Authors: Paul Britton
At a meeting on 23 June, I advised Pedder that it would be appropriate for Lizzie to provide a fantasy but it had to be based entirely on elements that had already been introduced into the relationship by Stagg. Most importantly, Lizzie shouldn’t escalate the depravity or physical and sexual violence already introduced. Her fantasy should reflect the language and descriptions employed by Stagg and, where possible, mirror an actual fantasy that he had already sent to her.
Having given the guidelines, I let Pedder and his team get on with drafting the words.
Lizzie eventually described walking with Stagg through woodland on a summer’s day, hand in hand. They become excited and kiss.
Your hands are now pulling at my top. My breasts are now straining to be released. In your haste to release them my top rips. It excites me even more and I feel that special warm wetness between my legs. I claw at your t-shirt, pulling it up at the back. Let me rake your firm muscular back. I am filled with an animal passion, and begin to beg for you to fill me up.
You tell me to shut up and wait, you have other things on your mind.
The letter goes on to describe how their sex session is interrupted by a young woman with short blond hair who becomes aroused and accepts Stagg’s invitation to join them. He then pulls a knife from the back of his jeans.
I get a shock. You are holding a knife. To see your hands on two powerful different swords really makes me pant. You must have noticed by the look of surprise…
You walk over to us and speak to the girl, ‘suck me’. She looks at me and then you and she doesn’t need asking again. She is on her knees lapping you up. You hold the knife near her bright stiff nipples and gently circle one of them with it. A thin scratch appears in a crescent shape around her nipple. It slowly darkens and a small trail of blood begins to dribble down. She hardly notices, she is feasting on your cock…
As advised, the fantasy was almost a mirror image of what had gone before. Stagg had introduced the woodland setting, the knife, the third party and dripping blood. He had also used the language.
Reassured of Lizzie’s good faith and clearly aroused, Stagg quickly arranged another meeting in Hyde Park for 29 June. Sitting at the Dell Cafe, Lizzie read the contents of his latest letter and he grew embarrassed that someone might overhear.
He asked her to spend the weekend with him, suggesting they could go to places on Wimbledon Common. Lizzie pretended to finally make the connection.
‘So that’s the thing you were talking about, you said you’d been arrested for that thing on the common? It was that thing on Wimbledon Common, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. It happened last year.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know that you were talking about it in your letters. I was thinking, what, I haven’t heard anything about that.’
‘Cos it was all in the papers weren’t it?’ . ‘Oh, I know, I remember now when, you know, it rings a bell. But, ah…’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh, so you’re not far from there?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, did you know her?’
‘No, I’ve never seen her, you know. She was supposed to have been a regular over there but I’ve never seen her.’
‘It’s all very interesting, isn’t it?’
‘I saw someone who was, who was like her once. She was sunbathing over by the big pond over there.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘There’s like a big lake over there, you know, and ah that was a couple of years ago.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I told the police about it. That could have been her. But wasn’t too sure, you know, cos she was tall, a bit thin, blonde, she had a little kid with her.’
‘Oh that is interesting. Do you know who’s done it? Have you got any ideas?’
‘No, don’t know.’
‘Come on, you must know. If you were over there all the time.’
‘So do a lot of people.’
‘I’d like to meet him. I’d like to see what he’s got to say, wouldn’t you? He’s home high and dry now, isn’t he, I suppose. He’s laughing.’
‘Mmm.’
‘What sort of things did they ask you?’
‘What, the police?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh, a lot of things. It started off they were being nice to you, you know, asking me about my lifestyle and things like that and ah it got a bit nasty, you know, started asking me things like, you know, why did I murder her and that like, and I was saying, “I didn’t murder her”, you know, “I’ve never even seen her over there”. I described the woman like I described to you and said that it could have been her but I’m not too sure, you know.
‘And you know, to tell you the truth, they think I did it even now. I got pulled over by the police, ah, Bank Holiday Monday, May the thirty-first.’
‘I wish you had done it - knowing you got away with it, I’d think that’s brilliant. I wish you had. Screw ‘em!’
