Dennis Nilsen

For the similarly named American politician, see Dennis Nielsen.

Dennis Nilsen
Mug shot of Nilsen taken, after his arrest, in February 1983
Born	Dennis Andrew Nilsen (1945-11-23) 23 November 1945 Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Other names	The Muswell Hill Murderer The Kindly Killer
Conviction(s)	Murder Attempted murder
Criminal penalty	Life imprisonment (whole life tariff)
Details
Victims	12–15
Span of crimes	30 December 1978 – 26 January 1983
Country	United Kingdom
Date apprehended	9 February 1983
Imprisoned at	HMP Full Sutton

Dennis Andrew Nilsen (born 23 November 1945) is a British serial killer and necrophiliac, also known as the Muswell Hill Murderer and the Kindly Killer, who murdered at least 12 young men in a series of killings committed between 1978 and 1983 in London, England. Convicted of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder at the Old Bailey, Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years. He is currently incarcerated at HMP Full Sutton maximum security prison in Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

All of Nilsen's murders were committed in two North London addresses in which he alternately resided throughout the years he is known to have killed. His victims would be lured to these addresses through guile and all were murdered by strangulation, sometimes accompanied by drowning. Following the murder, Nilsen would observe a ritual in which he bathed and dressed the victims' bodies, which he would retain for extended periods of time, before dissecting and disposing of the remains via burning upon a bonfire, or flushing the remains down a lavatory.

Nilsen became known as the Muswell Hill Murderer as his later murders were committed in the Muswell Hill district of North London; he also became known as the Kindly Killer, in reference to his belief that his method of murder was the most humane. Owing to the similar modus operandi of the murderers, Nilsen has been described as the "British Jeffrey Dahmer".

Early life

Childhood

Dennis Andrew Nilsen was born on 23 November 1945 in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, the second of three children born to Elizabeth Duthie Whyte, and Olav Magnus Moksheim (who had adopted the surname Nilsen). Nilsen was of Scottish and Norwegian heritage: his father was a Norwegian soldier who had travelled to Scotland in 1940 as part of the Free Norwegian Forces, following the Nazi occupation of Norway. After a brief courtship, he had married Elizabeth Whyte in May 1942 and the newlyweds moved into her parents' house.

The marriage between Nilsen's parents was beset with difficulties. Olav Nilsen did not view married life with any degree of seriousness, being preoccupied with his duties with the Free Norwegian Forces, and making little attempt to either spend much time with or find a new home for his wife. After the birth of her third child, Nilsen's mother concluded she had "rushed into marriage without thinking". The couple divorced in 1948. All three of the couple's children — Olav Jr., Dennis and Sylvia — had been conceived on their father's brief visits to the mother's household. Her parents, Andrew and Lily (nee' Duthie) Whyte (who had never approved of their daughter's choice of husband), were supportive of their daughter following her divorce, and considerate of their grandchildren.

Nilsen was a quiet yet adventurous child. His earliest childhood memories were of family picnics in the Scottish countryside with his mother and siblings, of his grandparents' pious lifestyle (which he would later describe as being "cold and dour"), and of being taken on long countryside walks as he sat on the shoulders of his maternal grandfather, to whom Nilsen was particularly close. Although Olav Jr. and Sylvia would occasionally accompany Dennis and his grandfather on these walks, on most occasions, Dennis alone would accompany his grandfather. Despite only being 5 years old, Nilsen vividly recalled these walks with his grandfather as being "very long ... along the harbour, across the wide stretch of beach, up to the sand-dunes, which rise thirty feet behind the beach ... and on to Inverallochy". Nilsen would later describe this stage of his childhood as being one of contentment, and his grandfather being his "great hero and protector", adding that, whenever his grandfather (who worked as a fisherman) was at sea, "Life would be empty [for me] until he returned".

By 1951 Nilsen's grandfather's health was in decline, although he continued to work as a fisherman. On 31 October 1951, while fishing in the North Sea, Andrew Whyte died of a heart attack. His body was brought ashore and returned to the Nilsen family home prior to burial.

In what Nilsen would later describe as being his most vivid childhood recollection, his mother, weeping, asked him whether he would like to see his grandfather. When he replied that he would, he was taken into the room where his grandfather lay in an open coffin. As Nilsen gazed upon his grandfather's body, he recalled noticing his heart beating strongly as he was told by his mother, "See, Dennis. There's your grandfather; he's sleeping".

In the years following the death of his grandfather, Nilsen became more quiet and reserved, often standing alone at the harbour watching the herring boats, on which his grandfather had fished, sail by. At home, he seldom participated in family activities and would actively repel any attempts by adult family members to demonstrate any affection towards him. Nilsen also grew to resent what he saw as the unfair amount of attention his mother, grandmother and later, stepfather would show towards his older brother and, to a lesser degree, his younger sister. In spite of Nilsen's increasing bitterness towards his brother, he envied Olav's popularity. Nonetheless, when not opting to partake in solo activities, he would often talk to or play games with his younger sister, Sylvia, with whom he was closer than any other family member.

On one of his solo excursions to the beach at Inverallochy in 1954 or 1955, Nilsen became submerged beneath the water and was almost dragged out to sea. Nilsen initially panicked, flailing his arms and shouting. As he "gasped for air which wasn't there" he recalled believing that his grandfather was about to arrive and pull him out; before experiencing a sense of tranquility. His life was saved by another youngster who dragged him ashore.

Shortly after this near-fatal incident, Nilsen's mother moved out of her mother's home and into a flat with her three children. She would later marry a builder named Andrew Scott, with whom she had four further children in as many years. Although Nilsen initially resented his stepfather (whom he viewed as a disciplinarian), he gradually grew to respect him. The family relocated to the village of Strichen in 1955.

At the onset of puberty, Nilsen discovered he was homosexual, which initially both confused and shamed him. He did not divulge his sexuality to either his family or his few friends, but kept it a secret. Because many of the boys to whom he was attracted bore similar facial features to his younger sister, Sylvia, on one occasion he sexually fondled his sister, believing that his attraction towards boys might be a manifestation of the care he felt for her. He made no direct efforts to seek sexual contact with any of the peers to whom he was sexually attracted, although he would later claim to have himself been fondled by an older youth. On one occasion, he also caressed and fondled the body of his older brother as he slept. As a result of this incident, Olav Jr. began to suspect his brother was homosexual, and regularly belittled Dennis in public — referring to him as "hen" (Scottish slang for "girl"), although Nilsen initially believed that his fondling of his sister may have been evidence that he was bisexual.

As Nilsen progressed into adolescence, he found life in Strichen increasingly stifling, with limited entertainment amenities or career opportunities. Although he respected his parents' efforts to provide and care for their children, he began to resent the fact that his family was poorer than most of his peers, with his mother and stepfather making no effort to better their lifestyles; thus, Nilsen seldom invited his few friends to the family home. At the age of 14, he joined the Army Cadet Force, and later recalled his viewing the British Army as a potential avenue for escaping his rural origins.

