As long-time fans of true crime will know, there is nothing more frustrating than shoddy police work. Anyone who has ever seen a documentary or listened to a podcast on Robert Napper would be able to tell you that the Metropolitan Police had royally messed up their investigations into both the Green Chain Rapist case and the murder of Rachel Nickell, completely ruining the life of an innocent man and resulting in more than one police officer losing their jobs.
When this case was first pitched, the focus was specifically on how the Metropolitan Police’s incompetence had tragic consequences. But while hunting for more details, a book called “Napper – Through a Glass Darkly” was discovered, published in 2019. It is a firsthand account written by Alan Jackaman, one of the Detective Inspectors who was part of the investigative team that captured Robert Napper, and it turned this narrative on its head—changing a case of disgraceful police incompetence into a story about a team of five investigators who did what the rest of the Metropolitan Police had been unable to do: link three unrelated cases together by focusing on doing their jobs, finally explaining how a serial rapist and killer had managed to evade capture for almost four years.
The Elusive Robert Napper
Let’s start with an introduction to Robert Clive Napper, born on the 25th of February 1966 in Erith, South-East London. Later, he would be the eldest of four children. His father, Brian Napper, was a driving instructor, and his mother, Pauline, stayed home to look after the kids.
The Napper family life was far from idyllic. Brian Napper was an abusive man who couldn’t even tell you when his children’s birthdays were, but at least Pauline had the strength to divorce him when Robert was 10, removing herself and her kids from that situation.
Brian Napper kept turning up at their new home in Plumstead, another area in South-East London, and continued to harass Pauline and the kids until he finally emigrated to Australia. As a result, the children would receive psychiatric treatment at the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital to help them cope with the emotional abuse they’d suffered. It was during these visits to a psychiatrist that Robert Napper would be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, which these days has been re-classified as a form of high-functioning autism, meaning that he found it difficult to relate to others, had trouble understanding social cues, and had obsessive tendencies.
He would continue to receive treatment until he turned 16, and as a teenager, he would also be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. As a result, he believed that he was being followed and that when he was 13, he wrote The Star Wars trilogy before selling it to George Lucas, making him incredibly wealthy. He also believed that he often received “haunted” checks in the mail from the British government and that the Internal Revenue Service targeted him and his family out of revenge, going so far as to send them a letter bomb in the mail that exploded in his hand. Of course, that would have damaged his hands beyond repair, but not to worry—his dad had simply glued his fingers back on, and he was right as rain again.
Later, Robert Napper would say that he’d had a mostly happy childhood, but according to Bill Pete, an old classmate of Robert Napper, he was a quiet and shy child who didn’t fit in with any of the social groups in his class. He was often bullied at school, resulting in him spending a lot of time on his own. Allegedly, he started acting out when his mother was in the hospital for a kidney complaint, and he would skip school and get in trouble for shoplifting.
According to Robert, the turning point in his life happened when he was 12. He went camping with family friends, and during this trip, young Robert would be sexually assaulted by a friend of Pauline’s. When Robert told his mother about the assault, she reported the “friend” to the police, and he was subsequently convicted of sexual assault. But something in Robert broke that day, and a monster was born.
Pauline would later explain that after that disastrous camping trip, Robert was a different person. He would spend all his time in his bedroom, and when he did leave his room, he’d bully his younger siblings and often got into trouble for spying on his younger sister when she was taking a bath or getting dressed.
He left school when he was 16 and would go on to take several jobs where he never lasted very long. For the next twelve years, he worked as a kitchen assistant, a cable operator, an under-chef, and a machine operator-slash-packer, but his employers all explained that he had trouble fitting in. He was a good worker, but he was often late, and he had a habit of taking days off without notifying anyone regarding where he was going to be or when he would be back.
His colleagues described him as being “weird” and explained that he would often talk and argue with himself and could sometimes be seen shouting at the sky. He wouldn’t speak to any of the female staff, and in turn, they felt uncomfortable and afraid around him, referring to him as “The Creep.”
But it was his fascination with knives and other weapons that no one knew about. He’d frequent hunting supply stores and order hunting knives through the mail, keeping his favorite knives in a red toolbox. He’d often wander around south-east London with the red toolbox hidden away in a black Jaguar sports bag as he made his way to and from job sites, using London’s public transport system to get around the city.
It was during these trips that Robert Napper made note of his future targets. He would stalk them for days or weeks before he attacked, drawing up maps that detailed the area around their homes, including the best hiding spots from where he could watch them. He also kept track of them by marking their addresses in an A-Z guide to London that he’d bought—which of course means that he was doing a brilliant job of documenting his crimes, but we’ll get to that later.
Because by the time the Metropolitan Police finally caught up to him, Robert Napper had already stalked over 80 women, had sexually assaulted 4 of them, killed 3 more, and had left little to no evidence behind, making it difficult for the police to pin him down and finally bring him to justice.
The Green Chain Rapist
There’s a lot to see and do in and around central London, but the outer edges of the city also have a lot to offer tourists and locals who have some time on their hands. There are seven walking routes around London, all of them specifically designed so that you can tour London’s sights simply by following these marked routes.
The Green Chain Walk is located in South-East London, and consists of 11 different sections, stretching from the Thames Path to the Nunhead Cemetery. There are several parks and forested commons—protected areas for international readers—along the route, with sections of the route passing through residential areas where they link up with London’s transportation system, making it easy to move around London using these routes. This also means that there are a lot of dark, shadowed corners and overgrown paths along the route, and the properties that were situated on the borders of these parks became prime targets for Robert.
At 7am on the 10th of August 1989, a young mother known only as Julia opened her kitchen door to let the cat out. The backyard of her apartment on Purrett Road looked out onto an area known locally as Plumstead Common—even though technically, it was on the border of the Winns and Plumstead commons—and the edges were lined with lush trees and a healthy undergrowth.
Julia’s two children were due to come downstairs, so she made breakfast for them, and once they were seated around the breakfast table, she went upstairs to take a quick shower and get ready for the day.
At around 8:25, Robert stepped out of his hiding spot between the silver birch trees and climbed over the low fence that separated the backyard from the common. He calmly walked into the kitchen, walking past the 5 and 8-year-old who were still busy with their breakfast, and headed upstairs to where Julia was now getting dressed.
Julia heard a noise and froze when she saw Robert standing in her bedroom door. He had tied a beige cloth around the bottom half of his face, and when Julia noticed him, he took a Stanley knife from his pocket and ordered her to lie down on the bed, or else he’d hurt her children.
Julia did as he asked, and Robert stepped up to her and pulled her t-shirt up and over her head. He tied it with an electrical flex cord, politely asking her what her name was as he stripped her down further, keeping the tip of the knife pressed to her throat.
He raped her while her children were downstairs enjoying their breakfast, and once he was done, he cut her loose and ordered her to stand in the corner of her bedroom and count to 20. Before he left, though, he turned to Julia and said: “Do you want a piece of advice? Don’t leave your back door open.”