‘Thing was I was over there at the time it was happening.’
‘Were ya?’
‘Yeah. The thing was last year I was getting over that illness, you know I managed to put on a bit of weight and that…’
‘Yeah. Did you see anything like that when you were there, if you were there at the time.’
‘No, that’s the thing, you know, cos like there’s these like large hills …’
‘Yeah.’
‘And it happened on that side of the hill and I was over on this side of the hill, you know, it was very…’
‘What, at the same time?’
‘Yeah.’
‘My God.’
‘The thing was I had all these splitting headache and that, I couldn’t take my dog too far otherwise we would have gone that way, you know.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I just wanted to get back home again and doze off.’
‘God, you could have seen it couldn’t you?’
‘Yeah. I would see him doing it and running away …’
Later Lizzie asks him ‘I wonder if you could have seen him, or seen him doing it?’
‘That’s right. Yeah.’
‘Say, say he raped her and everything didn’t he?’
‘Yeah, he done everything, yeah.’
‘Dirty sod.’
‘He almost decapitated her as well.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yeah, he stabbed her 49 times they said.’
‘Oh, my God.’
‘Cos when I was being interviewed by the police they actually showed me a photograph.’
‘Did you see her?’
‘Yeah, you know, it was, you know, she was naked and that, you know, and ah, on the ground there was blood everywhere, you know, all over the grass and that.’
‘God, you’d have had to be careful too not to give anything away.’
‘Cos they thought like if they showed me the photograph, like, I’d suddenly snap and say, all right I did it, you know.’
‘They didn’t realize what a mind you’ve got. I think about things like that all the time, mister.’
‘Yeah, ‘cos I mean when they arrested me they searched my place and that because I’ve got three bedrooms and that, you know.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘And in one of the main bedrooms I did paint it black and I had all these witchcraft motifs done in chalk all over the walls and that, you know, and as soon as they saw that, that was it, you know, I was the one who did it, you know, they were so convinced, you know.’
‘When you saw the photographs of her, what did she look like?’
‘Well the photograph they showed me she was laying down on the grass sort of, you know, when you’re a baby and sort of curled up.’
‘Oh yeah, yeah.’
‘She was like, and ah, but the photograph was taken from her backside upwards and her head was sort of like round and ah there was blood all over the grass and that. She was completely naked and ah, from that viewpoint I could see her cunt and that, you know, and ah she was very wide open, you know, so he must have really forced her open, you know. At that time, he was obviously killing her at the time, and ah, I don’t know the muscles or whatever, you know, in her body and that made her stay open, you know. The thing was, you know, as he’s showing me the photograph I got a hard-on which …’
‘Did ya? Oh God, I hope they didn’t see it.’
‘No, no, ‘cos there was like a table there and that, you know. Cos they were taping it all as well, you know, like the police do and, ah, everything I was saying they were taking into, you know, seeing double meanings into ‘em you know…’
At last Pedder and his team had the first evidence that they felt could possibly constitute guilty knowledge. Stagg had, indeed, been shown a photograph during his earlier interviews with police - a single image carefully chosen to show Rachel’s body but also to ensure that little detail of her murder had been visible.
The photograph was a scene-establishing shot that showed Rachel naked and curled up on the grass, with her lower half nearest the camera. It didn’t show her neck, hands, face or genitalia. Stagg had described injuries and other details that the police believed he couldn’t possibly have gleaned from the image he was shown.
He described how Rachel had been almost decapitated, even though he couldn’t have seen her neck. He said that she lay curled up like a baby and he could see her genitalia which were ‘very wide open, you know, so he must have forced her open’.
This description graphically and precisely matched the condition of Rachel’s anus yet from examination of the single photograph labelled KP27, Stagg couldn’t have known such a detail unless it was a guess. He referred to her vagina rather than her anus, but sexually inexperienced men often confuse the two and merge them in their thoughts. Equally, he described Rachel as being ‘very wide open’, an interesting observation because not many people would realize that muscles don’t contract after death which is why Rachel’s anus was still dilated.