Army service

Nilsen's scholastic record was above average, though not exemplary. Although he displayed a flair for both history and art, he was known to shun sports of any kind. He finished his schooling in 1961 and briefly worked in a canning factory as he considered which career path he should choose. After three weeks at the factory, Nilsen informed his mother that he intended to join the army, where he intended to train as a chef. Nilsen passed the entrance examinations and received official notification he was to enlist for nine years' service in September 1961, commencing his training at St. Omer Barracks in Aldershot.

Within weeks, Nilsen began to excel in his army duties; he would later describe his three years of training at Aldershot as "the happiest of my life". He relished the travel opportunities afforded him in his training, and recalled one particular highlight was his regiment taking part in a ceremonial parade attended by both the Queen and Lord Montgomery.

While stationed at Aldershot, Nilsen's latent homosexual feelings began to stir, although he kept his sexual orientation well hidden from his colleagues. Nilsen never showered in the company of his fellow soldiers for fear of developing an erection in their presence; instead opting to bathe alone in the bathroom, which also afforded him the privacy to masturbate without discovery.

In mid-1964, Nilsen passed his initial catering exam and was officially assigned to the 1st Battalion the Royal Fusiliers in Osnabrück, West Germany, where he served as a private. In this deployment, Nilsen began to increase his intake of alcohol; he described himself and his colleagues as a "hard-working, boozy lot", although his colleagues would recollect he often drank to excess in order to ease his shyness. On one occasion, Nilsen and a German youth drank themselves into a stupor. When Nilsen awoke, he found himself on the floor of the German youth's flat. Although no sexual activity had occurred, this incident fuelled Nilsen's fantasies: he began to develop sexual fantasies which initially involved his sexual partner — invariably a young, slender male — being completely passive. These fantasies would gradually evolve into his partner being completely unconscious or dead. On several occasions, Nilsen also made tentative efforts to have his own prone body sexually interfered with by one of his colleagues. In these instances, whenever he and his colleagues would drink to excess, he would pretend he was inebriated in the hope one of his colleagues would make sexual use of his supposedly unconscious body.

After two years' deployment, Nilsen returned to Aldershot, where he passed his official catering exam before being deployed to serve as a cook for the British Army in Norway. In 1967, he was deployed to Aden, South Yemen, where he again served as a cook at the Al Mansoura Prison. This posting was more fraught with risks than his previous postings in West Germany or Norway, and Nilsen later recalled his regiment losing several men, often in ambushes en route to the army barracks. Nilsen was himself kidnapped by an Arab taxi driver, who beat him unconscious and placed him in the boot of his car. Upon being dragged out of the boot of the taxi, Nilsen grabbed a jack-handle and knocked the taxi driver to the floor before beating him unconscious. He then locked the man in the boot of the taxi.

Unlike his previous postings at Aldershot and Osnabrück, while stationed in Aden, Nilsen had his own room. This afforded him the privacy to masturbate without discovery. His developed fantasies of sex with an unresistant or deceased partner unfulfilled, Nilsen compensated by imagining sexual encounters with an unconscious body as he masturbated as he looked at his own prone, nude body in a mirror. On one occasion, Nilsen discovered that, by using a free-standing mirror, he could create an effect whereby if positioning the mirror so his head was out of view, he could visualise himself engaged in a sexual act with another man. To Nilsen, this ruse created the ideal circumstance in which he could visually "split" his personality: in these masturbatory fantasies, Nilsen alternately envisaged himself as being both the domineering and the passive partner. These fantasies gradually evolved to incorporate his own near-death experience with the Arab taxi driver, the dead bodies he had seen in Aden, and imagery within a 19th-century oil painting entitled The Raft of the Medusa, which depicted an old man holding the limp, nude body of a deceased youth as he sat aside the dismembered body of another young male. In his most vividly recalled fantasy, a slender, attractive young blonde soldier who had been recently killed in battle would be dominated by a faceless "dirty, grey-haired old man" who would wash the body before engaging in intercourse with the spreadeagled corpse.

Detailed section of The Raft of the Medusa. The old man holding the nude, limp body of the deceased young male was incorporated by Nilsen into his masturbatory fantasies.

Nilsen completed his deployment in Aden in January 1968. He returned to Britain and was assigned to serve with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Seaton Barracks in Plymouth. Throughout his service with this regiment, Nilsen was required to cook for 30 soldiers and two officers on a daily basis. He served at these barracks for one year before being transferred with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to Cyprus in 1969. Months later, the regiment was transferred to Berlin, where, the same year, he had his first sexual experience with a female: a prostitute whose services he solicited. Although he bragged of this sexual encounter to his colleagues, he later stated he found the act of intercourse with a female both "over-rated" and "depressing". (Nilsen had repeatedly engaged in sexual relations with an Arab youth while previously stationed in Aden.)

Following a brief period with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in Inverness, Nilsen was selected to cook for the Queen's Royal Guard before, in January 1971, he was reassigned to serve as cook for a different regiment in the Shetland Islands, where he ended his 11-year military career at the rank of corporal in October 1972.

Between October and December 1972, Nilsen lived with his family as he considered his next career move. On more than one occasion in the three months Nilsen lived in Strichen, his mother voiced her opinion as to her being more concerned with Nilsen's lack of female companionship than the career path he should next opt to take, and of her desire to see him marry and start a family. On one occasion, Nilsen joined his older brother, Olav, his sister-in-law, and another couple to watch a documentary devoted to male homosexuality. All present viewed the topic with derision, except Dennis, who ardently spoke in defence of gay rights. A fight ensued, after which Olav informed his mother that Dennis was homosexual.

Nilsen never spoke to his older brother again, and maintained only sporadic written contact with his mother, stepfather, and younger siblings. He decided to join the Metropolitan Police, and moved to London in December to begin the training course.

Move to London

Employment

In April 1973 Nilsen completed his training and was posted to Willesden Green. As a junior constable, Nilsen performed several arrests, although he never had to physically subdue a member of the public. Nilsen enjoyed the work, but missed the comradeship of the Army. He began to drink alone in the evenings.

During the summer and autumn of 1973, Nilsen began frequenting gay pubs and engaged in several casual liaisons with men. Nilsen viewed these encounters as "soul-destroying" and a "vain search for inner peace" as he sought a lasting relationship. In August, following a failed relationship, Nilsen came to the conclusion that his personal lifestyle was at odds with his professional life. His father died the same month, leaving each of his three children £1,000. In December, Nilsen resigned from the police.

