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Rapid Reel
  • 5/28/2025
#CinemaJourney
#TheWimbledonKiller
Transcript
00:00It's 1030 in the morning, a sunny day.
00:30Wimbledon Common is busy with dog walkers, lots of men, women and children.
00:41Hundreds of people use Wimbledon Common every day. Women went there jogging and
00:46walking. It was thought to be entirely safe.
00:50Emergency, which service do you require? A man out walking with his dog sees the
00:59naked body of a young woman. She'd been walking her little boy on Wimbledon
01:05Common and he was found clinging to her body crying, wake up mummy, wake up mummy.
01:10She was covered in blood. The only thing that he felt in his little mind that he
01:16could do to help his mother was to try and staunch her bleeding. He was only two
01:22years and a few months. He has placed a till receipt on her forehead as a make-do
01:32bandage. He's clearly distraught, he's asking for his mummy to get out but
01:39unfortunately that can't be the case because she's dead.
01:47The Rachel Nickell case just hit the headlines. I don't think I'll ever forget
01:54the image of her that was circulated at the time. Beautiful young woman with all
02:01her future ahead of her. For somebody to have the gall to do something like that
02:07in broad daylight and in front of a child is shocking. Many people must be
02:13asking is anyone safe when murders can take place in broad daylight? The crime
02:18was so horrendous it began to herald in a whole new era of fear. Police sought to
02:25dispel fears about sex attacks on women in open spaces like Wimbledon Common. He
02:30needs to be stopped before women felt safe again. I can honestly tell you that
02:35this is the most horrendous and vicious attack that I've ever seen. The acquire
02:41that was launched was one of the biggest since the Yorkshire Ripper. Millions of
02:47pounds were spent trying to capture this man. No stone was left unturned.
02:54Despite this no one was convicted for the murder of Rachel Nickell for another
02:5916 years. Most people remember the murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon
03:06Common however what a lot of people don't realize the perpetrator could have
03:10been caught earlier. This killer could have been apprehended if only there
03:14hadn't been a catalogue of tragic missed opportunities. Could there have been
03:20serious offenses stopped for want of a better word and I think the answer to that is yes.
03:28To understand how it was that Rachel Nickell's killer was free to commit a
03:44whole chain of atrocities we need to go back to 1989. Still into the mid-twenties
03:53today across the region with some light winds going into the afternoon. There's a
03:58chance of a few light showers later this evening moving through the region
04:01but with high temperatures remaining. There was a young mother at home with
04:06her children. The children were having breakfast. It's going to be quite a muggy
04:10night with humid temperatures down to around 14 degrees in the region. When a
04:15man entered via the rear door
04:19he was armed with a backhandled Stanley knife. He threatened the mother saying
04:27that if she didn't comply she would endanger the children. The mother's
04:32natural instinct would of course be to protect her children beyond anything
04:37else. He made her kneel on the bed pull her t-shirt over her head and then he
04:46raped her. He then left saying that you should really make sure you lock your
04:55back door. It's almost like he's saying she's responsible.
05:04The woman immediately contacted the police and she was very brave and to
05:10allow herself to be examined. To come forward as a woman and be examined and
05:22tell your story and go through it all again is difficult. It's very very
05:26difficult. The forensic officers were able to recover DNA but we had nothing
05:34to compare it against. DNA profiling back then isn't like it is now. There wouldn't
05:41have been a DNA database like there is today. They weren't even on computer so
05:47it's completely different now. It's so much easier and so much quicker to match
05:51somebody if they're on the system and they've been previously arrested. In 1989
05:56it required police to catch the individual and do a match to that
06:03individual.
06:09That incident happened in South East London near Winds Common. That bit of
06:15parkland is dissected by a road and then you have Plumstead Common on the
06:21other side of that road. The commons of Plumstead and Winds Common form part of
06:27what they call the Green Chain Walk. Over the next two or three years there were a
06:33number of very nasty attacks on women on the Green Chain which was a series of
06:38parks and open spaces linked by footpaths popular with dog walkers and
06:43joggers and people out for a stroll. It's places people can go for a nice
06:47country walk where you're not in a built-up area and it's a nice relaxing
06:54place to go and walk. And of course it's an ideal hunting ground if you're a
07:01potential rapist. At the time I was living around South East London I was
07:08late teens early 20s. My dad was telling me you don't go near the Green Chain
07:13walks without somebody being with you because of what was going on. Makes you
07:18feel very very uneasy. Everybody needs to look after each other so you need to
07:22keep an eye on other people and if the worst things happen you need to try and
07:27attract attention to yourself, shout and scream, kick your shoes off and run away.
