
00:22:11.630 --> 00:22:14.990
the modus operandi was exactly the same, picking on a victim,
345
00:22:15.049 --> 00:22:17.650
stalking the victim, ruminating through what he was going to
346
00:22:17.690 --> 00:22:18.529
do to that victim.
347
00:22:19.589 --> 00:22:23.049
On the evening of the 3rd of November, Knapper saw
348
00:22:23.089 --> 00:22:27.690
that Samantha was alone in her flat. Her 4-year-old daughter, Jasmine,
349
00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:32.460
was asleep in her bedroom. Knapper climbed onto the balcony
350
00:22:33.019 --> 00:22:37.480
and broke in through the window. He startled Samantha in
351
00:22:37.539 --> 00:22:38.140
her hallway.
352
00:22:39.200 --> 00:22:41.819
He attacks Samantha with a knife.
353
00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:46.680
He stabs her eight times, one blow so severe that
354
00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:53.529
it snaps her spinal cord. It is yet further example
355
00:22:53.940 --> 00:22:58.650
of Napa's grotesque depravity, but it doesn't even end there.
356
00:22:59.990 --> 00:23:04.170
The killer turned his mind to Samantha's sleeping daughter.
357
00:23:05.069 --> 00:23:09.589
He proceeds to sexually assault the four-year-old daughter Jasmine and
358
00:23:10.470 --> 00:23:14.960
suffocates her in her bedroom with her duvet and leaves
359
00:23:15.019 --> 00:23:18.599
her body on the bed surrounded by her toys.
360
00:23:20.339 --> 00:23:22.359
If we look at the method that Napper used to
361
00:23:22.420 --> 00:23:26.450
kill Jasmine, after he'd sexually assaulted her, he suffocated her.
362
00:23:26.829 --> 00:23:28.930
So he's using a different method to the method he
363
00:23:29.029 --> 00:23:31.849
used on her mother. And I think this is potentially
364
00:23:31.869 --> 00:23:34.880
a case of him mixing up his offending because offenders
365
00:23:34.910 --> 00:23:37.180
get bored, they like to vary it, they like to
366
00:23:37.220 --> 00:23:38.259
keep things interesting.
367
00:23:39.279 --> 00:23:44.460
But Napa's grotesque fantasies were not complete. He then dragged
368
00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:47.599
Mother Samantha's body into the lounge.
369
00:23:48.740 --> 00:23:51.420
Napa eviscerates Samantha's body.
370
00:23:52.670 --> 00:23:57.029
He cuts her from the chest to the crotch, peels
371
00:23:57.109 --> 00:24:03.599
back her skin, cracks the ribs... literally eviscerates this innocent
372
00:24:03.660 --> 00:24:07.099
young woman's body in a horrifying, horrible attack.
373
00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:15.279
After pulling away her ribs, Napa repeatedly stabbed Samantha's internal organs.
374
00:24:16.500 --> 00:24:19.619
He mutilates her body. He actually takes a part of
375
00:24:19.700 --> 00:24:23.809
the skin from her abdominal wall, presumably as some sort
376
00:24:23.849 --> 00:24:27.990
of trophy. There are deep cuts in her legs, almost
377
00:24:28.029 --> 00:24:30.670
as if he's attempting to dismember her. This is an
378
00:24:31.250 --> 00:24:38.299
escalation of his behavior. Once he has finished with the mutilation,
379
00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:43.920
he poses Samantha in a very sexually provocative pose.
380
00:24:45.079 --> 00:24:48.279
He positioned her body on a cushion and her body
381
00:24:48.299 --> 00:24:51.299
was left in the same position as it was when
382
00:24:51.430 --> 00:24:54.339
she had sex with her boyfriend. Now that basically is
383
00:24:54.539 --> 00:24:57.339
saying that this woman is sexually available. He is trying
384
00:24:57.380 --> 00:24:59.839
to create a narrative here. He's trying to say that
385
00:24:59.900 --> 00:25:02.779
she deserved this. And that really does tell us about
386
00:25:02.819 --> 00:25:03.619
his misogyny.