Julia watched from the upstairs window as he left the house through the kitchen door, climbed back over the fence, and disappeared into the trees that lined Winn Common. Still shaking, she went downstairs to ensure that her children were still unharmed and found them in front of the television, happily watching cartoons, before calling the police.
The police officers who came to interview Julia took DNA samples from her, and she described her assailant as being approximately 5’10”. He was of medium build and had short, mousy hair. He’d looked young, and she judged him to be around 19.
The police officers assured her that they would let her know the moment they found out more about who’d attacked her. The DNA samples were tested, but they only managed to get a partial profile. Unfortunately, the DNA profile didn’t match anyone on the system, and when the police were unable to identify a likely suspect within a few weeks, the case was closed, and their resources were allocated to more pressing cases. It’s a sad reality when it comes to the nature of their work, and it’s difficult to fault the police on this one, since they had no other leads to follow.
Yet.
Robert Napper would continue to stalk the houses along the Green Chain Walk, but in October 1989, he confessed his crime to his mother, telling her how he’d raped a woman on Plumstead Common.
Pauline was shocked, and she ended up kicking Robert out of the house before disowning him entirely. She then went to the Plumstead Police Station and told the desk clerk on duty that she had to report a crime. She didn’t know any of the particulars, only that the woman had been attacked on Plumstead Common earlier that year, and that her son had been the one to rape her.
And this is where the confusion came in—the area where Julia lived was known as Plumstead Common, but technically, her house was located on the border of Winns Common. Secondly, she’d been raped inside her home, not on the common as Pauline had incorrectly reported. So the officers who looked into the report couldn’t find any unsolved sexual assaults that matched the information provided by Pauline, but worst still, they didn’t go and question Robert either, allowing him to continue stalking the single women living around Plumstead Common.
In February 1992—more than two years after his first attack—a young, attractive, blonde woman was busy watching TV one night when one of her living room windows exploded. Reflexively, she looked towards the shattered window and saw a man lurking in the trees that bordered her yard. Angry, she called out to him in order to confront him, but he disappeared between the trees, and the woman searched her living room to see if she could find whatever rock or brick he’d used to break her window, unable to think of a reason why he’d done it.
She didn’t find a brick—but she did find a bullet hole in the wall, quite close to where she’d been sitting, and a feeling of dread washed over her. She called the police and the bullet was retrieved, but with no other evidence to go on, the case was labeled as an act of “criminal damage” and was closed.
On the evening of the 10th of March 1992, Robert would attempt to rape a 17-year-old after he’d followed her down a darkened alleyway. He had pushed her up against a wall and had removed some of her clothes, but he’d been unable to perform and ran away soon after. She’d describe him as being a white male, approximately 20 years old, and 5’8” tall. He had dark brown hair and brown eyes and a clean complexion without any spots.
He had a south-east London accent and was wearing a black bomber jacket and blue jeans. He’d left enough semen behind for the police to draw up a DNA profile for him, and it matched the DNA profile of the earlier sexual assault case, but still, the police didn’t have a suspect.
At around 8 pm on the 18th of March, he’d attempted to rape another 17-year-old girl who’d tried to get away from her stalker by cutting through the Vista Common and leaving the lightened path that she’d been on. He appeared on the shadowed pathway in front of her wearing a balaclava and holding a knife and forced her onto her back. He fumbled around for a few minutes before he finished, and once again he disappeared between the trees.
She described her attacker as being a young white male of about 19, with collar-length mousey hair. DNA was taken from her, and once again, it matched the unnamed assailant that had already attacked two other women.
And on the 24th of May at 2 pm, a 22-year-old mother was out for her daily walk with her 2-year-old daughter who was asleep in her stroller. She’d seen a man crossing the path ahead of her before he disappeared into the trees, but she didn’t think much of it until he appeared behind her and placed a cord around her neck. Instinctively, she let go of the stroller and grabbed at the cord, stepping back into her assailant’s chest.
He dragged her into the trees, and when she began to fight back, he hit her multiple times in the face until she was dazed. He raped her, then left her sprawled out on the ground and got away without anyone noticing him.
Beaten and bloody, she managed to walk to her mother-in-law’s house before she collapsed. The police were called, and she described her attacker as being a young white male with a slim build, short brown hair, and a spotty complexion. During her first statement, she’d describe him as being “really tall”, about the same length as the officer who’d interviewed her. He was 6’3”. Later, she’d change her description of her attacker, adding that he was 5’7” instead and that he was wearing a shirt and blue shorts.
Once again, DNA was recovered from her, and it matched the unnamed assailant who’d already attacked three other women in or around Plumstead Common.
The investigative team on the case not only had DNA on file for the attacker, but all four of the victims had provided them with a similar description. They issued a PhotoFit—aka a police sketch—to the local newspapers, who all ran the image together with the warning that the assailant known as The Green Chain Rapist was active in the Plumstead area and was known to carry a knife.
Calls flooded the Eltham Police station where the investigative team was based, and their list of suspects grew longer and longer every day. One of the detectives suggested that they call in the help of a psychological profiler to help them narrow down the list, and the investigative team contacted a clinical psychologist named Paul Britton, who agreed to help out. He was well known in police circles as being instrumental in solving some high-profile cases, including the investigation into the Horror House of Fred and Rose West. Once he was briefed on the case and had read the relevant files, he came up with the following profile for The Green Chain Rapist:
The man they were looking for would be between 18 and 25 years old but wasn’t likely to be older than 28. He would be of low to average intelligence, and if he is employed, he would have a menial job that doesn’t demand too much from him intellectually. If he does have female colleagues, he would likely shun them, and wouldn’t approach them unless they confronted him first. When it comes to his crimes, he is a risk-taker and isn’t concerned with being captured.
He expresses considerable rage and anger, derives pleasure from the fear he produces in his victims, and based on his last attack, he could become more aggressive based on the reactions of his victim, meaning that he would kill them if they fought back.
It is more than likely that the police have already encountered him before, and that he already has a record with them. He’s local and probably grew up in the area. He will bring himself to the attention of the police in three ways: by information provided by the public, by being caught during an offense, or by an elimination process based upon an examination of existing police records.
But despite the efforts of Paul Britton and the police officers on the investigative team, none of the leads they received panned out, and by August 1992 the lead detective on the case was put under pressure to close the case down. They hadn’t had another attack since May, and the team members were needed on other cases.
So the decision was made to narrow their suspect list down to young white males between the ages of 19 and 30 years, who were between 5’7” and 5’9”.
And that is where the first major slip-up in the case occurred, because two separate people would call the Eltham police station to let them know that they thought that Robert Napper might be The Green Chain Rapist.
One of his colleagues told the Metropolitan Police that Robert was a paranoid schizophrenic and a good fit for the Photofit. One of his neighbours also called in and said that he’d seen the Photofit in a local newspaper and that he could’ve sworn that it was “Bob Napper”. He used to see Robert leave his apartment alone late at night, and one of their other neighbours mentioned that Robert always had his bags packed, something that they found to be odd.
