Mother of heartbroken woman murdered by Rachel Nickell’s killer “never recovered”

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New Channel 4 takes a look at Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine, who were killed by Robert Napper 16 months after stabbing Rachel to death on Wimbledon Common

The family of a woman and her young daughter who was murdered by Rachel Nickell’s killer have recounted their pain while watching scenes from their massacre on a television series.

Samantha Bisset, 27, and Jazmine, four, were killed by Robert Napper 16 months after stabbing Rachel to death in front of her two-year-old son.

While Rachel’s murder at Wimbledon Common has been etched in the public consciousness, that of Samantha and Jazmine has been largely forgotten.

But their ordeal returns to center stage 28 years later after appearing in C4’s Deceit.

He tells how Napper was able to strike again after police were convinced Rachel had been killed by innocent Colin Stagg and launched a disastrous undercover attack led by a criminal psychologist.

Samantha’s stepfather Jack Morrison, 88, said he found the show “really hard to watch but impossible to ignore”.

Jack, from Montrose, Angus, said: “It was overwhelming to watch the scenes of the murders of Samantha and Jazmine. My wife Maggie, Samantha’s mother, couldn’t have watched.

Napper, who was a paranoid schizophrenic and a serial rapist, broke into Samantha’s apartment, stabbed her and then sexually assaulted and suffocated Jazmine in Plum-stead, south-east London, in November 1993.

Samantha’s mother never recovered from the atrocity and died of a heart attack at the age of 53, days before Napper was tried in 1995.

Jack said: “We had just been on vacation in Italy trying to forget what had happened for a while, but it was too much.

“She had a heart attack – although I always thought it was her broken heart – right after we got back.

“She said she had nothing to live on anymore and felt guilty for being alive and they were dead.

“She couldn’t go on knowing that her daughter and grandson had been killed in such an appalling manner. It destroyed her to know how much fear and violence they suffered.

“Samantha was his only child and they were very close. She came and went to London to help, spend time with her daughter and granddaughter.

“There is no stronger bond than a mother and her daughter.

“I loved Samantha too and Jazmine was a lovely little girl. I was also distraught.”

Jack added that Maggie wouldn’t have approved of the drama and couldn’t watch it.

“I miss her every day,” he said. “I still miss Samantha and Jazmine too and wonder about the life they should have had.

“If Napper hadn’t walked into their house and taken their lives, I think Maggie would still be with me, still happy and full of life.”

Napper, now 55, was eventually convicted of Rachel’s murder in 2008 and is locked up in Broadmoor Hospital.