Between December 1973 and May 1974, Nilsen worked as a security guard. The work was intermittent, and he resolved to find more stable, secure employment. He found work as a civil servant in May 1974. Nilsen was initially posted to a Jobcentre in Denmark Street, where his primary role was to find employment for unskilled labourers. At his workplace, Nilsen was known to be a quiet, conscientious employee, who was active in the trade union movement. Although his attendance record was hardly exemplary, Nilsen frequently volunteered to work overtime. In 1979, Nilsen was appointed Acting Executive Officer. He was officially promoted to the position of Executive Officer, with additional supervisory responsibilities, in June 1982, and transferred to another Jobcentre in Kentish Town, continuing in this job until his arrest.

Melrose Avenue

In November 1975, Nilsen encountered a 20-year-old named David Gallichan being threatened outside a pub by two other men. Nilsen intervened in the altercation and took the youth to his room at 80 Teignmouth Road in the Cricklewood district of London. The two men spent the evening drinking and talking; Nilsen learned that Gallichan had recently moved to London from Weston-super-Mare, was homosexual, unemployed and resided in a hostel. The following morning, both men agreed to reside together in a larger residence and Nilsen — using part of the inheritance bequeathed to him by his father — immediately resolved to finding a larger property. Several days later, the pair viewed a vacant ground floor flat at 195, Melrose Avenue, also located in Cricklewood. They decided to move into this property. Prior to moving into the residence, Nilsen negotiated a deal with the landlord whereby he and Gallichan would have exclusive use of the garden at the rear of the property.

Although the flat was supposed to be furnished, upon moving in, Nilsen and Gallichan found it to be largely threadbare. Over the following months, Nilsen and Gallichan redecorated and furnished the entire flat. Much of this work was performed by Gallichan, as Nilsen — having discovered Gallichan's lack of employment ambitions — began to view himself as the breadwinner in their relationship. Nilsen later recollected that, although sexually attracted to Gallichan, the pair seldom had intercourse. (Gallichan was later to inform police that he was sexually "uninterested" in Nilsen.)

Initially, Nilsen experienced domestic contentment with Gallichan; however, within a year of moving to Melrose Avenue, the superficial relationship between the two men began to strain. They slept in separate beds, and both began to bring home casual sexual partners. Although Gallichan insisted Nilsen had never been violent towards him, he was regularly berated by Nilsen, and by early 1976, the pair began arguing with increasing frequency. Nilsen later stated that, following a heated argument in May 1977, he had demanded Gallichan leave the residence. (Gallichan was to later inform investigators that he had himself chosen to end the relationship.) Although Nilsen formed brief relationships with several other young men over the following 18 months, none of these relationships lasted more than a few weeks, and none of the individuals expressed any intention of living with Nilsen on a permanent basis.

By late 1978, Nilsen was living a solitary existence; he had had a minimum of three failed relationships in the previous 18 months, and he later confessed to having developed an increasing conviction that he was unfit to live with. Throughout 1978, he devoted an ever increasing amount of his time, effort and assiduity into his work, and most evenings would be spent consuming spirits and/or lager as he listened to music.

Murders

Between 1978 and 1983, Nilsen is known to have killed a minimum of 12 men and boys, and to have attempted to kill seven others (he would initially confess in 1983 to having killed 15 victims). The majority of Nilsen's victims were homeless or homosexual men, although others were heterosexual individuals whom he would typically meet in bars, on public transport or — on one occasion — outside his own home. All of Nilsen's murders were committed inside the north London addresses where he alternately resided in the years he is known to have killed. His victims would be lured to these addresses through guile — typically the offer of alcohol and/or shelter.

Inside Nilsen's home, the victims were usually given food and alcohol, then strangled — usually with a ligature — either to death or until they had become unconscious. If the victim had been strangled into unconsciousness, Nilsen would then drown the victim in his bathtub, his sink or a bucket of water before observing a ritual in which he would bathe, clothe and retain the victims' bodies inside his residences for several weeks or, occasionally, months before he would dismember the corpse. Each victim killed between 1978 and 1981 at his Cricklewood residence would be disposed of via burning upon a bonfire, although prior to their dissection, Nilsen would routinely remove their internal organs, which he would dispose of either beside a fence behind his property, or close to Gladstone Park. The victims killed in 1982 and 1983 at his Muswell Hill residence would be retained at his flat, with their flesh and smaller bones flushed down the lavatory.

Although Nilsen admitted to engaging in masturbation as he viewed the nude bodies of several of his victims, and to have engaged in sexual acts with six of his victims' bodies, he was adamant he had never penetrated any of his victims.

195 Melrose Avenue

Nilsen killed his first victim, 14-year-old Stephen Holmes, on 30 December 1978. Holmes encountered Nilsen in the Cricklewood Arms pub, where Holmes had attempted to purchase alcohol. According to Nilsen, he had been drinking heavily the day he met Stephen Holmes, and invited the youth to his house to drink alcohol with him, believing him to be approximately 17 years old. At Nilsen's home, both Nilsen and Holmes drank heavily, before they fell asleep. The following morning, Nilsen awoke to find Holmes asleep on his bed. In his subsequent written confessions, Nilsen stated he was "afraid to wake him in case he left me". After caressing the sleeping youth, Nilsen decided Holmes was to "stay with me over the New Year whether he wanted to or not". Reaching for a necktie, Nilsen straddled Holmes as he strangled him into unconsciousness, before drowning the youth in a bucket filled with water. Nilsen twice masturbated over the body of Stephen Holmes, before stowing the youth's corpse beneath his floorboards. The body of Stephen Holmes would remain beneath the floorboards for almost eight months, before Nilsen constructed a bonfire in the garden behind his flat and burned the bound corpse on 11 August 1979.

"I eased him into his new bed [beneath the floorboards] ... A week later, I wondered whether his body had changed at all or had started to decompose. I disinterred him and pulled the dirt-stained youth up onto the floor. His skin was very dirty. I stripped myself naked and carried him into the bathroom and washed the body. There was practically no discoloration and his skin was pale white. His limbs were more relaxed than when I had put him down there".

Nilsen's written recollections of the ritual he observed after the murder of his first victim.

Reflecting on his killing spree in 1983, Nilsen stated that, having killed Holmes: "I caused dreams which caused death ... this is my crime", adding that he had "started down the avenue of death and possession of a new kind of flatmate".

On 11 October 1979, Nilsen attempted to murder a student from Hong Kong named Andrew Ho, whom he had met in a St. Martin's Lane pub and lured to his flat on the promise of sex. Nilsen attempted to strangle Ho, who managed to flee from his flat and reported the incident to police. Although Nilsen was questioned in relation to the incident, Ho decided not to press charges.

