Recently, Britain's Fourth Channel launched a documentary interviewing Alex Hanscombe, a witness to the famous murder, which sparked a heated discussion among British audiences:
At that time, Alex, who was less than three years old, witnessed the whole process of his mother Rachel Nickell being stabbed 49 times in a row, cutting his throat, and being sexually assaulted and killed.
As the only witness at that time, Alex was ignored by the police because of his young age, and what was unexpected was that after many years, Alex admitted in an interview that he actually clearly remembered every detail of the crime, but he never had the opportunity to tell it to help the police find the real murderer of his mother...
Alex
Ironically, after ignoring Alex, the detection of the case was twisted and turned, and even a scandal was caused by the police setting up a "beauty plan" to frame innocent people, until the real murderer was caught in 2008, and everything finally came to light...
The controversy among the melon-eating masses focused on:
Can a child who is too young be able to help solve the case as a witness?
Are their memories reliable?
In some cases, do two- or three-year-olds really have accurate memories?
All this, let's start from the beginning...
On July 15, 1992, on Wimbledon Commons outside London, Rachel Nickell, a 23-year-old young mum, was playing near a grove with her son Alex, who was less than three years old.
Alex's dad, Rachel's boyfriend, couldn't come and spend time with the mother and son because he had something to do.
He could not have imagined that this huge public clearing could also encounter the most vicious bandits in broad daylight.
Rachel played with her son, happy along the way, and she grew bold and took Alex deep into the woodland.
Rachel found a clearing to lie down, and her son Alex played by her side.
Just then, a tall white man suddenly sprang out of hiding in the woods, and he pounced on Rachel, trying to sexually assault her.
Rachel was horrified, and she realized the other party's purpose and began to resist desperately.
At this time, the man suddenly pulled out a sharp knife and began to stab Rachel, and Rachel's body immediately flowed with blood.
The desire to survive made her continue to resist, but the more she resisted, the harder the man stabbed her.
The mad man stabbed her 49 times in a row, Rachel's whole body was soaked with blood, and the man then made up another knife and cut the throat of Rachel, who was already dying.
After discovering that Rachel was no longer moving, the man began to sexually assault her, and after the sexual assault, he got up and prepared to flee the scene...
During this time, Alex, who was more than two years old, witnessed the whole process from the sidelines, and he did not understand what had just happened at a young age, and the man hesitated and fled the scene.
Alex didn't understand what was happening, but it was inadvertently recorded by his brain without reservation, and he could still recall the details clearly for many years afterwards.
He saw his mother lying motionless on the ground, so he reached out and pushed her mother, shouting three times in a row:
"Wake up, Mom..."
However, the mother never responded, and at that moment Alex realized that the mother could no longer wake up.
Although he did not understand the meaning of death at this time, he realized that he could not let his mother lie like this, so he went around and found a piece of waste paper to cover his mother.
After that, he sat in the same place, as if still trying to figure out what had just happened...
Just then, a man walking his dog passed nearby, and in the distance he saw a woman lying down and a little boy beside her.
At first, the man thought the woman was sunbathing, but when he got a little closer, he saw a terrible scene:
A woman was killed and fell in a pool of blood, and a boy of about two or three years old sat next to her, overwhelmed...
The man quickly called the police, and the London police quickly arrived at the scene to investigate, and the bloody murder spread throughout Britain overnight.
After the incident, Alex was first handed over to his father by the police.
After analyzing the crime scene, investigators affirmed one fact:
At the scene of Rachel Nickell's brutal rape and murder, Alex was the only witness.
However, the police believed from top to bottom that Alex, who was only three years old a month old, had no possibility of providing valid testimony, and that he could not play any role at a young age.
As a result, the investigators completely ignored Alex and began to investigate the case in other ways, but the case eventually slid to the brink of farce.
Because the case has aroused national attention, the public opinion pressure of the London police is also very large.
After using conventional means and interrogating 32 suspects without finding anything, Scotland Yard (London police) actually came up with a trick to use the "beauty plan" to fish for law enforcement.
They locked up a suspect, Colin Stagg, and sent a beautiful undercover policewoman to PUA him, and after the policewoman was so fascinated by Stagg, offered to dump him if he admitted that he was the murderer of Rachel Nickell in Wimbledon Commons.
Stagg was interrogated
Stagg had revealed to the policewoman that he had "violent fantasies," but he would rather be dumped than admit that he had killed Rachel Nickell.
