THE WITNESS Netflix Series-True Crime Takes Too Much Time in Telling

The brutal rape/murder of Rachel Nickell in 1992 in southwest London was witnessed by her two year old son, Alex. This heinous crime was compounded by the fact her son was beaten in the attack and despite having occurred in a congested public park, there were no eye witnesses other than Rachel's young son.  The father and Rachel's partner, Andre Hanscombe (Jordan Bolger) is portrayed convincingly as the concerned father but not seen as a grief stricken partner.  Perhaps, he's in control of his emotions for the benefit of his son played by the incredibly handsome young actor, Jahsaiah Williams. Williams may have gotten the role in part for his good looks which are also convincingly familial to the actors cast as his parents. Could Jahsaiah Williams be related to the film's screenwriter, Rob Williams which may have helped the actor to be miscast? Alas, a major crack in the credibility of this criminal case is Williams looks closer in age to 8 than 2.  In fact, his understanding of language and his verbal skills seem quite advanced for his age yet the crux of the case is based on Alex's inability to provide information to the authorities on his mother's attacker. The use of professional child psychologists were employed to help Alex share what he experienced was twofold; help Alex process what happened to help him mitigate the trauma and secondly, to provide the investigators with much needed information describing the attacker. The failure to uncover evidence or witnesses besides Alex of the crime left the investigation to go unresolved for two decades.  The insight into how a professional therapist would work with a young child in such circumstances would be fascinating to observe.  However, Alex merely responded as a petulant child who appeared not to cooperate despite gentle coaxing. Again, this was partly problematic due to the miscasting of Williams as he appears too old to behave so uncooperatively.  Neither did Alex appear too distraught or withdrawn for professionals to garner much useful information. Andres wants to protect his son and decides to raise him away from the notoriety of his mother's killing. The film jumps from the time of the murder to Alex now a young teen living in Spain with his father.  The father/son dynamic in a new country  is now presented as a pugnacious son and overbearing parent. The lack of clues and pressure to follow leads, leads to a suspect being falsely charged with the murder. The real crime is the lack of interest in the drawn out investigation and missed opportunities to examine the emotional toils the crime had on its young victim.  The burden of being convincing or enticing was not met in this Netflix 3 part series that is 2 1/2 parts too long and tedious.