Two months after the attempted murder of Ho, on 3 December 1979, Nilsen encountered a 23-year-old Canadian student named Kenneth Ockenden, who had been on a tour of England visiting relatives. Nilsen encountered Ockenden as they both drank in a West End pub. Upon learning the youth was a tourist, Nilsen offered to show Ockenden several notable London landmarks; an offer which Ockenden accepted. Nilsen then invited the youth to his house on the promise of a meal and further drinks. The pair stopped at an off licence en route to Nilsen's Melrose Avenue residence and purchased whisky, rum and beer, with Ockenden insisting on sharing the bill. Although Nilsen was adamant he could not recall the precise moment he strangled Ockenden, he recalled that he strangled the youth with the cord of his (Nilsen's) headphones as Ockenden listened to music; he also recalled dragging the youth across his floor with the wire wrapped around his neck as he strangled him, before pouring himself half a glass of rum and continuing to listen to music upon the headphones with which he had strangled Ockenden.

The following day, Nilsen purchased a Polaroid camera and photographed Ockenden's body in various suggestive positions. He then lay Ockenden's corpse spreadeagled above him on his bed as he watched television for several hours, before wrapping the body in plastic bags and stowing the corpse beneath the floorboards. On approximately four occasions over the following fortnight, Nilsen disinterred Ockenden's body from beneath his floorboards and seated the body upon his armchair alongside him as he himself watched television and drank alcohol.

Nilsen killed his third victim, 16-year-old Martyn Duffey, on 17 May 1980. Duffey was a catering student from Birkenhead, who had hitchhiked to London without his parents' knowledge on 13 May after being questioned by Merseyside Police for evading his train fare. For four days, Duffey had slept rough near Euston railway station before Nilsen encountered the youth as he returned from a union conference in Southport. Duffey, Nilsen recollected, was both exhausted and hungry, and happily accepted Nilsen's offer of a meal and a bed for the evening. After the youth had fallen asleep in Nilsen's bed, Nilsen fashioned a ligature around his neck, then simultaneously sat on Duffey's chest and tightened the ligature with a "great force". Nilsen held this grip until Duffey became unconscious; he then dragged the youth into his kitchen and drowned him in his sink before bathing with the body — which he recollected as being "the youngest-looking I had ever seen".

Duffey's body was first placed upon a kitchen chair, then upon the bed on which he had been strangled. The body was repeatedly kissed, complimented and caressed by Nilsen, both before and after he had masturbated while sitting upon the stomach of the corpse. For two days, the body of Martyn Duffey was stowed in a cupboard, before Nilsen noted the youth's body had become bloated; therefore, "he went straight under the floorboards".

Following Duffey's murder, Nilsen began to kill with increasing frequency. Before the end of 1980, he was to kill a further five victims and attempt to murder one other, although only one of these victims whom Nilsen murdered, 26-year-old William David Sutherland, has ever been identified. Nilsen's recollections of the unidentified victims are vague, although he graphically recalled how each victim had been murdered and just how long the body had been retained before dissection. One unidentified victim killed in November had moved his legs in a cycling motion as he was strangled (Nilsen is known to have absented himself from work between 11 and 18 November, likely due to this particular murder); another unidentified victim Nilsen had unsuccessfully attempted to resuscitate, before sinking to his knees, sobbing, before standing to expressly spit at his own image as he looked at himself in the mirror. On another occasion, he had lain in bed alongside the body of an unidentified victim as he listened to the classical theme Fanfare for the Common Man before bursting into tears.

Inevitably, the accumulated bodies beneath his floorboards attracted insects and created a foul odour — particularly throughout summer months. On occasions when Nilsen disinterred victims from beneath the floorboards, he noted that the bodies would be covered with pupae and infested with maggots; some victims' heads had maggots crawling out of eye sockets and mouths. Although Nilsen placed deodorants beneath the floorboards and sprayed insecticide about the flat twice daily, both the odour of decay and the presence of flies remained.

In late 1980, Nilsen removed and dissected the bodies of each victim killed since December 1979 and burned them upon a communal bonfire he had constructed on waste ground behind his flat. To disguise the smell of the burning flesh of the six dissected bodies placed upon this pyre, Nilsen crowned the bonfire with an old car tyre. Three neighbourhood children stood to watch this particular bonfire, and Nilsen later wrote in his memoirs that he felt it would have seemed "in order" if he had seen these three children "dancing around a mass funeral pyre". When the bonfire had been reduced to ashes and cinders, Nilsen used a rake to search the debris for any recognisable bones. Noting a skull was still intact, he smashed it to pieces with his rake.

"I could only relate to a dead image of the person I could love. The image of my dead grandfather would be the model of him at his most striking in my mind. It seems necessary for them to have been dead in order that I could express those feelings which were the feelings I held sacred for my grandfather ... it was a pseudo-sexual, infantile love which had not yet developed and matured. The sight of them [my victims] brought me a bitter sweetness and a temporary peace and fulfilment".

Extract from Nilsen's prison journals, written while on remand, April 1983.

On or about 4 January 1981, Nilsen encountered an unidentified individual whom he described for investigators as an "18-year-old, blue-eyed" young Scottish man at the Golden Lion pub in Soho; he was lured to Melrose Avenue upon the promise of partaking in a drinking contest. After Nilsen and this victim had consumed several beverages, Nilsen strangled him with a necktie, and subsequently placed the body beneath the floorboards. Nilsen is known to have informed his employers he was ill and unable to attend work on 12 January in order that he could dissect both this victim and another unidentified victim he had killed approximately one month earlier. By April, Nilsen had killed two further unidentified victims: one of whom he described as an English skinhead whom he had met in Leicester Square; the other individual he described as "Belfast boy"; a man in his early 20s, approximately 5 ft. 9 in height, who originated from Belfast. In relation to the first of these three unidentified victims, Nilsen later casually reflected: "End of the day, end of the drink, end of a person ... floorboards back, carpet replaced, and back to work at Denmark Street".

The final victim to be murdered at Melrose Avenue was a 23-year-old named Malcolm Barlow, whom Nilsen discovered slumped against a wall outside his home on 17 September 1981. When Nilsen enquired as to Barlow's welfare, he was informed the medication Barlow was prescribed for his epilepsy had caused his legs to weaken. Nilsen informed Barlow he should be in hospital and, supporting him, walked the youth into his residence before phoning an ambulance. The following day, Barlow was released from hospital and returned to Nilsen's home, apparently to thank him. He was invited into Nilsen's residence and, after eating a meal, began drinking rum and coke before falling asleep on Nilsen's sofa. Nilsen manually strangled Barlow as he slept, before stowing his body beneath his kitchen sink the following morning.