07:31Back then you didn't have mobile phones. The only thing you could rely on is if
07:35you had a panic alarm or what we used to call back then we used to call them rape
07:39alarms and if it's dark I'd have your keys between your fingers or you make
07:45sure you've got something with you for safety.
07:52Back in 1989 we were really something in the dark ages in terms of what the
07:59police could do. There was hardly any CCTV so the man responsible was able
08:06unfortunately to carry on and attack other women.
08:18We didn't think it was just one man who was responsible for all of those attacks
08:24but in March 1992 that changed.
08:29In 1992 in South London near Lewisham a teenager, a 17 year old, was getting off
08:57the bus. It was evening and she notices a man following her. We are so aware as
09:08women who's behind us if there's a guy walking a bit too close behind you it's
09:14very unnerving. He was following her and then he disappeared and then he
09:23reappeared in front of her and he produced a knife. He made her undress and
09:32tried to rape her and then he punched her in the face very hard.
09:43The young lady obviously feared for her life. She eventually runs to a friend's
09:52house and does report the attack to police and they are able to take DNA
09:59evidence. The DNA taken from the 17 year old girl could be compared to the 1989
10:11offence near Plumstead. It revealed that it was the same individual.
10:19This was a light bulb moment for the police because they suddenly realised
10:23that the 1989 incident had not been a one-off and the 1992 incident was not a
10:29one-off. These were linked offences and there was a probability that with a gap
10:35of three years there have been other offences where they hadn't been able to
10:38recover forensic evidence and so they began to look at other crimes that had
10:42been reported. They realised then that they had a serial attacker on their
10:48hands.
10:51The individual has now escalated the level of violence against his victims.
10:57It's an unnecessary physical assault on the young woman which would then indicate
11:03that he probably enjoys inflicting pain onto his victims and in all likelihood
11:13he will continue to escalate.
11:20It's now obviously extremely important that this man is arrested as soon as
11:27possible.
11:34Operation Eccleston was formed. A team of officers whose sole job was to try and
11:42track this man down and put him in jail where obviously he belonged. But the
11:51police have no one to go on. The descriptions were poor. Obviously the
11:58events were traumatic.
12:03We had a description of a weight, male, medium build, height, around 5 foot 8.
12:11The advice is to try and remember as much as you can about somebody but if
12:17you were being attacked by someone your first thing is self-preservation. To have
12:21the height of somebody they're not standing up in front of you nicely and
12:26straight. So it's a guess.
12:30The Eccleston team have an artist's impression of the green chain rapist
12:36based on the information given from the actual victims themselves. That
12:42circulation they would hope would then lead to someone known to the culprit
12:50coming forward and making an identification. Unfortunately that
12:55didn't work. Let's have a reality check here. You've got a rape inquiry team, you
13:02talk about 10-15 officers of that. If you'd thrown a team of say 50 detectives
13:08onto the green chain rapist series I'm sure he would have been arrested much
13:13much quicker. But the harsh reality is that's not how it was.
13:21In a fairly short space of time another attack happened. Both these attacks took
13:28place you know late in the evening. But in May 1992 there was a complete
13:35departure from this pattern of crime.
13:50A woman was walking along a footpath in a parkland area. It's 2 p.m. in the
14:04afternoon. And she has her child with her in a buggy. Why would she think in broad
14:15daylight that she would be at any risk? She was aware of a man following her who
14:25disappeared and then suddenly he wrapped some form of ligature around her neck
14:31and pulled her to the ground. He punches her several times very hard and he rapes
14:39her.