387
00:25:05.019 --> 00:25:09.480
Posing a victim following a murder of a sexual nature
388
00:25:09.539 --> 00:25:13.539
is very, very common. They pose the victim because killing
389
00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:17.700
alone is not psychosexually sufficient. And so they go beyond
390
00:25:17.799 --> 00:25:22.660
killing to satisfy themselves It's sexually stimulating. It's a fusion
391
00:25:22.819 --> 00:25:26.599
of sex and aggression so that the aggressive act itself
392
00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:28.200
is eroticized.
393
00:25:29.589 --> 00:25:33.450
Robert Knapper had now gained the status of a serial killer.
394
00:25:34.049 --> 00:25:38.849
Treasuring the part of Samantha's abdomen that he'd removed for safekeeping,
395
00:25:39.250 --> 00:25:44.400
the triple murderer left the horrific scene. Samantha's boyfriend made
396
00:25:44.460 --> 00:25:47.259
the tragic discovery the next morning.
397
00:25:48.180 --> 00:25:51.980
He entered the flat. and found Samantha's body in the
398
00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:54.880
living room. At first, he thought it was some sort
399
00:25:54.900 --> 00:25:57.859
of macabre joke because the body was destroyed, and he
400
00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:01.099
thought it was some form of mannequin, and he ran
401
00:26:01.160 --> 00:26:05.109
back to the kitchen and called the police.
402
00:26:06.089 --> 00:26:10.130
Former Detective Sergeant Alan Jackerman was one of the first
403
00:26:10.170 --> 00:26:11.970
to arrive at Samantha's flat.
404
00:26:12.630 --> 00:26:15.029
In all my years of service, I've never seen anything
405
00:26:15.109 --> 00:26:18.470
so dreadful and so horrific. From the state that the
406
00:26:18.529 --> 00:26:22.160
body was in the way that she'd been attacked and dismembered.
407
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:27.900
This was a crime way, way beyond normality, way out
408
00:26:27.920 --> 00:26:28.559
of the ordinary.
409
00:26:29.299 --> 00:26:32.700
One member of the forensic team investigating at the scene
410
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:36.329
was so traumatized they had to take two years' sick leave.
411
00:26:36.849 --> 00:26:39.890
The way Samantha's daughter Jasmine had been left by the
412
00:26:39.950 --> 00:26:43.569
killer was also deeply troubling for investigators.
413
00:26:44.670 --> 00:26:49.559
Jasmine had been attacked in her cot, her body, had
414
00:26:49.599 --> 00:26:53.079
been put back over, and she had the appearance of
415
00:26:53.140 --> 00:26:58.819
being a child asleep, which was somehow more disturbing than
416
00:26:58.839 --> 00:27:00.460
seeing what was left of her mother.
417
00:27:05.650 --> 00:27:09.009
Napa had seemingly left little in the way of evidence
418
00:27:09.109 --> 00:27:13.609
except a partial footprint in blood. Every single fingerprint that
419
00:27:13.630 --> 00:27:18.069
the police found in Samantha's flat was eliminated. including those
420
00:27:18.140 --> 00:27:22.369
belonging to little Jasmine's friends who'd recently visited for her
421
00:27:22.430 --> 00:27:23.690
fourth birthday party.
422
00:27:25.109 --> 00:27:28.529
There wasn't a good suspect coming into the frame. We
423
00:27:28.569 --> 00:27:33.269
went six months down the line and we all knew
424
00:27:33.289 --> 00:27:38.650
that this wasn't a one-off killing, so we concentrated our
425
00:27:38.690 --> 00:27:41.390
minds to try and find out who was responsible for this.
426
00:27:42.369 --> 00:27:47.230
In addition to that, of course, it had no... oxygen
427
00:27:47.309 --> 00:27:51.710
of publicity from the media because it was a single
428
00:27:51.750 --> 00:27:57.839
mother whom the press erroneously believed was on the edges
429
00:27:57.880 --> 00:28:01.319
of prostitution. So it didn't get much past the second
430
00:28:01.339 --> 00:28:02.400
page of the New Shopper.
431
00:28:03.160 --> 00:28:06.819
When we're comparing the media coverage, Rachel Nickell's murder received
432
00:28:06.859 --> 00:28:09.519
an awful lot more attention than.