In mid-1981, Nilsen's landlord decided to renovate 195 Melrose Avenue, and asked Nilsen to vacate the property. Nilsen was initially resistant to the proposal, but accepted an offer of £1,000 from his landlord to vacate his Melrose Avenue address. He moved into an attic flat at 23D Cranley Gardens in the Muswell Hill district of north London on 5 October 1981. The day before he vacated the property, Nilsen burned the dissected bodies of the last five victims he had killed at this address upon a third and final bonfire he constructed in the garden behind his flat. Again, Nilsen ensured the bonfire was crowned with an old car tyre to disguise the smell of burning flesh (Nilsen had already dissected the bodies of four of these victims in January and August, and only needed to complete the dissection of Barlow for this third bonfire).

23 Cranley Gardens

At Cranley Gardens, Nilsen had no access to a garden, and as he resided in an attic flat, he was unable to stow any bodies beneath his floorboards. For almost two months, any acquaintances Nilsen encountered and lured to his flat were not assaulted in any manner, although he attempted to strangle a 19-year-old student named Paul Nobbs on 23 November 1981. In March 1982, Nilsen encountered a 23-year-old named John Howlett as he (Nilsen) drank in a pub located close to Leicester Square. Howlett was lured to Nilsen's flat on the promise of continuing drinking with Nilsen. At Cranley Gardens, both Nilsen and Howlett drank as they watched a film, before Howlett walked into Nilsen's front room and fell asleep in the bed (which was located in the front room at this time). One hour later, Nilsen unsuccessfully attempted to rouse Howlett, then sat on the edge of the bed drinking rum as he stared at Howlett, before deciding to kill him. Following a ferocious struggle (in which Howlett himself attempted to strangle his attacker), Nilsen strangled Howlett into unconsciousness with an upholstery strap before returning to his living room, shaking from the "stress of the struggle" in which he had believed he would be overpowered. On three occasions over the following ten minutes, Nilsen unsuccessfully attempted to kill this victim after noting he had resumed breathing, before deciding to fill his bathtub with water and drown him.

Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill. Nilsen occupied an attic flat identical to those depicted. His practice of flushing dissected body parts down the lavatory led to his arrest

For over a week following Howlett's murder, Nilsen's own neck bore the victim's finger impressions.

In May 1982, Nilsen encountered Carl Stottor, a 21-year-old homosexual, as the youth drank at the Black Cap pub in Camden. Nilsen engaged Stottor in conversation; discovering the youth was depressed following a failed relationship. After plying the youth with alcohol, Nilsen invited Stottor to his flat, assuring his guest he had no intention of sexual activity. At Nilsen's flat, Stottor consumed further alcohol before falling asleep upon an open sleeping bag; he later awoke to find himself being strangled as Nilsen informed him, "Stay still". In his subsequent testimony at Nilsen's trial, Stottor stated he initially believed Nilsen was trying to free him from the zip of the sleeping bag, before he returned to a state of consciousness. He then vaguely recalled hearing "water running" before realising he was immersed in the water and that Nilsen was attempting to drown him. After briefly succeeding in raising his head above the water, Stottor gasped the words, "No more, please! No more!" before Nilsen again submerged Stottor's head beneath the water.

Believing he had killed Stottor, Nilsen seated the youth in his armchair, then noted his mongrel dog, Bleep, licking Stottor's face. Nilsen realised the tiniest thread of life still clung in the youth: he rubbed Stottor's limbs and heart to increase circulation, covered the youth's body in blankets, then lay him upon his bed. When Stottor regained consciousness, Nilsen embraced him; he then explained to Stottor he had almost strangled himself on the zip of the sleeping bag, and that he had resuscitated him. Over the following two days, Stottor repeatedly lapsed in and out of consciousness. When Stottor had regained enough strength to question Nilsen as to his recollections of being strangled and immersed in cold water, Nilsen explained he had become caught in the zip of the sleeping bag following a nightmare, and that he had placed him in cold water as "you were in shock". Nilsen then led Stottor to a nearby railway station, where he informed the youth he hoped they might meet again before he bade him farewell.

Three months after Nilsen's June 1982 promotion to the position of executive officer in his employment, he encountered a 27-year-old named Graham Allen attempting to hail a taxi in Shaftesbury Avenue. Allen accepted Nilsen's offer to accompany him to Cranley Gardens for a meal. As had been the case with several previous victims, Nilsen stated he could not recall the precise moment he had strangled Allen, but recalled approaching him as he sat eating an omelette with the full intention of murdering him. Allen's body was retained in the bathtub for a total of three days before Nilsen began the task of dissecting his body upon the kitchen floor. Nilsen is again known to have informed his employers he was ill and unable to attend work on 9 October 1982 — likely in order that he could complete the dissection of Allen's body.

On 26 January 1983, Nilsen killed his final victim, 20-year-old Stephen Sinclair. Sinclair was last seen by acquaintances of his in the company of Nilsen, walking in the direction of a tube station. At Nilsen's flat, Sinclair fell asleep in a drug- and alcohol-induced stupor in an armchair as Nilsen sat listening to the rock opera Tommy. Nilsen approached Sinclair, knelt before him and said to himself, "Oh Stephen, here I go again", before strangling Sinclair with a ligature constructed with a necktie and a rope. Noting crepe bandages upon each of Sinclair's wrists, Nilsen removed these to discover several deep slash marks from where Sinclair had recently tried to kill himself.

Following his usual ritual of bathing the body, Nilsen lay Sinclair's body upon his bed, applied talcum powder to the body, then arranged three mirrors around the bed before himself lying naked alongside the dead youth. Several hours later, he turned Stephen's head towards him, before kissing the youth's body on the forehead and saying, "Goodnight, Stephen". Nilsen then fell asleep alongside the body.

As had been the case with both Howlett and Allen, Sinclair's body was subsequently dissected, with the various dismembered parts wrapped in plastic bags and stored in either a wardrobe, a tea chest or within a drawer located beneath the bathtub. The bags used to seal Sinclair's remains would be sealed with the same crepe bandages Nilsen had found upon Sinclair's wrists. Nilsen attempted to dispose of the flesh, internal organs and smaller bones of all three victims killed at Cranley Gardens by flushing their dissected remains down his toilet. In a practice which he had conducted upon several victims killed at Melrose Avenue, he also boiled the heads, hands and feet to remove the flesh off these sections of the victims' bodies.

On 4 February 1983, Nilsen wrote a letter of complaint to estate agents complaining that the drains at Cranley Gardens were blocked, and that the situation for both himself and the other tenants at the property was intolerable. The following day, he refused to allow an acquaintance to enter his property (the reason being he had begun to dismember the body of Stephen Sinclair on the floor of his kitchen).