Stagg’s account of becoming sexually aroused at seeing the picture was entirely consistent with the extremely rare and serious sexual deviation that he’d already shown.
Pedder’s reaction was a mixture of elation and relief. From his point of view, he had wanted an operation in which the suspect either eliminated himself early, therefore saving time and money, or went on to confess. And although he never mentioned it, I sensed that the detective had staked a great deal on convincing his superiors to consider the operation. The decision, he assured me, had been taken at the highest level of the Metropolitan Police, which I took to mean the commissioner.
Now there was no question of the operation not continuing. Having made the breakthrough, Pedder still hoped that Stagg would disclose further knowledge to Lizzie or lead police to the murder weapon.
Yet within a week, his position was dramatically shaken by a national newspaper story. Splashed over the front page of the Star and two pages inside was an interview with Colin Stagg under the headline, I DIDN’T KILL RACHEL NICKELL. Inside, he claimed he was innocent and that the police were trying to pin the murder on him. Wickerson, Pedder and Lizzie were driving north from London to see me when they stopped at a motorway service area for petrol. Pedder had glanced at the newsstand and seen the headline.
It was a disaster. Right from the outset, I had warned the investigators that external publicity would influence the disclosures of the suspect, if he was the murderer. Not only would exposure increase his caution regarding self-disclosure, he could also be the recipient of sexual interest from other women, which would obviously dilute the effectiveness of the covert operation.
Pedder looked fit to throttle someone. ‘What the fuck can we do?’
‘Minimize the damage.’ ‘I’m open to suggestions.’
I turned to Lizzie. ‘You should get straight on the phone to him. Show him you’re upset at the story. He’s been careless. You’ve opened your heart to him and told him your darkest secrets and now he’s put you in jeopardy by talking to the media. Get him to reassure you that everything is still OK between you.’
In their next few conversations Lizzie made her distress plain and Stagg tried his best to get back into her favour. He also wrote another letter apologizing for upsetting her and including another fantasy to ‘cheer you up’.
He set the story on a warm summer’s evening on the common where he sits on the grass beside a tree and relaxes. He notices someone walking towards him, a tall sexy blond woman (Lizzie), and they begin having sex against a tree.
Another man joins them and forces his penis into Lizzie’s mouth. Meanwhile Stagg says he wants to experiment and retrieves a knife from his clothes.
I get between you legs and fuck you hard again. You are now impaled at both ends by two swollen cocks. As I fuck you I draw the knife around your neck. Drops of blood splatter the man’s naked legs. You’re now screaming in ecstasy. His cock springs from your mouth and you lap up the blood, at the same time he is wanking spunk into your hair and face.
Stagg followed up the letter with a phone call saying that he wanted to act out the fantasy in real life as soon as possible. Here again was further evidence of serious sexual deviance and one which I regarded as being a more potent indication of actual sexual aggression than much of the material that had gone before.
On 20 July, Pedder and Lizzie sat down with me for one of the last times. Lizzie and Stagg were due to meet at Hyde Park again the next day and we had to discuss the strategy. Having re-established a rapport following the article, Lizzie had to now use a combination of positive attraction and appropriate reserve.
This was their fourth meeting and I knew that she’d find it harder to keep Stagg at a distance, particularly when his own sexual arousal would have increased.
Next morning, at 11.35 a.m., Lizzie secretly turned on the tape and sat down with Stagg at the Dell Cafe. Eventually she steered the conversation to Rachel Nickell and Stagg described his three days in police custody, when the police ‘were just trying to break me down’. He said the main evidence against him came from several women who were walking on the common at the time.
As he told the story, he slipped his hands beneath the table and tried to run them up Lizzie’s thighs. She shifted position and encouraged him to talk, but soon felt his hands again and had to move.
Lizzie admitted that the murderer fascinated her.
‘I think about it. I try and imagine it and the thought of him is so exciting.’
Stagg said, ‘I wish it was me who done it, you know, ‘cos I mean I feel guilty about the thought of it too, you know. It does turn me on a lot, it did right from the beginning, you know.’