So on the 28th of August 1992 two police officers showed up at Robert Napper’s door and were greeted by a tall, cooperative, and quiet man who was taller than 5’7”. When they asked Robert how tall he was, he told them that he was 6’1”. They made a note of his height but didn’t mention that Robert walked with a noticeable stoop, making him appear shorter than he was.
The two police officers notified Robert that they needed him to come down to the station and provide a blood sample since he was a person of interest in one of their cases. They even provided him with an appointment letter, noting that he should report to the Eltham Police Station on the 2nd of September 1992 at 7 pm.
Now, it is important to note that according to DI Jackaman, suspects aren’t legally obliged to provide the police with blood samples and that in fact, Robert Napper was fully within his right to refuse. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he didn’t show up for his appointment on the 2nd of September.
On the 4th of September 1992, the police delivered him with yet another appointment letter, this time for the 8th of September. Again, he didn’t show, and this time, a Detective Sergeant was assigned to review his profile. The detective noted that due to his height, Robert Napper fell outside of the set height parameters, and because they were under pressure to close the case by month’s end, he was dismissed as a suspect and his record with the Eltham police was closed.
Years later, the Independent Police Complaints Commission would find that this decision had inevitably led to the deaths of Samantha and Jazmine Bisset.
The Murder of Rachel Nickell
Earlier that year, on the 15th of July 1992, barely two months after he’d attacked a young mother on Plumstead Common, Robert Napper escalated from stalking and sexually assaulting women when he murdered Rachel Nickell. She was a 23-year-old part-time model who lived near Wimbledon Common in South-West London with her partner, André Hanscombe, their almost 3-year-old son, Alex, and their Labrador mix, Molly.
At around 10:25 that sunny July morning, Rachel was taking Alex and Molly for a walk near the Windmill, following the same route through Wimbledon Common that she always took. Rachel had just sent Molly away to run off her excess energy when a man stepped up behind her, pressed a blade to her throat, and ordered her to leave the paved walk and head into the trees. If she didn’t comply, he said, emphasizing his words with the press of his blade, he’d hurt her son.
Rachel stared into Alex’s hazel eyes and agreed, leading her son deeper into the trees that lined the walk, all the while feeling the blade pressed into her neck. Once they were hidden by the trees, the man started pulling at her clothes, ordering her to take them off.
Realizing that something was wrong, Alex started crying, and Rachel tried to soothe him, but the boy’s cries angered Robert, and he grabbed his red toolbox and hit Alex against the head with it, knocking the boy out.
Angered, Rachel started attacking Robert, trying to keep him away from her son. Unlike his other victims so far, Rachel was making a lot of noise, so Robert fought to overpower her and would end up stabbing her over 49 times, killing her. He finished raping her before fleeing the scene, leaving an unconscious Alex spread out on the ground a few feet away from his mother’s corpse.
Little Alex would wake up alone and go and sit next to his mother, trying to bandage her injuries with fallen tissues and leaves. And that is where Michael Murray and his dog found them after he’d noticed a pair of bare legs sticking out from under the bushes.
“When I got up to where she lay, her eyes had no life in them at all. My first thought was for the child, I think he was in shock…he just said ‘get up, Mummy.’ He was trying to pull her up, but she was, of course, dead by then.”
Within an hour of her death, the Metropolitan Police had barricaded all of the entrances leading into Wimbledon Common, hoping to either trap the killer or find any witnesses to his crime, but by then, Robert Napper had already left the area and was on a train heading back to South-East London.
There were over 500 people on Wimbledon Common that day, and one of them told the police that at around 10:40 that morning, she’d seen a man washing his hands in a stream near the murder site. When she neared him, he got up and walked towards the cemetery that bordered the common. She described him as being a white man between the ages of 20 and 30 years, 6’0” tall, with short, collar-length hair. He was wearing a cream or white top and loose blue jeans and was carrying a black bag.
Another woman known as Mrs. H had been walking in the park with her 3 kids. She was walking near the Windmill car park when she saw a white man walking towards her. He was wearing dark trousers and a white button-up top, had short, dark hair, and was carrying a dark-coloured sports bag.
She estimated him to be in his late 20’s or early 30’s, 5’10” tall, and noted that he walked with a stooping gait. As he approached her, she’d greeted him, noting his “babyish” sort of face. He didn’t reply, averting his face instead, and kept on walking. She and her children were sitting at the Curling Pond when she saw him return.
She saw him following a young blonde woman, but he came back at around 10:20 before he disappeared into the trees near the Windmill. She was able to provide the police with a detailed description that was used for the Photofit.
A police dog had traced a path from the scene of the murder to a drainage ditch, and then a boundary wall next to Putney Vale Cemetery. Two witnesses had heard someone running through the bushes in the cemetery around the time of Rachel’s murder, but they didn’t see whomever it was.
The Metropolitan Police managed to find various footprints made with both working boots and trainers near the stream where the suspicious man had been seen washing his hands, and made casts of the prints. Red paint flakes were recovered from Alex’s hair, and the crime scene examiner had found what he thought were semen stains on Rachel’s underwear. These stains were sent for DNA analysis but were found not to contain enough DNA for a positive profile, leaving the investigative team without any solid evidence to go on.
Not only that, but their only witness to the crime was a 3-year-old whose only concern at that stage was where their dog had disappeared to. It would be weeks before his father, André, managed to get Alex to describe the man who’d hurt his mummy.
According to young Alex, it was a thin, white man, who wore blue pants and a white shirt, and carried a red box with him. Alex’s description matched the descriptions that had been provided by the other witnesses, and the police used this information to whittle down their list of suspects.
Due to the public nature of the attack, the press took a keen interest in the case, and the now defunct newspaper, “News of the World”, offered a £15,000 reward for any information that could lead to the arrest of the killer. As a result, the investigative team at the Wimbledon Police Station was flooded with information, and a team of almost 50 detectives and office staff were assigned to the case.
From day one, the press was hot on the heels of the investigative team, trying to get as much information on their progress as possible, going so far as to stalk members of the investigative team and hounding them for answers. Andre, Rachel’s partner, appeared at a press conference, asking the public to come forward with any information that they might have, saying: “This person has to be found before someone else is killed and another family destroyed.”
But despite all the publicity, the investigative team still didn’t have a lot to go on, and a month after Rachel’s death, they still didn’t have a suspect in mind.
So the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) suggested that they use the services of a profiler, and once again, Paul Britton was called in to assist with the investigation.
He would study the case files and provide the Rachel Nickell enquiry with the following profile:
Their suspect would be between the ages of 20 to 30 years and had probably been a victim of violence in his childhood. He would have poor relationship skills and will be unable to relate to women on an ordinary level. He likely suffers from some form of sexual dysfunction and would be attracted to pornography.
He would be of average intelligence and education, and if he is employed, it would be a solitary job that doesn’t require a lot of skills. He either lives with a parent or alone in a flat. His hobbies and interests will be of an unusual nature, and might include martial arts, photography, and the occult.