Discovery and arrest

Nilsen's murders were first discovered by a Dyno-Rod employee named Michael Cattran, who responded to the complaints made by both Dennis Nilsen and other tenants of 23 Cranley Gardens regarding the drains of the property being blocked on 8 February 1983. Opening a drain cover at the side of the house, Cattran discovered the drain was packed with a flesh-like substance and numerous small bones of unknown origin. Cattran reported his suspicions to his supervisor, Gary Wheeler. However, as he had arrived at the property at dusk, Cattran and his supervisor agreed to postpone further investigation into the blockage until the following morning. Prior to leaving the property, Nilsen and a fellow tenant named Jim Allcock convened with Cattran to discuss the source of the substance. Upon hearing Cattran exclaim how similar the substance was in appearance to human flesh, Nilsen replied: "It looks to me like someone has been flushing down their Kentucky Fried Chicken."

At 7:30 a.m. the following morning, Cattran and Wheeler returned to 23 Cranley Gardens, by which time the drain had been cleared. This aroused the suspicions of both the drain inspector and his supervisor. Cattran discovered some scraps of flesh and four bones in a pipe leading from the drain which linked to the top flat of the house. To both Cattran and Wheeler, the bones looked as if they originated from a human hand. Both men immediately called the police who, upon closer inspection, discovered further small bones and scraps of what looked to the naked eye like either human or animal flesh in the same pipe leading from the drain. These remains were taken to the mortuary at Hornsey, where pathologist Professor David Bowen advised police that the remains were indeed human, and that one particular piece of flesh he concluded had been from a human neck bore a ligature mark.

Upon learning from fellow tenants of 23 Cranley Gardens that the tenant of the top floor flat from where the human remains had been flushed was Dennis Andrew Nilsen, and that he worked in a job centre in Kentish Town, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay and two colleagues opted to wait outside 23 Cranley Gardens until Nilsen returned home from work. When Nilsen returned home, DCI Jay introduced himself and his colleagues; explaining they had come to enquire about the blockage in the drains from his flat. Nilsen asked why the police would be interested in his drains and also if the two officers present with Jay were health inspectors. In response, Jay informed Nilsen the other two were also police officers and requested access to his flat to discuss the matter further.

The three officers followed Nilsen into his flat, where they immediately noted the odour of rotting flesh. Nilsen queried further as to why the police would be interested in his drains, to which he was informed the blockage had been caused by human remains. Nilsen feigned shock and bewilderment, stating, "Good grief, how awful!" In response, Jay replied: "Don't mess about, where's the rest of the body?" Nilsen responded calmly, admitting that the remainder of the body could be found in two plastic bags in a nearby wardrobe, from which DCI Jay and his colleagues noted the overpowering smell of decomposition emanated.

The officers did not open the cupboard, but asked Nilsen if there were any other body parts to be found, to which Nilsen replied: "It's a long story; it goes back a long time. I'll tell you everything. I want to get it off my chest. Not here — at the police station". He was then arrested and cautioned on suspicion of murder, before being taken to Hornsey Police Station.

As he was escorted to the police station by Detective Chief Inspector Jay and his colleagues, Nilsen was asked whether the remains in his flat belonged to one person or two. Staring out of the window of the police car, he replied, "15 or 16, since 1978".

That evening, a Detective Superintendent Chambers accompanied Peter Jay and Professor David Bowen to Cranley Gardens, where the plastic bags were removed from the wardrobe and taken to Hornsey Mortuary. One bag was found to contain two dissected torsos — one of which had been vertically dissected, and a shopping bag containing various internal organs. The second bag contained a human skull almost completely devoid of flesh, a severed head, and a torso with arms attached but hands missing. Both heads were found to have been subjected to moist heat.

Confession

In an interview conducted on 10 February, Nilsen confessed there were further human remains stowed in a tea chest in his living room, with other remains inside an upturned drawer in his bathroom. The dismembered body parts were the bodies of three men, all of whom he had killed by strangulation — usually with a tie. One victim he could not name; another he knew only as "John the Guardsman", and the third he identified as Stephen Sinclair. He also stated that, beginning in December 1978, he had killed "12 or 13" men at his former address, 195 Melrose Avenue. Nilsen also admitted to having unsuccessfully attempted to kill approximately seven other individuals, who had either escaped or, on one occasion, had been at the brink of death but had been revived and allowed to leave his residence.

A further search for additional remains at 23 Cranley Gardens on 10 February revealed the lower section of a torso and two legs stowed in a bag in the bathroom, and a skull, a section of a torso, and various bones in the tea chest. The same day, Nilsen accompanied police to Melrose Avenue, where he indicated the three locations in the rear garden where he had burned the remains of his victims (investigators would discover over 1,000 fragments of bone from the garden at Melrose Avenue, many of them blackened and charred by fire).

Under English law, the police had 48 hours in which to charge Nilsen or release him. Assembling the remains of the victims killed at Cranley Gardens on the floor of Hornsey Mortuary, Professor David Bowen was able to confirm the fingerprints on one body matched those on police files of Stephen Sinclair. At 5:40 pm on 11 February, Nilsen was formally charged with the murder of Stephen Sinclair. Formal questioning of Nilsen began the same evening, with Nilsen agreeing to be represented by a solicitor (a facility he had earlier declined). Police would interview Nilsen on 16 separate occasions over the following days, in interviews which would total over 30 hours.

The 12 February 1983 front page of the Daily Mirror, describing Nilsen having been formally charged with the murder of his last victim, Stephen Sinclair

Nilsen was adamant he was uncertain as to why he had killed, simply saying "I'm hoping you will tell me that" when asked his motive for the murders. He was adamant the decision to kill was not made until moments before the actual act of murder. Most victims had been killed by strangulation, although on several occasions, he had drowned the victims once they had been strangled into unconsciousness. Once the victim had been killed, he would typically bathe the victim's body, shave any hair from the torso to conform the body to his physical ideal, then apply makeup to any obvious blemishes upon the skin. The body would usually be dressed in socks and underpants, before Nilsen would drape the victims' arms around him as he talked to the corpse. With most victims, Nilsen would masturbate as he stood alongside or knelt above the body, and although Nilsen confessed to having occasionally engaged in intercrural sex with his victims' bodies, he repeatedly stressed to investigators he had never penetrated his victims — harking that his victims were "too perfect and beautiful for the pathetic ritual of commonplace sex".

All the victims' personal possessions would be destroyed following the ritual of bathing their bodies in an effort to obliterate their identity prior to their murder and their now becoming what Nilsen described as a "prop" in his fantasies. In several instances, Nilsen would talk to the victim's body as it remained seated in a chair or prone on his bed and he harked to his being emotional as he marvelled at the beauty of his victims' bodies. With reference to one victim, Kenneth Ockenden, Nilsen harked that Ockenden's "body and skin were very beautiful", adding the sight "almost brought me to tears". Another, unidentified victim had been so emaciated that he had simply been discarded under the floorboards.

