savage that it severed her spinal cord.
The killer then suffocated and sexually assaulted her fouryear-old daughter, Jazmine-Jemima, nicknamed J. J., in her cabin bed surrounded by toys. He then set about mutilating Samantha’s body in a shockingly similar way to Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel in 1888.
According to the prosecution, the killer “cut open her body from the top of her chest to the genitals. He peeled her skin back and in some areas, in particular the umbilicus, pubic and lower abdomen area, removed the flesh altogether. He pulled away her ribs, causing extensive splitting of the tissue, and once the internal organs were exposed he stabbed them many times . . . Secondly, he cut open the top of her right thigh and attempted to cut off her lower leg at the knee. He cut open her left leg from the hip to the lower thigh with an extensive cut. He eventually left the flat, taking with him a piece of Samantha Bisset’s abdomen, presumably as a trophy.”
Samantha’s body was discovered by her boyfriend who let himself into the flat the following morning. It seems that the killer had been spying on them as they made love the previous evening, as Samantha had been laid out on some cushions in the same position. An experienced female police photographer, who was called to record the scene, was so traumatized by what she saw that she never worked again.
Fingerprints had been left at the scene. They belonged to Robert Napper. He admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. He also pleaded guilty to attempting to rape the two seventeen-year-old girls and the rape of the twenty-twoyear-old mother, mentioned earlier. In October 1995, he was detained under the Mental Health Act, on the grounds that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger’s syndrome.
Sentencing Napper, Mr Justice Hooper said: “You are suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, characterized by marked thought disorder, paranoia and grandiose delusions. You may have also experienced tactile hallucinations and you feel you can read people’s minds. Your mental illness is severe and directly linked to the offences of homicide and rape. You are highly dangerous as a result of that illness. You present a grave and immediate risk to the public. You will require detention in hospital for many years to come.”
The officer in charge of the Bisset enquiry, Detective Superintendent Michael Banks, said at the time that he and colleagues on the Nickell team “liaised closely”. But despite the similarity between the two murders, the police continued the prosecution of Colin Stagg as Napper claimed to have been at work on the day that Rachel was killed.
After the Stagg case was thrown out, the police went to see Napper who was, by then, in Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital. But Napper refused to confess to the Nickell murder unless there was some crime scene evidence tying him to the killing.
In 2002, the Rachel Nickell case was reopened as part of a review of cold cases in light of new advances in DNA profiling. A new technique known as Low Copy Numbers allowed a DNA profile to be obtained from much smaller samples. However, when the sample from the Rachel Nickell case was sent to the Forensic Science Service, it was returned with no match – though Napper’s profile was then on the national database. It was only when the sample was retested three years later that the link with Napper was finally established.
On 18 December 2008, at the Old Bailey, Napper pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Napper’s barrister David Fisher QC said: “He was convinced he had an MA in mathematics, that he had received a Nobel Peace Prize, that he had medals from the time he was fighting in Angola, that he and his family were listed in
Who’s Who
, that he had millions of pounds in a bank in Sidcup, that he and others could transmit their thoughts by telepathy. He also believed
The killer then suffocated and sexually assaulted her fouryear-old daughter, Jazmine-Jemima, nicknamed J. J., in her cabin bed surrounded by toys. He then set about mutilating Samantha’s body in a shockingly similar way to Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel in 1888.
According to the prosecution, the killer “cut open her body from the top of her chest to the genitals. He peeled her skin back and in some areas, in particular the umbilicus, pubic and lower abdomen area, removed the flesh altogether. He pulled away her ribs, causing extensive splitting of the tissue, and once the internal organs were exposed he stabbed them many times . . . Secondly, he cut open the top of her right thigh and attempted to cut off her lower leg at the knee. He cut open her left leg from the hip to the lower thigh with an extensive cut. He eventually left the flat, taking with him a piece of Samantha Bisset’s abdomen, presumably as a trophy.”
Samantha’s body was discovered by her boyfriend who let himself into the flat the following morning. It seems that the killer had been spying on them as they made love the previous evening, as Samantha had been laid out on some cushions in the same position. An experienced female police photographer, who was called to record the scene, was so traumatized by what she saw that she never worked again.
Fingerprints had been left at the scene. They belonged to Robert Napper. He admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. He also pleaded guilty to attempting to rape the two seventeen-year-old girls and the rape of the twenty-twoyear-old mother, mentioned earlier. In October 1995, he was detained under the Mental Health Act, on the grounds that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger’s syndrome.
Sentencing Napper, Mr Justice Hooper said: “You are suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, characterized by marked thought disorder, paranoia and grandiose delusions. You may have also experienced tactile hallucinations and you feel you can read people’s minds. Your mental illness is severe and directly linked to the offences of homicide and rape. You are highly dangerous as a result of that illness. You present a grave and immediate risk to the public. You will require detention in hospital for many years to come.”
The officer in charge of the Bisset enquiry, Detective Superintendent Michael Banks, said at the time that he and colleagues on the Nickell team “liaised closely”. But despite the similarity between the two murders, the police continued the prosecution of Colin Stagg as Napper claimed to have been at work on the day that Rachel was killed.
After the Stagg case was thrown out, the police went to see Napper who was, by then, in Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital. But Napper refused to confess to the Nickell murder unless there was some crime scene evidence tying him to the killing.
In 2002, the Rachel Nickell case was reopened as part of a review of cold cases in light of new advances in DNA profiling. A new technique known as Low Copy Numbers allowed a DNA profile to be obtained from much smaller samples. However, when the sample from the Rachel Nickell case was sent to the Forensic Science Service, it was returned with no match – though Napper’s profile was then on the national database. It was only when the sample was retested three years later that the link with Napper was finally established.
On 18 December 2008, at the Old Bailey, Napper pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Napper’s barrister David Fisher QC said: “He was convinced he had an MA in mathematics, that he had received a Nobel Peace Prize, that he had medals from the time he was fighting in Angola, that he and his family were listed in
Who’s Who
, that he had millions of pounds in a bank in Sidcup, that he and others could transmit their thoughts by telepathy. He also believed
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