True Crime: Netflix's The Murder of Rachel Nickell is gripping and heartbreaking
- Carla Davis
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
Netflix has been on a roll recently with their true crime documentaries. Recent additions include The Crash, Maternal Instinct, and now The Murder of Rachel Nickell.
Rachel Nickell was only 23 years old when she was killed in Southwest London. She and her partner Andre Hanscombe were raising their two-year-old son Alexander together, and she had taken the boy the family dog for a walk on Wimbledon Common. While walking, she was attacked, sexually assaulted, and stabbed in the neck 49 times, all within sight of her little boy. He was found clinging to her body – one of the many heartbreaking details outlined in this emotional documentary.
Obviously, Alexander was too young to be a good witness, but law enforcement and child psychologists tried to get anything out of him they could to help with the case. There is actual film footage of some of these attempts, and it is hard to watch the little boy as he responds to repeated questions about the man who killed his mother.
When they ask him if the man said anything to him, he responds, “I can’t tell you that bit.” The sessions continued, and in a later one, this small child tells them to stop asking him these questions, “I am fed up.”
The Murder of Rachel Nickell looks at the toll this took on father and son
Later, they actually take Alexander to the area where his mother was killed, and the boy just started crying. Andre, who has been very calm throughout, tells the investigators "enough", picks up his child, and takes him away.
At that point, Andre makes the decision to leave their home, and the two of them move away to start a life without Rachel. Meanwhile, law enforcement continues their investigation and try desperately to find who may have committed this brutal murder.
Just as so often happens in murder cases in the US, they are so determined that they accuse the wrong man. They even rejected an idea presented to them by detectives investigating a similar case, the murder of single mom Samantha Bisset and her 4-year-old daughter. These detectives thought perhaps the same man – Robert Napper – might be responsible for Rachel’s murder.
The Murder of Rachel Nickell is riveting true crime, of course. But it is also a tender examination of Andre’s grief and trauma, and his determination to raise his son in the best way he knows how. This calm, gentle man had to put his own loss on the back burner and focus on his child, as any good father should. It was not all sunshine and roses as we find out later, but both men now have a good relationship.
And, spoilers be damned, Rachel’s murderer is eventually identified.
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