Double killer sent to Broadmoor. Mother was mutilated beside dead daughter

mutilating Dundee-born Samantha Bisset and suffocating her young

daughter.

Scotland Yard disclosed that detectives were keeping an open mind on

whether there were links between the case and the murder of Rachel

Nickell on Wimbledon Common.

In court yesterday, Robert Napper, 29, pled not guilty to the murders

of Samantha Bisset, 28, and her four-year-old daughter, Jazmine, in

November 1993, but guilty to their manslaughter on grounds of diminished

responsibility.

He also admitted two attempted rapes and a rape in the previous year

-- pleas which were accepted by Mr Justice Hooper at the Old Bailey.

Up until yesterday, Napper had maintained he had not committed the

crimes, claiming it was the work of someone else with the same

fingerprints and DNA.

Mr Justice Hopper said Napper's psychiatrists had reported he ''posed

a grave and immediate risk to the public''.

One psychiatric report had said he would need to be detained ''for

many years'' and that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He

was paranoid, had grandiose delusions, and felt he might be able to read

people's minds.

Napper was impassive as he was led to cells flanked by psychiatric

nurses from Broadmoor where he is already an in-patient. However, he was

visibly upset when his counsel William Clegg, QC, said one psychiatrist

believed Napper tried to conceal ''the madness within him''.

Napper, a warehouseman, had already raped one woman and attempted to

rape two others in the same part of London when he got into the Bissets'

one-bedroom basement flat in Plumstead.

First, he killed Samantha by stabbing her eight times in the neck in

her hallway. Then he sexually assaulted and suffocated Jazmine in her

bed, Mr Nigel Sweeney, prosecuting, told the court.

He then dragged Samantha's body into the living-room and on to a

cushion. There he cut open her chest and abdomen, severing the chest

bone, and continued to mutilate her body extensively before trying to

sever her right leg and cutting the left leg. He took away a piece of

her abdomen ''apparently as a trophy'', said Mr Sweeney.

Her body was found by her boyfriend, Mr Conrad Ellam, when he called

on a routine visit to the flat the following morning, the court was

told.

Mr Sweeney said Napper had committed three sex attacks on young women

while they were walking in open public places in south London the

previous year.

On March 10, 1992, armed with a lock knife, he attempted to rape one

woman as she walked through an alley. He forced her behind garages and,

when she resisted, beat her up before escaping.

Eight days later, he attacked another woman at knifepoint as she took

a shortcut across a field. She avoided angering him and was not beaten

up, said Mr Sweeney.

Both women identified Napper at identity parades. He was also

identified by scientific tests on his semen, the court was told.

Two months later, he attacked another woman, who was pushing her

two-year-old daughter in a buggy, by putting a ligature around her

throat. When she resisted she was badly beaten and raped next to her

daughter.

Seventeen months later, he climbed on to a balcony at the rear of

Samantha Bisset's home and entered through an open rear door.

After Napper was led from court, Detective Superintendent Michael

Banks said that throughout the inquiry he had liaised with officers

involved in the Wimbledon Common murder of Rachel Nickell. However, he

added it was not for him to say whether or not that squad was going to

interview Napper about that murder.

Like Rachel, Samantha was a beautiful blonde young woman and had a

small child.

Mr Banks said Samantha had been hoping to get modelling work. Her

murder and that of her daughter were amongst the worst cases he had

dealt with in a 30-year police career.

A woman police photographer who arrived to take pictures of the

horrific scene was so shocked by the carnage that she had not returned

to work since, said Mr Banks.

He said Napper had been caught through ''hard work by a totally

dedicated police team''.

Napper's fingerprints, found at the murder scene, had not been matched

to police records for five months because his previous convictions were

for minor matters -- theft and possessing a firearm -- and not of a

sexual nature, said Mr Banks.

Police still want to question Napper about the missing parts of

Samantha's body, he said.

''We believe he had hidey-holes where he hid things,'' said Mr Banks.

All Napper's sex attack victims were receiving counselling, as was

Samantha's boyfriend, he said.

Mr Banks described Napper as a loner who had never had a girlfriend

and had suffered from mental problems but nothing that required hospital

treatment.