433
00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:10.950
Samantha and Jasmine Bissett.
434
00:28:11.490 --> 00:28:14.190
And you're making judgements about this victim as to how
435
00:28:14.309 --> 00:28:15.730
worthy they are of attention.
436
00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:18.440
And what we've got here is.
437
00:28:18.619 --> 00:28:23.569
Judgments being made about appropriate femininity and appropriate motherhood. So
438
00:28:23.670 --> 00:28:27.269
Rachel was in a secure long-term relationship with her partner,
439
00:28:27.829 --> 00:28:31.609
Samantha's daughter, her father didn't live with the family.
440
00:28:32.029 --> 00:28:33.730
So I think all of those kind of.
441
00:28:33.789 --> 00:28:37.710
New right neoliberal values about what a family should look
442
00:28:37.750 --> 00:28:40.609
like are coming out here in the media's choice to
443
00:28:40.730 --> 00:28:43.569
emphasize the Nickell case over the Bissett case.
444
00:28:44.440 --> 00:28:48.190
With few leads to go on, the team investigating Samantha
445
00:28:48.230 --> 00:28:52.250
and Jasmine's murders was wound down to just five officers.
446
00:28:53.069 --> 00:28:58.329
Desperate for a breakthrough, in May 1994, the senior investigating
447
00:28:58.470 --> 00:29:02.069
officer took a punt and asked for the fingerprints found
448
00:29:02.250 --> 00:29:04.170
at the scene to be re-examined.
449
00:29:04.190 --> 00:29:08.500
He insisted that it was done, and then, within a
450
00:29:08.660 --> 00:29:14.339
few days, sheepishly, the fingerprint officer returned to say that
451
00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:18.519
they had made a mistake. It transpired that three fingerprint
452
00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:22.039
sets within the flat did not come from the victim.
453
00:29:22.319 --> 00:29:25.769
They came from some unknown person. When they were sent
454
00:29:25.849 --> 00:29:30.910
back for analysis, they came back as Robert Knapper, a
455
00:29:30.950 --> 00:29:34.089
man who had not featured in our inquiry at all.
456
00:29:35.309 --> 00:29:38.690
At last, the police had Robert Knapper in their sights
457
00:29:39.130 --> 00:29:42.660
when they delved into his history, they discovered he had
458
00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:44.339
a criminal record.
459
00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:48.900
We found that he had this firearm offence and in
460
00:29:48.960 --> 00:29:54.119
the property store was still some of the property appertaining
461
00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:56.670
to that offence. One of the items was an A
462
00:29:56.690 --> 00:30:01.420
to Z book, which, when we looked at it, had
463
00:30:01.809 --> 00:30:09.910
lots of roots, plans, which coincided with our murder and,
464
00:30:10.650 --> 00:30:15.890
more specifically, with the Green Chain rape offences. Also clearly
465
00:30:15.990 --> 00:30:21.279
marked out was the Isabella plantation, very close to Wimbledon Common,
466
00:30:22.180 --> 00:30:25.720
and that immediately rang bells with Rachel McKell.
467
00:30:26.710 --> 00:30:31.490
When Detective Sergeant Jackerman found Napper's mugshot on police file,
468
00:30:31.930 --> 00:30:34.490
they made another startling discovery.
469
00:30:35.799 --> 00:30:38.220
One of the indexers took one look at the photograph.
470
00:30:38.500 --> 00:30:42.039
She had worked on the green chain rape inquiry and
471
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:45.079
she said, that is the green chain rapist. So I
472
00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:47.880
ran out to the front office and took down from
473
00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:51.619
the wall the poster asking for information on the green
474
00:30:51.660 --> 00:30:55.329
chain rapist, which had a photo fit on it. and
475
00:30:55.349 --> 00:30:59.789
we compared the photographs, and they were very, very similar.
476
00:31:01.079 --> 00:31:05.079
Having possibly connected Knapper to further crimes as well as
477
00:31:05.140 --> 00:31:09.859
the Bissett murders, Detective Jackerman and his colleagues put the
478
00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:12.619
suspected killer under surveillance.
