'You are a dangerous man': Rachel Nickell killer Robert Napper’s life now in infamous facility that held Yorkshire Ripper
'The possibility of release is highly unlikely'
Robert Napper killed Rachel Nickell. Almost 35 years later, he’s still being held in a facility that was once home to Peter Sutcliffe and Britain’s “most violent prisoner”.
Nickell, a 23-year-old mother of one, died in July 1992. As she walked in Wimbledon Common with her two-year-old son, Alex, she was stabbed, sexually assaulted, and killed by Napper, who left her to die and her child as the only witness.
Police initially honed in on another suspect: Colin Stagg, an innocent man who got caught up in a notorious ‘honeytrap’ undercover operation. It didn’t work, with a judge acquitting Stagg and forcing officers to look elsewhere.
Eventually, as The Murder of Rachel Nickell on Netflix shows, they found the culprit. However, here’s the thing: Napper was already incarcerated.
Who is Robert Napper?
Robert Napper is a convicted serial killer and rapist. He has been convicted of two murders, one manslaughter, two rapes, and two attempted rapes, but he’s also been suspected of being responsible for many more attacks.
Napper, now 60, was born in Erith in southeast London. He didn’t have a stable childhood, with his parents’ relationship often abusive and violent.
They divorced when he was nine years old, forcing him, his two brothers, and his sister to go into foster care. As a result of the trauma from his childhood experiences, Napper received psychiatric treatment for six years.
At the age of 12 (as reported by The Guardian), Napper was sexually assaulted by a family friend while he was on a camping holiday. This led him to become “introverted, obsessively tidy, and reclusive”, as well as a social pariah at school.
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How was Robert Napper caught?
Despite being briefly considered a suspect in Nickell’s death, Napper wasn’t charged until 2007 – 15 years after she was killed.
In the immediate wake of Nickell’s death, investigators struggled to find any forensic evidence at the crime scene. However, as Dr Angela Gallop explains in the Netflix documentary, this had to be “wrong”.
“There should have been an enormous amount of Rachel’s own DNA in these tapings,” she says.
Gallop and her team managed to find a “tiny trace” of male DNA, which was then multiplied and “amplifying” to allow them to analyse it. Thankfully, for Stagg, it wasn’t a match – but it did point to Napper.
Napper was charged with Nickell’s murder in November 2007. In January 2008, he pleaded guilty… to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility.
While branded a “very dangerous man” by the judge, Napper was sentenced in accordance with his plea. He asked his lawyer, David Fisher QC, to apologise to Nickell’s son, her husband, and Stagg.
“At the time of these events, the arrest and the preliminary trial of that man, this defendant was not in a satisfactory mental state to really appreciate what was going on. He is now. He realises how dreadful that period of time in Mr Stagg’s life must have been,” Fisher said.
‘We could have prevented Nickell’s death’
Following Napper’s sentencing, an earlier, damning allegation against him emerged.
In 1989, Napper’s mother, Pauline, phoned the police to tell them that he’d admitted to raping a woman on Plumstead Common. Police were unable to connect Pauline’s claims to an existing case, and nothing more was done about it.
This was an early opportunity to catch Napper before he hurt anyone else, but that, plus detectives’ decision to eliminate him as a suspect in the Green Chain Walk rapes, effectively paved the way for further violence.
“More could and should have been done,” former assistant commissioner of the Met Police, John Yates, said.
“Had more been done, we would have been in a position to have prevented [the Nickell killing] and other attacks by Napper. I particularly refer to the dreadful murders of Samantha and Jazmine Bissett in November 1993.”
Nickell’s family didn’t receive any compensation as a result of the police’s failings.
Who else did Robert Napper kill?
Napper was also convicted of murdering Samantha Bisset, 27, and her four-year-old daughter, Jazmine.
Nickell was killed in July 1992. Sixteen months later, Napper entered Bisset’s home in Plumstead, stabbed and killed her, before sexually assaulting and smothering Jazmine.
As reported by The Independent, the crime scene was so graphic and upsetting that the police’s photographer had to take two years off work.
Forensic investigators were able to recover Napper’s fingerprint, leading to his arrest and conviction for both murders. He had already been sent to Broadmoor when police linked him to Nickell’s death.
Between 1990-1994, a series of attacks were recorded around Green Chain Walk, a 50-mile stretch of fields, parks, and woodlands in southeast London. Whether or not Napper as the “Green Chain Rapist” remains unclear, but he admitted to attacks on four other women during the Nickell trial.
Where is Robert Napper now?
Robert Napper remains incarcerated at Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne, where he’s being held on indefinite detention.
During his sentencing for Nickell’s death, it was said that it was “highly unlikely” that he would ever be released.
Dr Natalie Pyszora, a psychiatrist from the hospital, told the court that Napper was severely mentally ill. “The possibility of release is highly unlikely. I could not envisage that happening,” she said.
Broadmoor was founded in 1863, originally known as a “criminal lunatic asylum”. It has housed some of the most infamous criminals in UK history.
Peter Sutcliffe, the serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper, spent 32 years at Broadmoor after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Ronnie Kray, one half of the notorious gangster duo, was moved to Broadmoor after he was found to be certifiably insane. He died at the hospital from a heart attack in 1995.
Charles Salvador, better known as Charles Bronson, has a reputation for being Britain’s most violent prisoner. He’s still alive, aged 73 today, but he’s been unable to successfully appeal against his life sentences.
He’s currently behind bars at HM Prison Woodhill, but he had a short stint at Broadmoor. He tried to strangle another patient, staged a protest on the roof, and he was eventually transferred.
Other Broadmoor patients include David Copeland, the culprit behind the 1999 London nail bombings, and Michael Adebowale, one of two men convicted for the 2013 murder of Lee Rigby.
Read more: New documentaries and true crime on TV and streaming this month
