Rachel Nickell's son Alex and partner André Hanscombe now: Tragic details not in the Netflix documentary

Netflix's The Murder of Rachel Nickell revisits the devastating 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common, witnessed by her 2-year-old son, Alex, and the decades-long fight to bring her killer to justice.

The documentary hears directly from Rachel's partner, André Hanscombe, and her son, Alex, who detail how the tragedy upended their entire lives, and how it impacted on their father-son bond.

But while the series explores the failures that allowed Rachel's killer Robert Napper to remain free for years, there are several deeply personal details about the family's life afterwards that received less attention on screen.

On 15 July 1992, Rachel Nickell was killed while walking her dog Molly on Wimbledon Common with two-year-old Alex. According to André, he was at work when the attack happened.

Speaking in the documentary, he recalls calling home to check in with Rachel, only for a police officer to answer the phone. "I was in a state bordering on the edge of insanity," he says, upon learning of Rachel’s murder.

Police had found Alex beside his mother's body, with Detective Sergeant Keith Penrose recalling that the toddler was "caked in mud and blood", while André says Alex had been "clinging to his mother's body".

Rachel, Alex and their dog Molly

Rachel's death left André suddenly raising their son alone. "Rachel and Alex were a unit," André says in the documentary. "She just really enjoyed the simple things in life."

He also describes Rachel as "a natural mother" who was "breathtaking".

Ahead of the documentary's release, André told The Times: "Rachel and I lived in overlapping circles with Alex at the centre. I felt privileged to be the provider, working as a courier, knowing our child was with Rachel 24/7. The love they had for each other was incredible."

One of the documentary's most emotional moments comes when André explains why he chose to leave the UK after Colin Stagg's, a man falsely accused of Rachel’s murder, prosecution collapsed.

Like many members of the public, André initially believed police had arrested the right man. When the case against Stagg was thrown out, he feared Rachel's killer was still at large.

Father and son abandoned almost all of their possessions and relocated to rural France, a place where André had spent time as a young man, travelling and playing tennis. In a French village, they found what André described as an "idyllic" home where they could begin rebuilding their lives.

"It felt like we'd left evil behind us," he recalls in the documentary. "It was absolute bliss to have anonymity again."

However, things changed when, while play-fighting with Alex using toy swords one day, Alex suddenly connected the game to his mother's death.

"The bad man was sticking his things in her. A knife," he said. "I saw it all. All of it."

"It was hard to hear," André says in the documentary. "This is your child, your baby."

Police and child psychologist Jean Harris-Hendricks spent years attempting to understand how much Alex remembered from that day.

At one point, they took him back to Wimbledon Common. As they approached the murder site, Harris-Hendricks recalled: "There came a point where he stumbled and fell forward, he howled and sobbed."

André immediately removed him from the situation.

One of the most poignant revelations comes from Alex himself in an interview published ahead of the documentary's release. Speaking to The Times, Alex revealed that Rachel had become pregnant the year before she died, "My parents decided that the practical thing was to have an abortion," he said. "My mother never really recovered."

Alex also revealed that Rachel believed she may have been pregnant again shortly before she was killed.

"She believed she was in the first stages of another pregnancy when she died. My father has been struggling with that ever since, grieving for what was lost and what might have been."

The documentary touches on the profound loss suffered by the family, but does not explore this chapter of Rachel's life in detail.

The years after Rachel's murder brought other painful experiences to the surface for André.

Also in an interview with The Times, he explained that moving to France gave him space to confront unresolved trauma from his own childhood.

"It brought to the surface things I hadn't dealt with from my own childhood – abuse when I was five, my parents' separation."

He also reflected on the bond he shared with Rachel.

"I'd had this blessing, Rachel, that fell from the sky. We were kindred spirits."

"We heard each other's thoughts and finished each other's sentences. Even after she'd gone I felt her presence constantly, telling me what to do."

Today, Alex has built a life far removed from the tragedy that defined his childhood. He went on to write a memoir, Letting Go: A True Story of Murder, Loss and Survival by Rachel Nickell's Son, detailing his experiences.

Over the years he has worked as a mechanic, trained as a session musician, studied hypnotherapy and handwriting analysis, and travelled extensively, including spending time in India practising yoga.

Reflecting on his childhood, Alex told The Times: "My parents gave me so much love. One of my strongest memories is the smell of my mother's perfume and the feeling of being completely loved by her."

He also acknowledged that the trauma affected his relationship with his father, "The closeness with my father is always there but due to the way evil entered our lives, there has also been discord between us.

"My father sacrificed everything for me without any guarantees of how it would turn out. I am forever indebted to him for that."

André has spent decades advocating for justice for Rachel, while also trying to rebuild a life for himself and his son.

In earlier interviews, he revealed that he eventually reached a place of forgiveness towards Robert Napper after learning more about his background and severe mental illness.

"I'd been very angry for a very long time," he previously told The Guardian. "But reading the psychiatric report and seeing what Robert Napper had been through, he'd had a violent home-life, he'd been sexually abused."

The father and son are understood to have spent many years living abroad together, first in France and later in Spain.

More than three decades after Rachel's murder, André remains determined that the lessons of the case are not forgotten.

"The attack Alex witnessed was preventable," he says in the documentary.

"Rachel's death was preventable. Samantha and Jazmine's death were preventable. If the police had done their job properly, he'd have been taken off the street."

The Murder of Rachel Nickell is on Netflix now