479
00:31:13.900 --> 00:31:16.700
The surveillance team had followed him, and he was carrying
480
00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:20.839
out some really strange behaviour, going on long walks on
481
00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:28.420
his own, looking at... camping equipment, firearm magazines, buying pornographic magazines.
482
00:31:28.740 --> 00:31:32.740
So it was felt, as it was a bank holiday weekend,
483
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:35.380
we couldn't take the risk that he might go out
484
00:31:35.400 --> 00:31:37.700
and kill somebody. The net was.
485
00:31:37.579 --> 00:31:42.789
Now closing in on triple murderer Robert Knapper. On 21st May,
486
00:31:43.289 --> 00:31:47.089
detectives went to his Plumstead flat to make an arrest.
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00:31:49.549 --> 00:31:54.259
He went to work, like clockwork, every morning at 7am.
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00:31:55.079 --> 00:31:58.160
We stood outside well before 7am, he didn't appear. So
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00:31:58.779 --> 00:32:01.920
we were starting to get worried then that perhaps he
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00:32:01.940 --> 00:32:02.500
wasn't in there.
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00:32:03.339 --> 00:32:06.089
It turned out that Knapper had been fired from his
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00:32:06.210 --> 00:32:09.829
job the previous day and was still in bed. He
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00:32:09.869 --> 00:32:12.569
was startled when the police knocked at his door.
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00:32:13.349 --> 00:32:16.970
He was totally shocked and he was immediately handcuffed, told
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00:32:17.029 --> 00:32:21.250
why he was under arrest. and a search was subsequently made,
496
00:32:21.529 --> 00:32:26.750
and another A-Z found knives and lots of incriminating evidence.
497
00:32:28.329 --> 00:32:32.390
Police had now found a second A-Z belonging to Napa
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00:32:32.710 --> 00:32:37.349
that showed markings next to Samantha Bissett's home. In his flat,
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00:32:37.670 --> 00:32:40.990
detectives also discovered a receipt for a pair of size
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00:32:40.990 --> 00:32:45.670
9 Adidas trainers, a bloodied footprint from exactly the same
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00:32:45.789 --> 00:32:48.230
shoe had been found at the murder scene.
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00:32:49.170 --> 00:32:52.839
We were able to take his DNA. The DNA, no
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00:32:52.880 --> 00:32:56.359
surprise to us, matched that of the green chain rapist.
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00:32:56.980 --> 00:33:00.700
So he was then in the frame for two rapes
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00:33:00.859 --> 00:33:04.140
and two attempted rapes, plus our two murders.
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00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:09.319
In July, Napa was charged and held on remand in prison,
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00:33:09.579 --> 00:33:12.299
but there still wasn't a link with the first murder
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00:33:12.660 --> 00:33:16.670
of 23-year-old Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common.
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00:33:16.410 --> 00:33:17.430
Two years earlier.
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00:33:18.369 --> 00:33:18.769
However.
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00:33:19.240 --> 00:33:23.339
Detective Jackerman was convinced he was Rachel's killer.
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00:33:24.940 --> 00:33:28.759
We went to the Wimbledon inquiry and put Knapper up
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00:33:29.700 --> 00:33:34.670
as a suspect for the Rachel McHale murder, by which
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00:33:34.789 --> 00:33:40.369
time they had in their frame their suspect, Colin Stagg.
515
00:33:41.450 --> 00:33:45.559
Despite our bringing this new suspect into the frame, he
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00:33:45.579 --> 00:33:47.460
was never, ever considered.
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00:33:48.460 --> 00:33:52.220
This innocent man, Colin Stagg, was being held in custody
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00:33:52.259 --> 00:33:56.130
for Rachel's killing. Barrister William Clegg was working on his
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00:33:56.190 --> 00:33:58.250
defence for the forthcoming trial.
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00:33:59.089 --> 00:34:01.410
I always thought he was a very unlikely killer because
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00:34:01.450 --> 00:34:04.619
of his personality, but it wasn't until I really read
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00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:07.099
the papers it became obvious to me that there was
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00:34:07.140 --> 00:34:08.510
not a shred of evidence against him.
