Rachael Watts: The girl who caught a killer
As a young girl, Rachael Watts suffered a terrifying ordeal when she was kidnapped and assaulted by Babes in the Wood killer Russell Bishop.
Her courage helped secure a conviction that would finally bring justice to his victims. Keep reading as the Crime+Investigation team shares the details of the case.
Babes in the Wood murders
Four years prior to Rachael's kidnapping, an equally horrific crime took place in her home city of Brighton. Friends Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, both aged nine, went out to play at around 3:30pm on 9th October 1986.
When the girls failed to return home by bedtime, their families contacted the police. A huge search party comprising 200 people combed the local area, including Bishop, who claimed his terrier was a trained tracker dog.
It didn't take long for volunteers to find two small bodies — the girls had been raped, strangled to death and dumped in a makeshift den in Wild Park.
Russell Bishop: A key suspect
Bishop immediately drew suspicion due to his persistent involvement in the search. Of course, he was the first person to discover the bodies. One police officer recalls how Bishop dramatically ran to the scene, although he couldn't have been close enough to identify the girls. Then, his stories were wildly inconsistent — he couldn't pinpoint where he was or who he was with at the time of the murders.
Despite being arrested, Bishop walked free after a series of devastating errors in the investigation. The forensic team failed to record temperatures, the police didn’t preserve evidence correctly and Bishop's girlfriend repeatedly changed her testimony in court.
The kidnapping of Rachael Watts
After the Babes in the Woods case, it was only a matter of time before Bishop killed again, but he was about to meet his match in seven-year-old Rachael Watts. On 4th February 1990, the young girl was roller-skating around her estate when her dad suggested she buy some sweets from the local shop.
On discovering the shop was shut, Rachael turned back but became confused. The family had just moved to the area, so the streets were unfamiliar. Although she knew she shouldn't speak to strangers, the 23-year-old working on his red Ford Cortina didn't seem threatening. This is the moment that Rachael crossed paths with Bishop.
Rachael said what happened next was a blur: 'It happened really fast. He swooped me up and dumped me in the boot.' Keeping a remarkably cool head, she removed her skates so she could run at the first opportunity and pierced the bonnet so someone might hear her scream.
However, a seven-year-old girl was never going to outrun a 23-year-old man, no matter how brave. Bishop raped and strangled Rachael in Devil's Dyke - a popular beauty spot on the South Downs Way.
Left for dead
Bishop left Rachael for dead, but she was stronger than he anticipated. She regained consciousness after 20 minutes and scrambled to find help, naked and bleeding. A couple eventually picked her up and alerted the police.
In the days that followed, Rachael and her family lived a nightmare. Rachael says: 'It must have been awful for my mum. She was with me at all the interviews and examinations'. Despite being scared, the young girl cooperated fully with the police and demonstrated an enormous amount of courage, earning her the nickname 'The Bravest Little Girl in Britain'.
Bishop was later charged when Rachael identified him from a police lineup. This, combined with other evidence, secured his conviction.
Where are we now?
Bishop was convicted in 1990 for the attempted murder, kidnapping and indecent assault of Rachael Watts. Over the next three decades, new DNA evidence emerged, linking him to the Babes in the Woods case. In December 2018, he was finally found guilty of murdering Nicola and Karen all those years ago.
Since then, Bishop has died, and Rachael finally feels ready to share her story: 'Until [his death], I’d lived in hiding because I’d never wanted him to learn how badly he’d affected me. Finally, I could let go of this heavy secret…It was like I could breathe after years of holding my breath.'
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