He probably doesn’t have access to a car, and lives within walking distance of Wimbledon Common. There is a significant probability that he has a history of sexual offending, which might include a previous conviction. He has practiced assaulting women before, but this would have been his first killing.
In a postscript, Britton concluded that: “In my view it is almost inevitable that this person will kill another young woman at some point in the future as a result of the strong deviancy and aggressive fantasy urges.”
He also went on to explain that there are thousands of socially inept, lonely, unattractive, and isolated men in the greater London area. However, the profile he’d provided should narrow down the list of suspects, since the chances that two men who match his profile would be at Wimbledon Common at the same time on the same day was “vanishingly small”.
But he would be proven wrong. On the 3rd of September 1992, the murder of Rachel Nickell was featured on Crimewatch, and the investigative team was flooded with over 800 responses—3 of which pointed to the same man. Someone who not only matched the Photofit that had been issued to the local newspapers but someone who’d been at Wimbledon Common on the day that Rachel Nickell had been murdered. Furthermore, he matched Paul Britton’s profile.
His name was Colin Stagg, and soon all the resources that had been made available to the Rachel Nickell enquiry were focused solely on him.
The Honey Trap
You can’t fully explain the mistakes that were made in Rachel Nickell’s murder investigation without explaining the case that was built around Colin Stagg.
Another woman—let’s call her Janice—came forward and also pointed a finger at Colin Stagg. Janice had met him through a Lonely Hearts column, and the two of them had shared a few letters, discussing their romantic pasts and sexual interests. She confirmed that not only did the Photofit look like him, but he matched the criteria listed in the profile—including an interest in the occult—and she confessed that his interests in BDSM and knife play had freaked her out, prompting her to end their acquaintance.
Colin was questioned by the police and admitted that he’d been at Wimbledon Common on the day that Rachel Nickell had been murdered but denied the allegation that he’d had anything to do with her murder. Paul Britton agreed with the Metropolitan Police that Colin was a good match for his profile, but they didn’t have any physical evidence to link him to the case, so with the help of Paul Britton, the police decided to set a trap for Colin to get him to confess to the murder of Rachel Nickell.
And that is how the now infamous Operation Edzell was born. In short, an undercover police officer from the Metropolitan Police Special Operations Group contacted Colin and introduced herself as “Lizzie James”, a friend of Janice’s. Janice had allegedly told her all about Colin and his interests, and even though Janice had snubbed him, Lizzie was all for getting a little rough in the sheets.
For the next five months, Lizzie would be in constant contact with Colin to get more information on him. They’d meet up for dates, talk on the phone, and send letters to each other filled with explicit descriptions of what they’d like to do to each other—which is the worst kind of catfishing since Colin was spilling his heart out to a room full of stuffy police detectives. According to Paul Britton, the plan was that: “As their mutual trust seemed to grow, the officer would gradually disclose more of [her] history which would include serious violent sexual crime. This would help to create an environment where the suspect could feel safe and even boastful in revealing his background…”
Lizzie would start milking Colin about Rachel Nickell’s murder, trying to get him to admit to killing Rachel. She’d hinted at sharing Colin’s interest in the occult, and admitted to how much the idea of sacrificing, torturing, and killing someone turned her on. During one of their conversations, Lizzie would tell Colin that: “If only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder, if only you had killed her, it would be all right,” implicating that after months of refusing to have sex with him, she’d finally give in.
According to Colin, he kept on reminding himself that Lizzie was a good-looking woman who was showing an interest in him, and even though he thought that Lizzie “wasn’t all there, she was mentally unstable,” he still wanted to have sex with her. After all, he was a 29-year-old-virgin and was desperate to ‘get some’ and punch that V-card.
So he decided to keep on humoring his blood-thirsty girlfriend. But when she came with her offer of ‘just admit to the murder and I’ll sleep with you’, Colin only said that: “I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t.” Thereby winning at the worst peer-pressure scenario imaginable.
Throughout all of this, the police hadn’t gotten the information that they wanted, and nothing Colin said or did indicated that there was even the slightest possibility that he was responsible for killing Rachel. Still, the Metropolitan police would arrest Colin Stagg on the 18th of August 1993 under suspicion of the murder of Rachel Nickell, and when he was confronted with “Lizzie”, Colin realized that he had become the fall guy for someone else’s murder and shut down completely.
When his case reached the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales—aka, the Old Bailey—Mr. Justice Henry Ognall reviewed the case and the evidence that had been brought forward by the police and threw it out. He told the court that: “I would be the first to acknowledge the great pressure put on officers in the pursuit of this enquiry, but I’m afraid this behaviour betrays not merely an excess of zeal but a blatant attempt to incriminate a suspect by positive and deceptive conduct of the grossest kind.”
He described the investigation itself as being: “A sustained enterprise to manipulate the accused, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly, and designed, by deception, to manoeuvre and seduce him to reveal fantasies of an incriminating character and to wholly unsuccessfully admit [to] the offense.”
Colin Stagg would be acquitted and released in September 1994 after spending a total of 14 months in prison, but he’d already been found guilty by the British public and would spend the next ten years living as a pariah.
The Murders of Samantha and Jazmine Bisset
Robert Napper would lie low for a while after he’d murdered Rachel Nickell. He had attempted to attack a young woman on the 19th of August 1992 after he’d struck up a conversation with her at a bus stop, but she’d become wary of him during the course of their conversation. She’d tried to escape him by getting onto the first bus that approached them, but when Robert continued to follow her, she got off the bus and almost ran into the Eltham Police Station—the very same police station that had investigated the Green Chain Rapist case. She watched as he disappeared into the trees behind the Welcome Inn public house, then waited another few minutes before catching a bus home.
She only realized that she’d come close to being another victim when she recognized his picture in a local newspaper two weeks later. She reported the incident to the Eltham police, but no one followed up on her report, and it would be months before anyone linked it to Robert Napper.
Early in September, Robert Napper had fixated on one of the waitresses who worked at the Welcome Inn public house, but when the police appeared on his doorstep and started questioning him regarding his whereabouts, his paranoia reached new levels, and he moved to a new flat, abandoning his new interest, who—for a few months at least—would remain blissfully unaware of the fact that for short while, her every move had been carefully studied and noted on Robert’s maps.
But on the 3rd of November 1993, Robert Napper found himself hiding in a grove of silver birch trees, staring into the ground floor apartment where the 27-year-old Samantha Bisset and her 4-year-old daughter Jazmine lived.
Based on the title of this section, you already know that he murdered them. But where Rachel Nickell’s murder had gained international sympathy and interest, the double murder of Samantha and Jazmine Bisset was barely mentioned in the media, and even the documentaries that exist barely touched on whom Samantha and Jazmine were, turning them into a footnote in the story of how Robert Napper was finally brought to justice.
Samantha Bisset was born in Dundee, Scotland, on the 25th of February 1967. She loved painting, an interest she shared with her father, but when she was 14, her father passed away, and she lost all interest in pursuing art and turned into a rebellious teenager instead, dropping out of school and becoming addicted to drugs in the process.