524
00:34:09.070 --> 00:34:13.469
The police, however, believe their honey trap operation proved Colin
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00:34:13.489 --> 00:34:17.820
Stagg was Rachel's killer based on exchanges he'd had with
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00:34:17.860 --> 00:34:24.219
their undercover female operative, Lizzie James. Criminal psychologist Lawrence Allison
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00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:28.409
examined this evidence for Colin Stagg's defense team and was
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00:34:28.469 --> 00:34:30.010
concerned by what he found.
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00:34:30.949 --> 00:34:32.489
He said that in one of the meetings that he
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00:34:32.530 --> 00:34:35.309
had with Lizzie James, he almost dropped his chips. in
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00:34:35.369 --> 00:34:37.590
talking to her because what she was asking him for
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00:34:37.610 --> 00:34:39.849
was so bizarre and off the wall. And of course,
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00:34:40.449 --> 00:34:43.769
Stagg starts writing fantasies that go down that line, not
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00:34:43.809 --> 00:34:45.789
because he has them, but because he wants to please
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00:34:46.260 --> 00:34:47.760
a person that's offering him sex.
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00:34:48.579 --> 00:34:53.579
This was turned gradually into the attack on Wynwood and Common,
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00:34:54.500 --> 00:35:01.139
and he was encouraged to admit to having committed the murder,
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00:35:01.900 --> 00:35:03.119
but he never ever did.
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00:35:04.050 --> 00:35:07.380
When it finally came to a pre-committal hearing on the
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00:35:07.699 --> 00:35:11.539
14th of September, the judge threw out the case against
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00:35:11.619 --> 00:35:12.420
Colin Stagg.
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00:35:12.880 --> 00:35:16.199
Colin tragically spent 13 months in custody awaiting trial, but
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00:35:16.219 --> 00:35:18.760
it never went to full trial, and Lord Chief Justice
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00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:21.809
Ognall described it as deceptive conduct of the grossest kind.
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00:35:22.309 --> 00:35:24.449
The undercover operation, quite rightly, was thrown out.
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00:35:24.469 --> 00:35:27.769
The judge recognised that there was never any evidence against me,
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00:35:28.050 --> 00:35:30.500
no forensic evidence, no confession evidence, nothing at all.
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00:35:31.349 --> 00:35:36.730
Colin Stagg was eventually awarded over £ 700, 000 in damages by
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00:35:36.769 --> 00:35:41.409
the Metropolitan Police and given a formal apology. Five days
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00:35:41.550 --> 00:35:44.949
after his acquittal, a review of the Rachel Nickell murder
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00:35:44.989 --> 00:35:46.710
investigation was launched.
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00:35:47.760 --> 00:35:53.559
Gradually, at that point, the recognition is that perhaps there
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00:35:53.619 --> 00:35:58.139
is a link between Rachel Nickell's killing and Samantha Bissett's killing.
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00:35:59.019 --> 00:36:00.340
Gradually, the two.
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00:36:00.239 --> 00:36:04.469
Forces coalesce so that it becomes clear that Napa could
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00:36:04.590 --> 00:36:07.050
well have been responsible for both killings.
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00:36:07.869 --> 00:36:11.719
Napa was interviewed by the review team about Rachel's killing,
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00:36:12.119 --> 00:36:15.000
but as the police still had no evidence linking him
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00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:16.489
to the scene, this.
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00:36:16.360 --> 00:36:17.429
Led to a dead end.
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00:36:18.239 --> 00:36:23.039
Nearly a year later, though, in October 1995, Robert Knapper's
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00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:26.159
trial date was set for the murders of Samantha and
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00:36:26.219 --> 00:36:29.750
Jasmine Bissett and for one count of rape and two
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00:36:29.829 --> 00:36:33.510
counts of attempted rape for his Green Chain Walk attacks.
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00:36:34.070 --> 00:36:36.550
Barrister William Clegg was defending him.
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I'd met Robert Knapper at Broadmoor Mental Hospital, where he
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was on remand awaiting his trial. It was soon fairly
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obvious to me that he was suffering from serious delusions.
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00:36:51.059 --> 00:36:54.159
He firmly believed members of the royal family were visiting
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00:36:54.260 --> 00:36:55.579
him in Broadmoor.
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He was an extremely ill man.
