A Widely Publicized 1992 Murder Gets the Netflix Treatment This Week in the Compelling and Emotional The Witness

The three-part miniseries The Witness is available to stream on Netflix now. Netflix’s new true crime miniseries The Witness retells the real-life murder of Rachel Nickell in London in 1992, which was a widely publicized story in Britain. The elements involved here – equal parts wrenching and compelling in terms of the aftermath of what occurred – certainly make for an involving series, even if it doesn’t quite tie together everything it feels like it’s trying for. A veteran of British crime dramas like The Victim and Chasing Shadows, Rob Williams wrote The Witness (with Alex Winckler directing the three episodes) using Alex Hanscombe’s memoir, Letting Go, as the main source material. Alex is The Witness’s title character, a boy who is just three years old when his mother Rachel (Eleanor Williams) is horrifically raped and murdered in front of him during a walk through a park. With no DNA or fingerprints found at the scene of the crime, Alex (played as a 3-year-old by Jahsaiah Williams) is the only one who can give investigators any information to go on, but his incredibly young age makes this a daunting and emotionally precarious process. Trying to deal with all of this is Alex’s