Around the age of 17, she left home and joined a thriving community of hippies, embracing their Bohemian lifestyle to the full. They traveled all over England in old buses and attended various music festivals, and for the most part, she found this lifestyle to be idyllic. When she was 21, her drug dependency had become a problem, and she went to a rehabilitation center in Salisbury to get clean and get her life back on track. While she was there, she started a relationship with a social worker, and the two of them moved to London to start a new life together.
They broke up soon after, and then Samantha realized that she was pregnant. Her ex didn’t feel that he could support her and a child financially, so he abandoned them, and the 22-year-old Samantha was forced to take stock of her life and decide what she wanted to do—and that was to provide her child with every advantage in life that she could.
She moved to a home for single mothers, and soon after she met Conrad Ellem, the man who’d become her boyfriend and help her raise Jazmine. Samantha had managed to get her and Jazmine a flat, and they moved out of the home and into apartment 1a Heathfield Terrace in Plumstead.
Samantha was devoted to her daughter, and her ambition drove her to find a way for the two of them to live better lives. She’d researched private schools in the area, and soon realized that she wouldn’t be able to afford to send Jazmine there. So Samantha started placing personal ads, essentially becoming an escort to provide a better future for her daughter. Her neighbors soon noticed how men would arrive at her apartment at all hours of the day, but she was a good neighbor and a devoted mother, so they let her be.
In October 1993, Samantha had finally managed to get Jazmine a spot in a private school in Sussex and had hoped to find work as an assistant at the school so that she could not only earn a better living but be close to Jazmine as well, hopefully bringing them one step closer to the life she believed Jazmine deserved.
Of course, all her plans would turn to dust the moment Robert Napper placed a hand on the railing of her balcony and let himself into her apartment through her terrace windows.
At 7 am on the morning of the 4th of November 1993, Conrad Ellem clocked off after working the night shift at a plastic factory and made his way to Samantha and Jazmine’s apartment. Unlike the rest of the apartments at Heathfield Terrace, apartment 1a had its own entrance, and he descended the short flight of stairs to the front door.
He tried unlocking the door but soon realized that even though it was unlocked, the deadbolt had been thrown. He called for Samantha, but when she didn’t answer, he peeked through the letter slot in the door. He couldn’t see Samantha or Jazmine, but he noticed that clothes had been strewn down the short hallway. He ended up using his deadbolt key to let himself into the apartment, and made his way towards the kitchen, barely glancing into the bedroom on his left.
He noticed a dark stain on the carpet in the hallway, and still wondering at it, found that the kitchen also had piles of clothes strewn all over the place. The cupboard where Samantha stored her extra clothes was open and empty, and Conrad headed towards the living room.
There, he found that Samantha’s body had been hidden underneath a pile of clothes. He rushed back towards the kitchen and called the police, and it was only after he got off the phone with them that he realized that he still didn’t know where Jazmine was. He found her on Samantha’s bed, her lifeless body covered by a duvet and partially hidden by her collection of soft toys.
Sick to his stomach, Conrad left the apartment and sat down on the front steps, smoking one cigarette after another as he waited for the police to arrive, trying to process the fact that he’d just lost his entire family.
The Bisset Enquiry
Detective Superintendent Micky Banks would lead the investigation into the murders of Samantha and Jazmine, and he describes the scene he walked in on once the police started their investigation: “I walked through to the [living] room, and this body was displayed. I mean, it was the most horrendous scene I’ve ever seen in 32 years of police service. It was awful. You know, it was as if a post-mortem had been conducted on this poor young girl. It was absolutely horrendous.”
Their initial thought was that Samantha had been murdered as part of a domestic dispute. Conrad’s hands had been stained red from the dye used at the factory, but the police thought that it might be blood, so he was placed under arrest soon after the police arrived at the scene.
DS Banks called together a team of 4 investigators to help on the case, and they all gathered at the Thamesmead Police Station mere hours after Conrad had reported the murders to the police, compiling a To-Do list of everything that had to be done in order to solve Samantha and Jazmine’s murders. Apartment 1a was fully processed, fingerprints lifted, the bodies photographed and taken to the mortuary, and the police started questioning Samantha’s neighbours, trying to find witnesses to the crime.
They had heard Samantha washing dishes at around 11 pm, and a neighbour residing on the opposite side of the green heard screams at around 3 am. She noticed that the lights were on at 1a Heathfield Terrace, but almost as soon as the screams started, they stopped, and she went back to bed. Another neighbour told the police that she’d heard screams followed by two men arguing in Jazmine’s flat, with one man telling the other to “leave it be” before it became quiet again.
Conrad was released from police custody the next morning, and the police started tracing every person that Samantha had been in contact with in the weeks leading up to her death. Conrad told the police that Samantha had been convinced that someone had been watching her through the living room window days before her murder, but he hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Now, of course, he regretted not taking her claims more seriously, and he refused to return to the apartment.
Then the forensic reports came in. They confirmed that Samantha had been murdered in the hallway, right outside the bedroom door. Her attacker had stabbed her a total of 8 times, killing Samantha before he turned on her daughter, who’d been asleep in her cot and must have woken up from the noise.
Jazmine had been raped and then suffocated before her body was covered up with the duvet. Samantha’s body was then dragged to the living room where the attacker had closed the blinds over the windows and proceeded to cut away at Samantha’s body, removing a part of her abdomen. Once he was done, the attacker had washed his hands in the small bathroom, leaving droplets of blood everywhere, and at one point he’d stepped in a pool of Samantha’s blood, tracking footprints all over the apartment.
The prints belonged to either a size 7 or a size 9 Addidas Phantom low-rise trainer and confirmed that their perpetrator was male.
The police also made multiple appeals to the public for more information, but no useful information came forward.
The only foreign DNA that could be found in the apartment belonged to Conrad, and the sets of fingerprints that were found all over the apartment were matched to friends and neighbours of Samantha and Jazmine. No foreign prints were found.
One of the forensic team members, Detective Sergeant Lionel Barclay, approached DS Banks and told him that he suspected that the Rachel Nickell murder and the Bisset murders had been committed by the same person. He explained that he’d been a part of the forensic team on the Nickell case, and the similarities between the two cases were obvious—both victims were young mothers who were blonde and attractive with young children, and both of them had been viciously stabbed to death.
DS Banks agreed, and he arranged to meet up with the team who were investigating Rachel Nickell’s murder. Of course, they were already months into their investigation, and they assured DS Banks that it was unlikely that the murders had been committed by the same person, since they already had a suspect.
But the lead investigator did suggest that maybe DS Banks would like to call in the assistance of a criminal profiler? They’d called on one, and so far, his help had proved to be invaluable.
So like a bad penny, Paul Britton turned up at yet another investigation that was looking into one of Robert Napper’s crimes, and once again, he was given access to the case files. Once he saw what Robert had done to Samantha’s body, he reportedly realized that they weren’t dealing with an ordinary murderer and was more than happy to provide the Bisset Enquiry with a profile for their suspect:
He would be between 20 and 30 years old, probably had a violent childhood, and feels undervalued. He isn’t a sadist but interacting with his victim’s body provides him with some sort of satisfaction.