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00:36:59.079 --> 00:37:03.880
Despite being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, an assessment by
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four different psychiatrists concluded Knapper was fit to stand. The
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00:37:08.860 --> 00:37:12.440
trial for the murders of Samantha and Jasmine Bissett began
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00:37:12.500 --> 00:37:14.219
at the Old Bailey on 9th October.
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00:37:17.070 --> 00:37:18.989
We were on the edges of our seats as we
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00:37:19.050 --> 00:37:22.349
sat outside number one court waiting for the trial to
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00:37:22.389 --> 00:37:26.329
begin when all of a sudden the commotion and everybody
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00:37:26.369 --> 00:37:28.900
started running out of the court and the word goes
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00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:33.840
around that he's pleaded to manslaughter through diminished responsibility. There's
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00:37:33.860 --> 00:37:41.159
a mixed feeling because manslaughter is not a conviction of murder. However,
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00:37:41.800 --> 00:37:45.230
under the circumstances, it was obvious that he was guilty
583
00:37:46.559 --> 00:37:50.019
mentally very, very ill. And it was an omission of
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00:37:50.099 --> 00:37:51.699
sorts and a conviction.
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00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:55.250
I think what can tend to happen is that the
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00:37:55.289 --> 00:37:58.289
assumption can be made that the offender isn't responsible for
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00:37:58.329 --> 00:38:01.809
what they've done. But he actually was in this case.
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00:38:01.849 --> 00:38:03.969
He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew what
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00:38:04.010 --> 00:38:05.670
he was doing was wrong and he chose.
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00:38:05.449 --> 00:38:06.130
To do it anyway.
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00:38:06.989 --> 00:38:12.119
Napa was sentenced to life in Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital in Berkshire.
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00:38:13.800 --> 00:38:16.219
I think the sentence was inevitable. The best place for
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00:38:16.280 --> 00:38:19.840
him was a special hospital, and it was important for
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00:38:20.039 --> 00:38:21.539
everybody that he remain there.
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00:38:22.179 --> 00:38:22.860
But D.S.
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00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:27.199
Jackerman wasn't finished with Robert Napper. He was still convinced
597
00:38:27.320 --> 00:38:31.420
Napper was also responsible for the killing of Rachel Nickell
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00:38:31.820 --> 00:38:34.739
on Wimbledon Common in July 1992.
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00:38:34.739 --> 00:38:41.340
That became all-consuming. We became more and more convinced over
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00:38:41.380 --> 00:38:44.989
the years that he was responsible for the Rachel Nickell killing.
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00:38:45.630 --> 00:38:49.670
DS Jackerman had relayed his suspicions about Knapper to Rachel
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00:38:49.730 --> 00:38:53.750
Nickell's original murder inquiry team, but they already had a
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00:38:53.849 --> 00:38:58.400
suspect awaiting trial and the evidence he presented wasn't given
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00:38:58.460 --> 00:39:00.179
the recognition it deserved.
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00:39:00.780 --> 00:39:01.579
Now, under a.
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00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:05.659
New review team, DS Jackerman made it his business to
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00:39:05.719 --> 00:39:09.599
tell the senior investigating officer about Robert Knapper.
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00:39:10.820 --> 00:39:14.159
I went into my office, wrote out a report giving
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00:39:14.199 --> 00:39:17.380
all the details as to why I believed that Robert
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00:39:17.400 --> 00:39:21.860
Knapper was guilty of killing Rachel McHale, gave it back
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00:39:21.909 --> 00:39:24.550
to him, and he took it and put him on
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00:39:24.590 --> 00:39:24.949
the list.
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00:39:26.050 --> 00:39:29.329
A new forensics team was appointed, and in July 2008...
614
00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:36.159
in DNA techniques led to a breakthrough. Samples taken from
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00:39:36.219 --> 00:39:41.880
Rachel's body revealed a mixed DNA profile of her killer. Soon,
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00:39:41.940 --> 00:39:46.340
this was identified as belonging to serial murderer Robert Knapper.
617
00:39:47.039 --> 00:39:51.659
Other evidence was also reexamined, linking him to the scene.
618
00:39:53.119 --> 00:39:58.659
In Rachel's child's hair were found some flakes of red paint.