14:42It's very unusual for someone to attack a young mom out with a pram in broad
14:49daylight. He must know the threat of attack on the child will ensure
14:54compliance. DNA linked that attack to the green chain rape series. She was able to
15:06give a description of a man around a six foot mark which was of course very
15:11different. The other victims were giving a height range of a man who was five foot
15:15seven five foot eight. This becomes quite a crucial part of the case in terms of
15:23the police investigation and the focus on the height of the assailant. Sometime
15:32later the woman changed the description to a shorter man. She gave a height
15:38around the five seven five foot eight bearing mind that she's been badly
15:42beaten up. A member of her family was unable to recognize her. She was in such
15:48a you know bad way. They told the police that they were dealing with a very
15:53dangerous man. I mean if he was prepared to do that to a woman in front of a
15:58child, what else was he prepared to do? Fast forward a few months you have the
16:05women on common slaying of Rachel Nickell.
16:10It was very traumatic, very unusual. I had certainly no memory of anything like
16:29that happening in the UK. Murdered in broad daylight a woman is stabbed and
16:34her son attacks. The attack happened in a secluded part of Wimbledon Common in
16:39broad daylight. A man out walking his dog came across a woman he believed was
16:43sunbathing. It was difficult not to hear about the murder of Rachel Nickell. It's
16:47such a high-profile case. It was on all of the news channels. Police are hunting
16:51for a man who murdered a young woman and attacked her two-year-old son while
16:55they were walking on Wimbledon Common this morning. She was sexually assaulted
16:58and her throat had been cut. When you have a crime like this it does bring
17:02everybody up short and everybody thinks oh maybe that could have been me there
17:05but for the grace of God. You think you're going to be safe in broad daylight
17:09right in the open like that. The level of publicity does create an enormous amount
17:16of pressure to arrest the culprit. It is very trying, very very challenging.
17:25There was a huge police response to this crime. I think you know from Land's End to
17:32John O'Groats people were saying I'm not going out on my own while this killer is
17:36out there. No stone was going to be left unturned to try and identify and arrest
17:44this individual. The body of the victim is generally the main source of evidence.
17:53Adhesive tapings are placed on the body and hopefully sticky adhesive then will
17:59lift skin cells, semen, saliva and fibers that may have been transposed by the
18:05culprit. Rachel's 49 stab wounds were created by a very sharp knife and the
18:15depth of those wounds would indicate that the knife was thrust inside the body so
18:19hard that the hilt left marks on the skin and so the individual who created those
18:25wounds clearly meant to kill. It was a frenzied attack by a very disturbed
18:34individual.
18:45Rachel's son Alex had been pushed face down into the mud at one point and dragged by his
18:52feet away from his mother and the crime scene manager had the presence of mind to comb the
19:02child's hair. The police recovered red material from his hair. It was identified as
19:12being paint. The crime scene manager at that time wouldn't have known the importance
19:18that would play sometime later.
19:21Alex clearly had had a look at the man he referred to as the bad man. We enlisted the
19:30help of child psychologists in order to obtain the best evidence from him. This is a two
19:37year old who's gone through an unbelievably traumatic experience. He was however able
19:46to give a man's description. He's seeing a white man with a white shirt. This does
19:52tie in with the other witnesses. One woman in particular recalled seeing a man who wore
20:00a white shirt. He was washing his hands by a stream nearby and she got a good look at
20:09his face. The woman described the man as possibly being flat footed. He had an unusual gait.
20:21We examined that area and we found shoe marks in the mud plaster of Paris. Casts were taken
20:29off those marks in the hope that one day we would find a man who possessed such a pair
20:35of shoes and therefore link him back to the crime scene. All of these clues are of no
20:43use until we can actually lay hands on the man who killed Rachel Newkell. The police
20:51are desperate. They don't really have any leads. There's no forensic evidence that connects
20:58them with the killer. Around about this time there was an increased interest in the science
21:10of forensic psychology across all police circles. The police started to think that having a
21:17forensic psychologist on board that might be useful to solve the murder of Rachel Newkell.
21:23So one thing they did was to introduce a man called Paul Britton who was a forensic psychologist.
21:31They invited Paul Britton to tell them what kind of person they thought would have committed
21:35a crime of this horrendous nature. The profile that Paul Britton produced was that the suspect
21:46was that the suspect would be a white male. He would be in his 20s. He probably lived alone. He
21:57would work in a low-skilled job. Probably very shy. He probably didn't have a girlfriend. He
22:04wouldn't be able to have a sexual relationship with a certain. He was inadequate in that way.