He is of average intelligence and has the ability to hold down a low-skilled job. He has some kind of psychological condition which keeps him from building relationships with others. He doesn’t want to be famous—in fact, he’d prefer to be invisible.
He will have a history of offenses against women. He is a watcher and a stalker and has an overwhelming urge to attack women. And although some of his other attacks might be minor, he would in all probability, kill again.
All of this only confirmed what DS Banks already knew—that they were dealing with a sick bastard—so unlike the investigative team working on Rachel Nickell’s murder, DS Banks simply shelved Paul Britton’s profile and decided to focus on the facts instead.
Connecting the Dots
According to DI Jackaman: “Lack of press coverage is a two-edged sword. The press can be intrusive and slow the investigation, even to the extent of developing their own, sometimes half-baked theories…the plus side being that with press interest the case is given oxygen.”
A month after the murders the Bisset Enquiry was already suffering from a lack of oxygen, and the case was slowly dying out. All of the available leads had been followed, all of the possible suspects had been eliminated, and all of the forensics had come back clear. Despite the horrific nature of the Bisset murders, Samantha had been labeled a “woman of easy virtue”, and the media had lost interest in the case the very day after the murders had taken place.
Desperate for answers, DS Banks contacted the BBC and applied for the case to be featured on Crimewatch. Allegedly, the BBC wasn’t interested in the case at first, but when DS Banks mentioned that Paul Britton had been involved in the case and was willing to appear on the show, their interest was piqued, and the Bisset Murders episode was scheduled to air on the 8th of February 1994.
But alas, despite hundreds of calls coming in directly following the episode, none of the leads proved valuable. One caller even went so far as to say that she’d seen the murderer just that afternoon, and she was more than happy to provide the police with his description and his home address—he turned out to be the actor that had portrayed the murderer in the Crimewatch episode.
The saying goes that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Whether Einstein had said it first or not is up for debate, but in May 1994 DS Banks proved it wrong when they finally had a breakthrough in the case.
He was studying the forensic reports for the umpteenth time and allegedly wondered how it was that every set of fingerprints had been positively identified—something that was unheard of in any investigation. So, he called the head of the fingerprints branch back and had them rerun the fingerprints. On the 20th of May 1994, the news spread that one set of fingerprints had been misidentified.
It was almost identical to Samantha’s, and as a result, had wrongly been identified as belonging to her. The fingerprints had been found on the rail of the balcony, the doorjamb to the bedroom, and Jazmine’s cot, and now the investigation was focused on finding out who the fingerprints belonged to.
The head of the fingerprints branch allegedly hailed the discovery as: “Another great day for the fingerprint branch!”
But DS Banks allegedly shouted at the head of the branch and said that no, “It isn’t a triumph, it’s a bloody disgrace!”
The fingerprints were run against the National Criminal Index, and finally, they had a suspect—Robert Napper. You see, on the 2nd of December 1992, Robert Napper had walked into a printing shop and ordered 50 A4-sized letterheads with the Metropolitan Police logo and crest on them, with the words “Greenwich Division” printed underneath. The owner of the shop quite rightly thought that the request was suspicious, so he contacted the police soon after Robert had left his shop.
Officers from the Plumstead Police Station arrived soon after and waited for Robert to come and “collect” his order. He ran as soon as he saw them, but he was captured and arrested under suspicion of impersonating a police officer, and a search warrant was issued for his flat. There the police found a .22 Erma pistol together with 200 rounds of ammunition, a crossbow, several knives, a listening device, and an A-Z street map of London that had various hand-drawn markings and routes drawn on it. Robert Napper was charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition without a license and spent 25 days in jail, ensuring that his fingerprints would forever be a part of the National Crime Index.
The original team was called back, and now the Bisset Enquiry focused on finding out who exactly Robert Napper was.
DI Jackaman called the collator at the Plumstead Police station to request more information on Robert Napper. He drove over to the station and returned within the hour with Robert Napper’s record with the Plumstead Police, as well as a photo of him. The photo was pinned up against the board, and Pam Robinson, one of the Indexers who worked in the Thamesmead Police Office allegedly walked up to it and said: “That’s the Green Chain Rapist!”
It seems a little bit too easy, but we weren’t there—DI Jackaman was. Allegedly, Pam retrieved the Wanted poster from the wall of the office and pinned it up next to Robert Napper’s photo. And yes, eventually most of the team had to agree that he bore a resemblance to the sketch. Despite his height, he had short mousey hair and a spotty complexion and had been wearing the same style of clothes when he’d been arrested.
The Criminal Records Office was contacted, and all the information that they had on Robert Napper was requested. DS Banks arranged to meet with the two lead detectives in charge of the investigation into the now-closed Green Chain Rapist case. He explained their reasons for suspecting that Robert Napper had not only been responsible for murdering Samantha and Jazmine Bisset but that he might be the Green Chain Rapist as well.
The two investigators admitted that Robert Napper had once been a suspect. DS Banks was shocked to learn that Robert Napper had been eliminated as a suspect simply based on his height, especially since his refusal to come in to supply them with a blood sample was already suspicious enough.
The investigation into the Green Chain Rapist case was reopened, and together the two investigative teams worked to find out more about Robert Napper. A surveillance team had been tasked with keeping an eye on Robert, and his criminal past was slowly pieced together by Detective Inspector Roger Boydell-Smith, who went through every unsolved case reported in the area to find out whether more of them could be linked to Robert.
And they found plenty. The A-Z guide that had been recovered from Robert’s apartment in December 1992 was handed over to Detective Constable Christine Smith, who would draw up A3 maps of the marked areas. Every site where a Green Chain Rapist victim had been attacked had been marked off, and soon DC Smith realized that Robert Napper had marked places that were important to his crimes. In total there were over 80 places of interest.
Some of them marked his crimes, others seemed to be secluded areas from where he could easily watch his victims, and others belonged to the houses that he’d stalked for some time.
On the 19th of February 1993, two boys had come across a large biscuit tin that had been buried underneath some bushes. Inside, carefully wrapped in cloth, was a Mauser .22 handgun. The police were called, and the police firearms laboratory tested it for fingerprints and possible links to open cases. They couldn’t match either.
DI Boydell-Smith linked one of the unsolved cases to the location where the boys had found the gun—the one where a woman was shot at through her living room window. He sent the bullet to forensics, and they came back a match to the Mauser. He also sent the fingerprints that had been on the inside of the biscuit tin off for identification, and they came back as a match for Robert Napper.
On the 31st of August 1993, Robert Napper had also been noted as a person of interest after a man had seen him climbing the wall of his neighbor’s yard and called the police. Once the police arrived, they found Robert hiding in a nearby alleyway. When he was questioned, the police officers noted that he was acting odd, and the police officer who made a note of the incident found him disturbing enough to submit a lengthy report, describing Robert as quiet and withdrawn, but possibly capable of extreme violence. He also noted that Napper should be considered for any future rape or indecency offenses.