The bodies of the victims killed at his previous address would be kept for as long as decomposition would allow: upon noting any major signs of decomposition, Nilsen would stow the body beneath his floorboards. If a body did not display any signs of decomposition, he would occasionally alternately stow the body beneath the floorboards and retrieve it before again masturbating as he stood over or lay alongside the body. Make-up would again be applied to the body to "enhance its appearance" and to obscure blemishes.

When questioned as to why the heads found at Cranley Gardens had been subjected to moist heat, Nilsen stated that he had frequently boiled the heads of his victims in a large cooking pot on his stove in order that the internal contents would evaporate, thus removing the need to dispose of the brain and flesh. The torsos and limbs of the three victims killed at this address would be dissected within a week or so of their murder before being wrapped in plastic bags and stowed in the three locations he had indicated to police; the internal organs and smaller bones he would flush down the toilet. This practice — which had led to his arrest — had been the only method he could consider to dispose of the internal organs and soft tissue as, unlike at Melrose Avenue, he had no exclusive usage of the garden of the property.

At Melrose Avenue, Nilsen had typically retained the victims' bodies for a much longer period before disposing of the remains. He would keep "three or four" bodies stowed beneath the floorboards before he would dissect the remains, which he would wrap inside plastic bags and either return under the floorboards or, in two instances, place inside suitcases which had been left at the property by a previous tenant. The remains stowed inside suitcases — those of Kenneth Ockenden and Martyn Duffey — were placed inside a shed in the rear garden, and were disposed of upon the second bonfire Nilsen had constructed at Melrose Avenue. Other dissected remains — minus the internal organs — would be returned beneath the floorboards or placed upon a bonfire he had constructed in the garden.

Nilsen confirmed that on four occasions, he had removed the accumulated bodies from beneath his floorboards and dissected the remains, and on three of these occasions, he had then disposed of the accumulated remains upon an assembled bonfire. On more than one occasion, he had removed the internal organs from the victims' bodies and placed them in bags, which he then typically dumped behind a fence to be eaten by wildlife. All the bodies of the victims killed at Melrose Avenue would be dismembered after several weeks or months of internment beneath the floorboards and Nilsen recalled that the putrefaction of these victims' bodies would make this task exceedingly vile; he recalled having to fortify his nerves with whisky and his having to grab handfuls of salt with which to brush aside maggots from the remains. Often, he would vomit as he dissected the bodies, before wrapping the dismembered limbs inside plastic bags and carrying the remains to the bonfires. Nonetheless, immediately prior to his dissecting the victims' bodies, Nilsen would engage in masturbation as he knelt or sat alongside the corpse. This, he stated, was his symbolic gesture of saying goodbye to his victims.

When questioned as to whether he had any remorse for his crimes, Nilsen replied: "I wished I could stop, but I couldn't. I had no other thrill or happiness". He also emphasised that although he took no pleasure from the actual act of killing, he had "worshiped the art and the act of death".

Formal charges

On 11 February 1983, Dennis Nilsen was officially charged with the murder of Stephen Sinclair. He was transferred to Brixton Prison to be held on remand until his upcoming trial.

According to Nilsen, upon being transferred to Brixton Prison to await trial, his mood was one of "resignation and relief," and his belief was that he would be viewed, in accordance with law, as innocent until proven guilty. Although Nilsen objected to wearing a prison uniform while on remand, he agreed to wear a uniform upon being informed no exception would be made in his case. In protest at having to wear a prison uniform and what he interpreted to be breaches of prison rules, Nilsen threatened to protest against his remand conditions by refusing to wear any clothes; as a result of this threat, he was not allowed to leave his cell. On 1 August, Nilsen threw the contents of his chamber pot out of his cell, hitting several prison officers. This incident resulted in Nilsen being found guilty on 9 August of assaulting prison officers and subsequently spending 56 days in solitary confinement.

On 26 May 1983, Nilsen was committed to stand trial at the Old Bailey on five counts of murder and two of attempted murder (a sixth murder charge would later be added). Throughout this committal hearing, Nilsen was represented by a solicitor named Ronald Moss, whom he had previously dismissed as his legal representation on 21 April, before Moss was again reappointed as Nilsen's legal representative after Nilsen had complained to magistrates he had been afforded no facilities with which he could mount his own defence. Moss was to remain Nilsen's legal representative until July 1983, when Nilsen — again expressing his intention to defend himself — discharged his legal aid. (On 5 August, Nilsen reappointed Ronald Moss as his legal representative.)

Initially, Nilsen had intended to plead guilty to each charge of murder at his upcoming trial. With Nilsen's full consent, Ronald Moss had fully prepared Nilsen's defence; however, five weeks before his trial, Nilsen again dismissed the legal services of Ronald Moss, and opted instead to be represented by Ralph Haeems, upon whose advice Nilsen agreed to plead not guilty by diminished responsibility.

Trial and sentence

Dennis Nilsen was brought to trial on 24 October 1983, charged with six counts of murder and two of attempted murder. He was tried at the Old Bailey, before Judge Sir David Croom-Johnson.

The trial began with Nilsen being asked by the chief administrator of the court whether he entered a plea of guilty or not guilty in relation to each charge. In response to each charge, Nilsen entered a plea of not guilty. Upon completion of his pleas, the jury was sworn into the courtroom.

The primary dispute between the prosecuting and defence counsels was not whether Nilsen had killed, but his state of mind before, during and after he had killed. The prosecuting counsel, Allan Green, arguing that Nilsen was sane, in full control of his actions and had killed with premeditation; the defence counsel, Ivan Lawrence, arguing that Nilsen suffered from diminished responsibility, rendering him incapable of forming the actual intention to commit murder, and should therefore be convicted of manslaughter as opposed to murder.

The prosecution counsel opened the case for the Crown by describing the events of February 1983 leading to the identification of human remains in the drains at Cranley Gardens and the subsequent arrest of the defendant; the discovery of three dismembered bodies in Nilsen's property; his detailed confession; his leading investigators to the charred bone fragments of 12 further victims killed at Melrose Avenue; and the efforts Nilsen had taken to conceal his crimes. In a tactful reference to the primary dispute between opposing counsels at the trial, Allan Green closed his opening speech with a reply Nilsen had given to police in response to a question as to whether he needed to kill: "At the precise moment of the act [of murder], I believe I am right in doing the act". To counteract this argument, Green added: "The Crown says that even if there was mental abnormality, that was not sufficient to diminish substantially his responsibility for these killings".