22:09The man was a loner. He probably was interested in pornography. He would live locally.
22:15And would know the area very well. It was decided to use the publicity surrounding the case
22:25to find the suspect. So the police contacted Crime Watch.
22:33Crime Watch UK started in 1984. It was a whole new concept in television because we were showing
22:39people real crimes and asking people if they could help. Nick Ross and I were the presenters.
22:45The hope of course of the program was to solve serious crimes that police hadn't been able to
22:50solve themselves. The first thing of course Crime Watch does is we reconstructed Rachel's walk
22:57across the common with her little boy. And we showed a photo fit of a man who'd been seen in
23:04the area at the time. Some information was released from the profile provided by Paul
23:15Britton. It was a crime of such magnitude. Everybody knew about it. Every single call,
23:24no matter how trivial it might seem, had to be checked and checked over and looked at.
23:29There may just be one call that will make the difference. Someone who will provide a name.
23:38Among the calls we had people who thought they recognized the photo fit we'd shown.
23:43And a name was mentioned and that name was Colin Stagg.
23:50Colin Stagg was a person of interest. They went to Colin's address. They found this individual
23:57who lived alone. During the search of his home it was noted by the officers that one of his
24:03bedrooms was painted black with various what they considered to be occult symbols on the walls.
24:13Which was unusual. There were certain things about Colin Stagg that did absolutely tally
24:20with Paul Britton's analysis. He had some pornographic type, girly magazines, a collection
24:26of knives. When they asked Colin Stagg if he could provide them with the shoes that he was wearing
24:33that day, he told them that he'd thrown them away. Which was in police eyes a major red flag.
24:41Colin Stagg is arrested for questioning.
24:49When Colin was arrested, he answered every question and he agreed he'd been on the common
24:53that morning walking his dog Brandy. But he'd left the common and when he woke up having recovered
25:00from a headache that he'd suffered, he went back up to the common to discover that it was closed
25:04because the murder had taken place. He had had a conversation with a uniformed PC.
25:10And that police officer felt that he'd been acting suspiciously and had an unhealthy interest
25:19in what was going on. Is it that the killer will return to the scene of his crime?
25:24Or was it just the interest of somebody, why can't I go on the common where I normally take my dog?
25:33The forensic psychologist thought our murderer might well have committed other sexual offences.
25:38He may or may not have been caught for them but he thought that there'd be a history there somehow.
25:46During the course of the interview, Colin offered up to the police the fact that he had
25:50on occasion sunbathed nude on Wimbledon Common and he felt someone might have seen him.
25:57A short time after Rachel was murdered, a woman reported to the police she'd seen a man
26:01sort of lying on the grass and he'd indecently exposed himself to her.
26:07This supported the profile provided by Paul Britton as someone who would
26:13indulge in indecent exposure or similar offences.
26:22A light bulb goes on and they think, aha, look at the profile, look at the profile.
26:26This is, this is our man, this is, this is where he's edging towards being our red hot suspect.
26:34Colin Stagg spent three days in police custody. At the end of the three days of interview,
26:39the police are left with no physical evidence against Colin, no blood evidence, no DNA evidence,
26:45no identification evidence. All they have is this admission by him to
26:52sunbathing nude on the common. They have nothing else against him at all.
26:58So in the end, Stagg goes before the local magistrates, pleads guilty
27:02for indecent exposure. He gets a fine and as far as he's concerned, he thinks that's the end of it.
27:11Of course, once Colin has pleaded guilty at Wimbledon Magistrates Court to indecent exposure,
27:16he's named and shamed. It's in the newspaper.
27:22It was on the news that night, him coming out of court looking angry and upset.
27:27And so everybody that has seen him on the common thinks there is Colin Stagg, convicted sex offender.
27:34A lot of people believe there's no smoke without fire.
27:43As far as the newspapers were concerned, Colin Stagg was public enemy number one.
27:51The fallout from that is a woman contacts Scotland Yard and she says,
27:55I've been looking for a partner, so I've been putting some advertisements into a lonely hearts column.