DI Boydell-Smith also linked Robert to the woman who’d reported being stalked by him in Eltham and would later link him to the theft of a handbag that belonged to the waitress from the Welcome Inn public house that he’d stalked back in September 1993. Her house was also marked off in his A-Z guide.
On the 24th of May 1994, the surveillance team reported that Robert had suddenly changed his habits. Where he usually left for work at 7 am, returned home at 9 pm, and then didn’t leave his flat until the next morning, he’d left his flat that evening and went for a brisk walk, dressed in a dark hoodie, a baseball cap, and carrying a black Jaguar sports bag. The team didn’t want to take the risk of him attacking someone while they built a case against him, so the decision was made to arrest him the very next day—just four days after he was identified as a possible suspect.
The Arrest and Trial of Robert Napper
At 6:30 on the 25th of May 1994, the arrest team was patiently waiting outside Robert Napper’s apartment building. But just like the day before, he’d changed his habits, and he didn’t leave for work at 7 am. What they didn’t know at the time, was that Robert had been fired the day before, and as a result, he was still asleep in bed while the entire block around his apartment was crawling with police.
By 8 am, the decision was made to confront him inside the apartment, and DI Jackaman simply walked up to his door and knocked. He was disappointed when a half-naked, wide-eyed Robert Napper opened the door and simply stared at them, looking nothing like the monster that they’d been hunting for months.
“Police, just do as you’re told,” DI Peter Caracan said, stepping into the apartment, and Robert Napper stood quietly aside, allowing another officer to handcuff him and read him his rights. He was allowed to dress before he was taken away, and before he got into the police van, he turned to DI Jackaman and simply said: “I heard of the murders in the paper. I don’t know Samantha Bisset. I have never been where you said.”
DI Jackaman made a note of this, and he would later have Robert Napper sign next to the note to show that he agreed with its contents. Since the only thing that linked Robert Napper to the Bisset Murders at that point was his fingerprints, he’d just sealed his fate, and that one comment might prove vital in the case against him.
A sample of Robert’s blood would be sent off for analysis and his DNA would be found to be a match to the DNA profile of the Green Chain Rapist. 3 out of his 4 victims would be able to positively identify him as their attacker, and the police would find proof that he’d purchased a pair of size 9 Addidas Phantom Low Training shoes on the 12th of January 1993. The shoes themselves were never recovered.
Another A-Z guide to London was found, together with a stack of hand-drawn maps and Robert’s diary. They would be handed over to DC Smith for further analysis, and the markings on them were added to the other maps that detailed Robert’s crimes. They also found photocopies from a book called “The Dragon’s Touch” in his flat. In essence, it’s a book on defending yourself using a form of kung fu by targeting the body’s major target zones and pressure points using only your hands. It also contains photos of how to perform these moves, with illustrations indicating where the pressure points are. Robert had instead taken it as a guide on how to incapacitate his victims, but it doesn’t seem like it worked for him, since he ended up using a blade instead of his hands.
The police also found receipts for various hunting knives and the red toolbox where he kept two of them. There was a homemade warning sign on the toolbox, and when the police pulled it back, they found a shoe print on it for a size 9 Addidas trainer that matched the prints that had been found in Samantha and Jazmine’s flat.
Robert Napper was now thoroughly caught, and five different psychologists would evaluate him to determine whether he was fit to stand trial.
During his interviews, Robert Napper would tell the same stories over and over, explaining that the British Government had initiated a plot that resulted in the years 1973, 1975, 1977, 1979, and 1980 being twice as long as they should have been. He also believed that he’d met Queen Elizabeth while working as a kitchen assistant and that she’d complained about a charity function that hadn’t gone to plan. He also believed that he had been awarded with a Nobel Peace prize and had his knee-caps busted in by the IRS who had it in for his family. He had also been poisoned on several occasions, and people generally talked about him behind his back since they knew that he was the Green Chain Rapist.
A Doctor Joseph found that Robert Napper was delusional, and often tried to normalize or conceal his delusions. He claimed not to know why he’d been arrested and refused to open up whenever his crimes were discussed with him, but other psychologists noted that he was more than capable of disguising his delusions to appear normal and that he was choosing to act a certain way in front of the psychologists—making him fit to stand trial.
On the 3rd of October 1995, Robert Napper pled guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility as per the Mental Health Act of 1957. This meant that no trial was to be held, and the team working on the Bisset Enquiry wouldn’t have to defend their case in court. On the 9th of October 1995, Robert Napper pled guilty to two accounts of attempted rape and one account of rape. He also pled guilty to manslaughter concerning the murders of Samantha and Jazmine Bisset.
He was sentenced with a restriction order per sections 37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act and was to be detained in Broadmoor hospital for the remainder of his life.
”It Was Napper Wot Done It”
According to DI Jackaman, the old Bisset Enquiry team was obsessed with the idea that Robert Napper was responsible for Rachel Nickell’s murder, leading to other investigators jokingly telling them “it was Napper wot done it” whenever they turned their focus on an unlikely suspect. But it soon turned out that they weren’t the only ones who thought it likely that he’d been involved in her murder.
On the 20th of December 1995, two police detectives visited Robert Napper at Broadmoor Hospital, asking him whether or not he had anything to do with the murder of Rachel Nickell back in July 1992. Robert Napper denied any involvement in her murder, claiming that he’d been at work in Plumstead at the time. The company he’d been working for had closed in September 1992, and the work records had been destroyed. As such, his old colleagues and manager couldn’t confirm whether or not he’d been at work, and with no concrete evidence to link him to Rachel Nickell’s murder, the second investigation into her murder was brought to a close.
But Rachel Nickell’s family didn’t forget about her, and they ensured that the public was constantly reminded that her killer still hadn’t been found. In January 2002 the Metropolitan Police would re-open her case, and the DNA samples that had been taken from Rachel Nickell’s body would be run once more. But forensics reported that the samples that had been taken shortly after her murder didn’t return any positive results, not even a profile of Rachel’s DNA.
But in July 2004, the Metropolitan Police would approach LGC forensics, a private forensic company, to run a new set of tests on Rachel’s clothes, and this time a small sample of DNA was found. The DNA was run against the United Kingdom’s National DNA Database which had been established in 1995. From its inception, it was compulsory for convicted criminals and people awaiting trial to provide samples of their DNA, and by 2005, the database would contain 3.1 million DNA samples.
Since Robert Napper was now a convicted criminal, his DNA profile had been added to the database, and LGC Forensics finally linked him to Rachel Nickell’s murder. The case was reopened, and the Metropolitan Police scrambled to find any evidence that could concretely prove that Robert Napper had been responsible for her murder.
A new team of investigators went to speak to Robert’s old colleagues, and his old supervisor mentioned that he used to keep a year planner in which he recorded the employee’s working hours. He found it buried in a box in his loft, and it showed that on the 15th of July 1993, Robert Napper hadn’t shown up for work, negating his alibi. The shoes that had been in Robert’s flat on the day of his arrest were taken out of storage and were compared to the casts of the footprints that had been made on the day Rachel was murdered.