In this way, Stagg was still brought to court by Scotland Yard, and after several trials, the court finally acquitted Stagg in 1994.
However, in the years that followed, Scotland Yard remained unforgiving, repeatedly stressing in public that Stagg was the killer and asking him to confess his guilt.
It was not until 2002, because of advances in DNA identification technology, that the DNA left by the murderer on Nickell's body was finally analyzed and extracted, confirming that it had nothing to do with Stagg, and his suspicions were cleared.
Fortunately, despite the frequent dog blood plots, Scotland Yard finally found the real culprit in 2007.
In an investigation into the cold murder of Rachel Nickell, they locked up Robert Napper among a number of suspects.
Sixteen months after Nickell's murder, he killed another young lady and her four-year-old daughter.
After his arrest, Napper was diagnosed with delusional schizophrenia and Azberg syndrome, and he was ultimately not criminally charged, but spent more than a decade in a mental hospital.
Scotland Yard checked Napper's DNA and determined that it was the real culprit.
As many years ago, Napper pleaded guilty, but instead of going to jail, he was found by the court to be an "extremely dangerous patient" and held indefinitely in a mental hospital...
The murder case that caused a sensation in britain was finally revealed, and the wronged Stagg also received corresponding compensation, and the incompetent police officers who made the "beauty plan" in Scotland Yard were also punished accordingly
However, the shocking truth about the eyewitness Alex in the case was not revealed until recently
Now, when Alex, who turns 32, has been interviewed by the media, he can finally calmly face the camera and tell everything that happened in the past.
Alex as an adult
The most shocking thing is that all these years, he actually remembers everything that happened that day, but he has sealed the truth for decades.
At that time, Scotland Yard was busy solving the case, and alex, the only witness who witnessed the whole process of the crime, slowly grew up.
He gradually realized how terrible everything he had witnessed was, and slowly developed psychological problems.
Because the memory was so bloody and caused him great psychological trauma, the adolescent Alex actually gave birth to a strong rebellion and resistance to his mother.
He began to stay away from anyone who inquired about his mother's case, the police, the media, politicians, and also refused to trust anyone other than his father.
But deep down, he clearly remembered the murderer of his mother, remembered all the details of what happened that day, and even remembered the sunshine and the smell of the grass that day.
For more than a decade, the real culprit who killed his mother could not be found, but Alex did not offer to provide eyewitness testimony, and the scotland yard agents never asked him for information, they still firmly believed:
Alex was less than three years old at the time, and he certainly couldn't remember what had happened...
To escape painful memories, his father took Alex on a journey to Spain and settled in Barcelona, where Alex later became a yoga instructor.
Now 32 years old, he once again met with the Scotland Yard agent who was handling the case.
Alex remembers meeting the agent for the first time in an ambulance after the incident.
The two sides began to talk about why they did not ask Alex about the case in the first place, and the agent said:
"Not only me, but many agents wouldn't try to find out about a case from a three-year-old, let alone a horrible case."
Agents then said that it was more important for Alex to survive than to solve the case.
Alex now recalls that cruel memory, which still provokes heated debate among the melon-eating masses years later:
Can two- or three-year-olds really remember so many details?
Some were skeptical of Alex's claims:
"How can he remember?"
"I've heard of these kinds of things before, how could he possibly remember those things?"
"He was only three years old when the tragedy happened, and I still have a hard time believing he remembers those things."
Others believe that many people, like Alex, remember everything they did when they were young.
"I still vividly remember when I was three years old and eight days old, when my newborn sister was taken home from the hospital, and I even remember what my mother was wearing."
"My eldest son clearly remembers my mother's last night at home before she died. Despite our efforts to cover him, he remembered everything clearly. He was now sixteen years old, and the terrible thing was that the memory of that night was still vivid in his mind. ”
"The top commented that 'how does he remember?' Is it serious? I can still recall the events of my two-year-old, not all of them clearly but some points and fragments. The poor dude could certainly remember that the most important man of his life had been attacked! ”
Of course, there are also people who think that the deceased is gone, and arguing about Alex's memory is of little significance.
"Let Rachel rest in peace." I think these should be family affairs..."
Time has passed, the real murderer has been captured, the case has been solved, and Alex is still trying to recover from the trauma, and he confesses that he no longer resents his mother's murderer.
In his opinion, perhaps only by letting go of hatred can we live with cruel memories...