28:01Lonely hearts columns where people would put an advert in the newspaper for looking for love.
28:06And somebody has responded and this person is a chap who signs himself Colin Stagg.
28:14The letter he wrote to her was not an ordinary love letter. This was highly sexually explicit.
28:21Of course, at Scotland Yard, their ears prick up and they say,
28:24oh, you know, we really need to see those letters, please.
28:31Part of the profile provided by Paul Britton had stated he would have extreme sexual fantasies.
28:41The letter added to the suspicion against Colin Stagg.
28:46Subsequently, Colin received a letter from a woman calling herself Lizzie James,
28:50who claimed to be a friend of the lady who Colin had the unwelcome correspondence with.
28:55And Lizzie made it quite plain in that first letter that she would welcome
28:59such graphic and blunt and explicit correspondence.
29:03And Colin took that letter at face value and he began to write a letter to Lizzie James.
29:09Lizzie James was a female police officer, so they set up a honey trap basically.
29:17One way or another, by his responses to this woman,
29:21he'll either rule himself in or he'll take her away.
29:26The first thing that Paul did was to push back on the letter.
29:29set up a honey trap, basically.
29:33One way or another, by his responses to this woman,
29:37he'll either rule himself in or rule
29:39himself out of this inquiry.
29:42So there's Colin sitting at home, lonely,
29:45as famously became known, a virgin.
29:49Starts getting these incredibly sexually explicit letters.
29:52And every time Colin responded to them,
29:55they would encourage him to write
29:57even more extreme material.
30:04The correspondence convinced the investigation team
30:07that Colin Stagg had violent sexual fantasies.
30:12There was a mention of a knife, and that was obviously
30:16the method used to kill Rachel McHale.
30:19The team felt he was further implicating himself,
30:22and he may reveal where the murder weapon
30:25was located, and provide evidence
30:28that only the killer would know.
30:36During the course of the correspondence,
30:37eventually it was agreed that they would meet,
30:39and they met in Hyde Park.
30:44As far as Scotland Yard was concerned,
30:46they're dealing here with a pathological killer.
30:50Lizzie James purported to being involved
30:53in the ritual sacrifice of a mother and her baby,
30:55and having sex afterwards, and that being the only time
30:58she'd ever had an orgasm.
31:00And that she could only be excited by somebody
31:02who had been involved in something similar.
31:06He just thought she was nuts, that he was so
31:08desperate for a relationship.
31:10He didn't end it after she raised that fantasy,
31:13because he didn't believe it was true.
31:20Colin had let Lizzie know that he had been arrested
31:22in relation to the Wimbledon Common killing.
31:26He described being shown photographs of Rachel's body,
31:31and described her lying with her hands as if in prayer.
31:36The police said that that was a description that only
31:40the killer would have known.
31:42At one point, she actually expressed,
31:44oh, I wish she'd done it, then we could be together.
31:48So there was Colin desperate to have the relationship,
31:50and was still not willing to admit what she wanted him
31:54to admit, namely that he was the killer,
31:55because he wasn't the killer.
31:56That was a step too far.
31:59The undercover officer, Lizzie James,
32:01never elicits a confession from Colin Stagg.
32:06But the police decided that there
32:08were sufficient circumstantial evidence
32:11to present the case at trial.
32:14Colin Stagg is rearrested.
32:19After being held overnight at a police station nearby,
32:22Colin Stagg was driven quickly into Wimbledon Magistrates
32:25Court, charged with the murder of Rachel Nickell.
32:28Colin was remanded in custody for 13 months.
32:32As far as the police are concerned,
32:34Colin Stagg has been eliminated as a danger to women.
32:38He's behind bars.
32:39The risk to the public is now nil from him, apparently.
32:44And the case is solved.
32:59On the other side of London, the investigation
33:03for the Green Sheen rape series thought
33:06that Colin Stagg could well have been responsible.
33:09The DNA of Colin Stagg was checked
33:12against those on file.
33:15Colin's DNA was not a match for the Green Sheen rapes.
33:20So they were looking for another suspect.
33:25Then the Green Sheen rapist team are contacted
33:29by a member of the public, who, having
33:31seen the artist's impression compiled by them,
33:34felt that he was a very good likeness of a neighbour,
33:38Robert Knapper, who was a member of the Green Sheen rape
33:42team.
