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Alex Hanscombe‘s life was forever changed on July 15, 1992.
The then-2-year-old witnessed the brutal murder of his mom Rachel Nickell during a trip to the park at Wimbledon Common in London, where she was stabbed 49 times. The toddler was found clinging to the 23-year-old’s bloodied body, later telling his dad André Hanscombe how he saw a “bad man” with a knife approach them from behind, according to Netflix’s new documentary The Murder of Rachel Nickell.
It took over a decade for police to solve the case, with serial rapist Robert Napper pleading guilty to manslaughter in 2008.
Now 36, Alex is speaking out about how the tragedy affected him for the rest of his life.
“If you witnessed that degree of evil as a small child, the illusion that you have now that your parents—no matter how good a job they do—can really protect you from harm,” he said in the documentary, “I think that collapses.”
“My father knew that I understood what had happened, that my mother loved me, and that she wouldn’t have wanted to leave me,” Alex shared. “So, my father and me, we didn’t talk about my mother. We didn’t talk about the past, but still I felt an anger that this had happened, that no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop it from happening.”
Alex explained that he was also upset about having to sit for interviews with a child psychologist and police officers—supervised by his dad—to try to help remember details of the crime to solve the case.
“I was very angry about a lot of the things we’d lived through, the sessions that went on for weeks and months,” he said. “The thing that was most distressing for me was to be taken back to that day repeatedly, and suggestions given about how I should feel about it. I carried that with me somewhat.”
In fact, Alex lost respect and trust for his father during the process.
“The fundamental point was that he was the protector of the family as the father, and unfortunately had allowed this to happen to us,” he said. “So, in my teenage years, we had a lot of conflict.”
Netflix
Indeed, André admitted in The Murder of Rachel Nickell that Alex had a troubled upbringing. “The anger was quite rightly directed towards me,” he said. “I had a huge sense of guilt that I hadn’t protected my family.”
André was at work when Rachel was attacked, later moving to France with Alex to navigate their grief as the case remained unsolved for years—until a DNA breakthrough in 2004.
Courtesy of Netflix
And in the years since Rachel’s horrific murder, Alex has come to accept his relationships with his parents and the trauma he experienced.
“We were ultimately forced to find our own closure, which I think is actually a good thing, and that was ultimately the realization that you have no choice but to make peace with it,” he said in the doc. “My parents believed in the infinity of the spirit, thar my mother would be with me always, wherever I went.”
Alex added, “My father sacrificed everything for me and for what he believed in, without any guarantees of how it would turn out. He was brave enough to do what he felt was right in his heart. I’m forever indebted to him for that.”
Courtesy of Netflix
For a look at other true crime cases, read on.
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