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00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:03.690
Nobody quite knows how this happened, but they were found
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00:40:03.949 --> 00:40:10.590
to match a toolbox recovered from Robert Knapper's flat on
621
00:40:10.650 --> 00:40:11.329
his arrest.
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00:40:12.210 --> 00:40:15.309
An old pair of shoes that Knapper still had with
623
00:40:15.349 --> 00:40:17.590
him in Broadmoor were also seized.
624
00:40:18.289 --> 00:40:21.590
They were examined against shoe prints found against the man
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00:40:21.650 --> 00:40:24.699
seen washing his hands near the scene of Rachel Kell's murder.
626
00:40:25.300 --> 00:40:28.239
And those shoes matched the shoe prints next to the stream.
627
00:40:29.940 --> 00:40:34.579
Gradually, the case is built against Knapper. But it's not
628
00:40:34.619 --> 00:40:40.059
until 2006 that he's interviewed again about the possibility of
629
00:40:40.099 --> 00:40:41.579
his killing Rachel McKell.
630
00:40:42.820 --> 00:40:46.460
It took another two years until the 18th of December
631
00:40:46.460 --> 00:40:52.449
2008 for Rachel's family to finally see justice, 16 years
632
00:40:52.739 --> 00:40:57.429
after her death. 42-year-old Robert Knapper returned to the Old
633
00:40:57.469 --> 00:40:59.449
Bailey charged with her murder.
634
00:41:00.610 --> 00:41:03.909
He sat there and he didn't look much different and
635
00:41:04.210 --> 00:41:07.090
it was in a dream that the charges were read
636
00:41:07.650 --> 00:41:10.110
and he pleaded guilty to Rachel's manslaughter.
637
00:41:11.210 --> 00:41:15.239
Once again, Knapper pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds
638
00:41:15.300 --> 00:41:19.619
of diminished responsibility. The judge sentenced him to remain in
639
00:41:19.679 --> 00:41:25.820
Broadmoor Hospital indefinitely. For Detective Sergeant Jackerman, it was the
640
00:41:25.860 --> 00:41:28.440
moment he'd waited years to witness.
641
00:41:29.420 --> 00:41:32.280
Just before he went down the steps, he turned, looked
642
00:41:32.320 --> 00:41:36.590
directly at me and recognised me, and I just mouthed, hello, Bob.
643
00:41:38.010 --> 00:41:41.380
It was a satisfying moment, but it was more than that.
644
00:41:42.050 --> 00:41:46.039
It was relief. It was vindication, really, of all those
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00:41:46.079 --> 00:41:47.139
years of plugging away.
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00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:50.940
It brought to a close one of the most upsetting
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00:41:51.019 --> 00:41:53.639
murder cases in British criminal history.
648
00:41:54.559 --> 00:41:58.719
Napper is completely devoid of any conscience. He doesn't care
649
00:41:59.030 --> 00:42:01.989
about the impact of his actions on others, and that
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00:42:02.030 --> 00:42:04.070
makes him a very dangerous man indeed.
651
00:42:05.190 --> 00:42:09.139
His mental state, whether he's schizophrenic, really have nothing to
652
00:42:09.179 --> 00:42:12.019
do with the crimes. The important point is that he's
653
00:42:12.179 --> 00:42:14.960
off the street and can't hurt anybody again.
654
00:42:14.980 --> 00:42:21.150
The man knows no humanity. The man has utter disregard
655
00:42:22.030 --> 00:42:25.969
for a human life. He took inordinate pleasure from the
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00:42:26.010 --> 00:42:27.050
suffering of his victims.
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00:42:27.739 --> 00:42:31.659
Napper raped and sexually assaulted women as they walked across
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00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:36.130
London's parklands and commons. He homed in on vulnerable mothers
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00:42:36.489 --> 00:42:39.849
and took sadistic pleasure from attacking them in front of
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00:42:39.889 --> 00:42:43.869
their children. He brutally slayed two women in the prime
661
00:42:43.909 --> 00:42:48.480
of their life, then sexually assaulted and killed a four-year-old child.
662
00:42:49.739 --> 00:42:54.000
That makes Robert Napper one of the world's most evil killers.