33:43The Green Sheen rapist team then contacted
33:46the Green Sheen rapist team, who, having
33:48seen the artist's impression compiled by them,
33:51felt that he was a very good likeness of a neighbour, Robert
33:55Knapper.
33:56Robert Knapper presented himself to the officers
33:59as a quietly spoken individual, someone
34:03who didn't openly display any sign of mental illness,
34:07really nothing unusual about him.
34:11Obviously, to their mind, didn't fit the behaviour of someone
34:14who would be responsible for those crimes.
34:16And seeing him in the flesh, so to speak,
34:196 foot 1, 6 foot 2, which, of course,
34:22didn't match the height profile provided by the victims.
34:28Police asked him to provide a DNA sample for comparison.
34:32He said he would.
34:34And the officers made an appointment,
34:37and Robert Knapper didn't turn up.
34:42Sometime later, another request made for him to attend,
34:47again, to give a DNA sample, and again, he didn't attend.
34:52When they looked at his height, they decided, no, he's too tall,
34:58and he was eliminated from the inquiries.
35:03It's easy in hindsight saying, well, why didn't you?
35:06Well, that is a tough call for me.
35:08And the fact that you don't get DNA
35:09and you don't go chasing the guy for it is wrong.
35:12You know, Knapper should have been chased.
35:15His address should have been sat on.
35:17It's when he comes out, you're nicked.
35:35In October 1992, the police get a call from the manager of a print shop,
35:42who said a man has been in requesting copies of a notepaper
35:47with the Met Police logo on it.
35:50You know, to copy that is an offence.
35:53The man was arrested.
35:56It was Robert Knapper.
35:58His address was then searched.
36:01A handgun was found with 200 rounds of ammunition,
36:06a crossbow, and an A to Z of the police of London.
36:12The A to Z contained dots, markings.
36:16Xs on various locations in woodland areas in the south-east of London.
36:25At the time, the police don't pay much heed to this.
36:29He said that these were just areas that he was visiting
36:32or he was going for a walk in.
36:34That was his reason for marking the A to Z.
36:37Robert Knapper was subsequently charged
36:40for the possession of a firearm and the ammunition.
36:46In 1992, it was not standard practice
36:50to take DNA from everyone who was arrested.
36:55His offence was non-sexual.
36:57So they don't take any DNA evidence from Robert Knapper,
37:02which meant that he was not a suspect.
37:05They didn't take any DNA evidence from Robert Knapper,
37:08which meant they couldn't link him with the evidence
37:12they had from the Green Chain rapes.
37:15Were the officers involved in the arrest and search
37:18of the firearms on the rape inquiry team?
37:21Probably not. So you're not getting the link.
37:24So much was paper-based back then that you haven't got the manpower
37:28to check everything that somebody's done
37:31and for that person to have the knowledge of what's going on
37:35would be a huge mistake.
37:37And I think what he did was to see how viewers
37:40treat whatever is on the web.
37:42Hello, I'm Ken.
37:45You are a resident with the Green Chain.
37:48The only thing you see on the web is
37:50a big black box with the name of a rapist.
37:53You were arrested in June of 1993.
37:56How did you come to know about the Green Chain?
37:58I came to know about this case
38:00when the police department was trying to find me.
38:03In 1993, police received a call from a neighbor
38:07of a young woman who lived in Rutherglen Road, who would often
38:11leave her curtains open at night.
38:16It's a row of houses which back onto the Green Chain Walk,
38:22and the neighbor says that this man's
38:24been lurking in the area, peeping Tom,
38:27and she's concerned about this.
38:30Police arrived, spoke to the man, searched him.
38:36The person turned out to be Robert Knapper.
38:38The detective who apprehended Robert Knapper at the time
38:43did make a note that his behavior was suspicious
38:48and that perhaps this should have been looked into further,
38:52but it wasn't.
38:54There hadn't been an attack on the Green Chain
38:58Walk for over a year.
39:00Operation Eccleston had been closed down,
39:03and so therefore, that information
39:06remained locally and wasn't actioned any further.
39:14Opportunities were missed to stop him in his tracks
39:18before he did any more harm.