One of Robert’s shoes was found to be a match. Additionally, the flecks of red paint that had been taken from Alex’s hair were sent to LGC in order to be compared to Robert’s toolbox, and they too would be found to be a match.
In December 2007, Robert Napper would finally be charged with the murder of Rachel Nickell, and on the 18th of December 2008, he would plead guilty to the charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and would once again be sentenced to spend the rest of his life at Broadmoor hospital.
Finally, Rachel Nickell’s family had some closure, secure in the knowledge that the man who was responsible for her death was behind bars. The Independent Police Authority would investigate the actions of the Metropolitan Police Service, and on the 3rd of June 2010, they’d find that the following errors had led to the deaths of Rachel Nickell, Samantha, and Jazmine Bisset:
“A failure to investigate the report by Napper’s mother of her son’s admission to the rape in Purrett Road in 1989.”
As well as:
“Napper being inconceivably eliminated from enquiries into the Green Chain Walk series of rapes because he was over 6’ tall.”
No disciplinary actions were taken since most of the officers involved had already retired or had passed away by the time the investigation was concluded, but according to DI Jackaman: “No detective sets out to purposefully undermine an enquiry, but, unfortunately, because of the very nature of the work, poor decisions can produce catastrophic results…Looking back from the safety of an armchair it is easy to criticize; until one has worked in the cauldron of conflicting demands with added time constraints one should not perhaps be quick to judge.”
But as we know, actions do speak louder than words, and there are multiple cases that indicate that perhaps, sometimes, the police are either corrupt or just bad at their jobs. But it is good to note that—once in a while—a team comes along that are dedicated to doing their jobs properly, and the investigative team who formed a part of the Bisset Enquiry were definitely some of the good ones.
Dismembered Appendices
The initial investigation into Rachel Nickell’s murder cost the Crown £3 million, not including the £22,000 in compensation money that was paid out to Alex Hanscombe after he’d witnessed his mom’s murder.
André and Alex moved to France in 1996 to get away from the craziness surrounding the investigation into Rachel’s murder. André also wrote a memoir called “The Last Thursday in July”, in which he explains the challenges that he and Alex faced as they tried to move on with their lives.
Samantha’s mother, Margaret Bisset, had trouble processing her daughter and granddaughter’s deaths, and passed away from a heart attack two days before Robert Napper pled guilty to the murder of Samantha and Jazmine.
The Metropolitan Police were ordered to publicly apologize to Colin Stagg following the sentencing of Robert Napper in 2008. Still, he sued the Metropolitan Police for damages and was awarded with £700,000 in compensation. Despite his status as a pariah, he got married soon after his acquittal—meaning that he finally punched that V-card.
“Lizzie James”, the undercover cop, also laid a claim against the Metropolitan Police, claiming that Operation Edzell had ruined her career. She was awarded £125,000 in compensation.
Paul Britton was discredited as an advisor to the Metropolitan Police since he’d failed to see the similarities between the three cases and received a lot of criticism for his role in the three investigations into Robert Napper’s crimes. He was also charged with professional misconduct by the British Psychological Society, but the charge was dismissed in 2002 due to “a time delay in bringing proceedings.” Throughout his book, however, DI Jackaman points out on more than one occasion that technically, Paul Britton’s various assessments of Robert Napper’s character wasn’t wrong. He was just one of many who failed to see what was right under their noses the whole time.
Key Takeaways
- The Metropolitan Police’s incompetence led to the deaths of Rachel Nickell, Samantha Bisset, and Jazmine Bisset.
- Robert Napper’s crimes included stalking over 80 women, sexually assaulting 4, and killing 3.
- The investigative team that captured Robert Napper linked three unrelated cases by focusing on their jobs.
- Robert Napper’s delusional beliefs and psychological conditions contributed to his criminal behavior.
- The Bisset Enquiry team’s dedication and thorough investigation led to Robert Napper’s capture and conviction.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Robert Napper?
Robert Clive Napper was born on the 25th of February 1966 in Erith, South-East London. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and paranoid schizophrenia, which affected his social interactions and led to obsessive tendencies. Napper was convicted of multiple rapes and murders, including the murder of Rachel Nickell.
What was the Green Chain Rapist case?
The Green Chain Rapist case involved a series of sexual assaults on women in the Plumstead and Winns Common areas of South-East London. Robert Napper was identified as the perpetrator, who stalked and attacked over 80 women, sexually assaulting four of them.
How did the police initially fail to catch Robert Napper?
The Metropolitan Police initially failed to catch Robert Napper due to several mistakes, including not following up on Pauline Napper’s report about her son’s confession, dismissing him as a suspect in the Green Chain Rapist case based on his height, and focusing on the wrong suspect, Colin Stagg, in Rachel Nickell’s murder case.
What was Operation Edzell?
Operation Edzell was a sting operation where an undercover police officer, posing as a woman named Lizzie James, tried to get Colin Stagg to confess to the murder of Rachel Nickell. The operation was deemed unethical and led to Colin Stagg’s wrongful arrest and imprisonment.
Who were Samantha and Jazmine Bisset?
Samantha Bisset was a 27-year-old mother who was murdered along with her 4-year-old daughter, Jazmine, in November 1993. They were found in their apartment in Plumstead, and the murders were linked to Robert Napper through forensic evidence.
How was Robert Napper finally caught?
Robert Napper was finally caught when a set of fingerprints found at the Bisset murder scene were misidentified and later matched to Napper. This led to a reopening of the Green Chain Rapist case and the discovery of Napper’s extensive criminal history and evidence linking him to multiple crimes.
What was the outcome of Robert Napper’s trial?
Robert Napper pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility for the murders of Samantha and Jazmine Bisset and was sentenced to be detained at Broadmoor hospital for the remainder of his life. He later pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell and received the same sentence.
What was the impact of the police’s mistakes on the victims’ families?
The police’s mistakes led to the wrongful arrest and imprisonment of Colin Stagg, who was later exonerated and awarded compensation. The families of the victims, including Rachel Nickell and Samantha and Jazmine Bisset, suffered significant emotional trauma and loss due to the delayed justice and the police’s initial failures.
What role did Paul Britton play in the investigations?
Paul Britton was a clinical psychologist who provided profiles for the investigative teams in the Green Chain Rapist case, Rachel Nickell’s murder, and the Bisset murders. His profiles were generally accurate but did not lead to the identification of Robert Napper until much later.
What was the significance of the A-Z guide found in Robert Napper’s apartment?
The A-Z guide found in Robert Napper’s apartment contained markings and routes that detailed his crimes, including the locations of his victims and areas where he stalked potential targets. This evidence was crucial in linking him to multiple cases and proving his guilt.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: Unmasking the Killer: How the Police Caught Robert Napper
- Hero image source by IAEA Imagebank / openverse, by.