39:22The luck of the devil.
39:31On the morning of November the 4th, 1993,
39:35the boyfriend of a young mother who lived in Plumstead
39:40came home after a night shift to her flat,
39:45and he was met with a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible
39:53after a night shift to her flat, and he was
39:58met with a horrendous scene.
40:02There were clothes all over the place.
40:05At first, he thought there might have
40:06been a break-in or something, and then he
40:10found the body of his girlfriend, Samantha Bissett,
40:14sitting upright on the sofa, and her arms were sticking out
40:20of, like, clothing.
40:23And his girlfriend had a young daughter, Jasmine,
40:28and he went to look for her and found her under the duvet,
40:34clearly thought something awful had happened
40:36and didn't look any further, and called the police.
40:45The first day at work, I was sent to Timsmead Police
40:49Station on the Bissett murder inquiry.
40:53You arrive at the police station,
40:54and all you know is you've got a female victim.
40:58You don't know anything else, and it just comes
41:01in little bit by bit by bit.
41:04And obviously, 22 years old, you're
41:06seeing stuff that is quite shocking to realize what
41:11one human being can do to another.
41:16Samantha had been cut from pretty much her abdomen
41:23to her throat.
41:25The way he left Samantha was disgusting,
41:29absolutely disgusting.
41:30He obviously had no respect at all.
41:38They discovered the body of her daughter, Jasmine,
41:43and she had been sexually molested.
41:51Good evening.
41:51Detectives say it's the most vicious murder they've
41:54ever had to investigate.
41:56Samantha Bissett was brutally murdered,
41:58along with her four-year-old daughter, Jasmine.
42:00It's a double murder, but the circumstances
42:03of what's been done to Samantha is truly horrendous.
42:08The police had a very urgent need
42:11to find out who'd done this.
42:12Is this the work of a serial killer?
42:14Has he struck already, and is he going to strike again?
42:18Police want to question a number of men seen in the area
42:21on the night of the murders.
42:22Their fear that the killer might strike again
42:24cannot be overstated.
42:27In a murder investigation, you're
42:28looking for fingerprints, fibers, any blood DNA
42:33left by the suspect.
42:35Unfortunately, in this case, there was no DNA found.
42:40There were fingerprints at the scene,
42:44which were all accounted for.
42:48The best evidence we found was a training
42:50shoe mark and blood at the scene.
42:53But we have nothing to compare it against.
43:01She was a young woman, as we were,
43:04and you feel a connection to her age group,
43:08or it could have been us, and her family as well.
43:14Because you're in the middle of it,
43:16you feel for everybody involved.
43:20The whole team was focused on one thing.
43:22They desperately, desperately wanted to catch him
43:28and wouldn't stop until they caught him.
43:39Paul Britton was called in to do a profile
43:41concerning the Bissett murders.
43:44He felt it wasn't the same.
43:47Rachel McKell was a blitz attack over a very
43:50short period of time.
43:51This killer had taken his time.
43:54He had been with Samantha well over an hour.
43:59And he felt it wasn't the same.
44:05The senior investigating officer decided
44:07to rerun the fingerprint search again.
44:12It was a fingerprint on the headboard of Jasmine's bed,
44:16and that turned out to be the perpetrator.
44:21The fingerprints were run through the police indices,
44:25and they matched Robert Knapper.
44:31All of us got a phone call to say they've got him.
44:38As soon as we identified Robert Knapper
44:40as the suspect for the Bissett murders,
44:43his police file was pulled.
44:46When we saw the photograph of him, one of the team
44:50immediately said, that's the Green Chain Walk rapist.
44:53It fits the photo fit.
44:58The Bissett team revisit his previous arrest
45:02for the firearms offense.
45:03Personal items have been taken during the course
45:05of the search.
45:07One of those items was an A to Z with markings there on.
45:11When they examined that A to Z, they
45:13can see the markings matched up with the Green Chain
45:18rape series locations.
45:22He's not going to go straight for murder,
45:24and the rapes were a build up to that.
45:28Realized there was a lot more markings than the crimes
45:32they had before them.
45:36So the question is, what else has he done?
45:39Is he responsible for other unsolved crimes,
45:42including the murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common?