The first witness to testify for the prosecution was Douglas Stewart, who testified that in November 1980, he had awoken in Nilsen's flat to find his ankles bound and Nilsen strangling him as Nilsen straddled him. Successfully overpowering Nilsen, Stewart testified that Nilsen had then shouted, "Take my money"! This, the prosecution attested, reflected Nilsen's rational, cool presence of mind in that Nilsen hoped to be overheard by other tenants. Upon leaving Nilsen's residence, Stewart had reported the attack to police, who in turn questioned Nilsen. Noting conflicting details in accounts given by both men, police had dismissed the incident as a lovers' quarrel. Upon cross-examination, the defence counsel sought to undermine Stewart's credibility; pointing to minor inconsistencies in the testimony, the fact he had consumed much alcohol on the night in question, and suggesting his memory had been selectively magnified as he had previously sold his story to the press.

On 25 October the court heard testimony from two further men who had survived attempts by Nilsen to strangle them. The first of these individuals, Paul Nobbs, provided testimony which the prosecution asserted was evidence of Nilsen's self-control and ability to refrain from homicidal impulses. A university student, Nobbs testified that he accompanied Nilsen to Cranley Gardens for alcohol and sex and woke in the early hours of the morning with "a terrible headache". Upon washing his face in Nilsen's bathroom, as Nobbs noted his eyes were bloodshot and his face completely red, Nilsen had exclaimed, "God! You look bloody awful"! Nilsen then advised the youth to see a doctor. Nobbs had not reported the attack to police for fear of his sexuality being discovered. Contrary to the prosecution claims, the defence counsel asserted that Nobbs' testimony reflected Nilsen's rational self was unable to control his impulses. Moreover, the fact Nilsen had selected a university student as a potential victim was at odds with the prosecution's claim that Nilsen intentionally selected rootless individuals whose disappearance was unlikely to be noted.

Immediately after the testimony of Paul Nobbs had concluded, Carl Stottor took the stand to recount how, in May 1982, Nilsen had attempted to strangle and drown him, before bringing him "back to life". Stottor's voice frequently quavered with emotion as he recounted how Nilsen had repeatedly attempted to drown him in his bathtub as he pleaded in vain for his life to be spared, and how he later awoke to find Nilsen's mongrel dog licking his face; on several occasions, the judge had to allow Stottor time to regain his composure. Nonetheless, the youth finished his testimony. (The evidence provided by Stottor was not included as part of the indictment against Nilsen as his whereabouts were not known until after the indictment had been completed.)

"When under pressure of work and extreme pain of social loneliness and utter misery, I am drawn compulsively to a means of temporary escape from reality. This is achieved by taking increased amounts of alcohol and plugging into stereo music which mentally removes me to a high plane of ecstasy, joy and tears. This is a totally emotional experience ... I relive experiences from childhood to present, taking out the bad bits. When I take alcohol, I see myself drawn along and moved out of my isolated, prison flat. I bring [with me] people who are not always allowed to leave because I want them to share my experiences and high feeling."

Written statement made by Nilsen to DCI Peter Jay, February 1983.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay then recounted the circumstances of Nilsen's arrest and his "calm, matter-of-fact" confessions, before reading to the court several statements volunteered by Nilsen following his arrest. In one of these statements, Nilsen had stated: "I have no tears for my victims; I have no tears for myself, nor those bereaved by my actions". Jay admitted it was unusual for anyone accused of such horrific crimes to be so forthcoming in providing information; conceding upon questioning by the defence counsel that Nilsen not only provided most of the evidence against himself, but also encouraged the discovery of evidence which could contradict his own version of events. Following the testimony of DCI Jay, Detective Superintendent Chambers recited Nilsen's formal confession to the court. This testimony included graphic descriptions of the ritualistic and sexual acts Nilsen performed with his victims' bodies, his various methods of storage of bodies and/or body parts, dismemberment and disposal, and the problems decomposition — particularly regarding colonies of maggots — afforded him. Several members of the jury were visibly shaken throughout much of this testimony; others looked at Nilsen with incredulous expressions on their faces as Nilsen listened to the testimony with apparent indifference. This testimony lasted until the following morning, when the prosecution included several exhibits into evidence. This included the cooking pot in which Nilsen had boiled the heads of the victims killed at Cranley Gardens, the cutting board Nilsen had used to dissect John Howlett, and several rusted catering knives which had formerly belonged to victim Martyn Duffey.

Two psychiatrists testified upon behalf of the defence. The first of these, Dr. James MacKeith, began his testimony on 26 October. MacKeith testified as to how, through a lack of emotional development, Nilsen experienced difficulty expressing any emotion other than anger, and his tendency to treat other human beings as components of his fantasies. The psychiatrist also described Nilsen's association between unconscious bodies and sexual arousal; stating that Nilsen possessed narcissistic traits, an impaired sense of identity, and was able to depersonalise other individuals. Although MacKeith conceded that impairments in sense of identity were classic symptoms of borderline personality disorder, he stated his conclusions that Nilsen displayed many signs of maladaptive behaviour, the combination of which, in one man, was lethal. These factors could be attributed to an "unspecified personality disorder" from which MacKeith believed Nilsen suffered. Upon strenuous cross-examination by the prosecution, who suggested that, in attributing Nilsen to various disorders, MacKeith was therefore undecided in his conclusions, MacKeith stated his belief that borderline personality disorder was the most likely personality disorder from which Nilsen suffered, although he declined to make a conclusive diagnosis.

The second psychiatrist to testify for the defence, Dr. Patrick Gallwey, diagnosed Nilsen with borderline personality disorder, with occasional outbreaks of schizoid disturbances that he [Nilsen] managed most of the time to keep at bay; however, Gallwey stated, in episodic breakdowns, Nilsen would become predominantly schizoid—acting in an impulsive, violent and sudden manner. Gallwey further added that an individual suffering from these episodic breakdowns is most likely to disintegrate under circumstances of social isolation. In effect, Nilsen was not guilty of "malice aforethought". Upon cross-examination, Allan Green largely focused upon the degree of awareness shown by Nilsen and his ability to make decisions. Dr. Gallwey conceded that Nilsen was intellectually aware of his actions, although he stressed that, due to his personality disorder, Nilsen did not appreciate the nature of his actions.

On 31 October, the prosecution called Dr. Paul Bowden to testify in rebuttal of the psychiatrists who had testified for the defence counsel. Prior to Nilsen's trial, Dr. Bowden had interviewed the defendant on 16 separate occasions in interviews totalling over 14 hours. Over two days, Dr. Bowden testified that, although he found Nilsen to be abnormal in a colloquial sense, he had concluded Nilsen to be a manipulative individual who had been capable of forming relationships, but had forced himself to objectify people. Refuting the testimony of Dr. MacKeith and Dr. Gallwey, Bowden further testified he had found no evidence of maladaptive behaviour, and that Nilsen suffered from no disorder of the mind.

Following the closing arguments of both prosecution and defence, the jury retired to consider their verdict on 3 November 1983. The following day, the jury returned with a majority verdict of guilty upon six counts of murder and one of attempted murder, with a unanimous verdict of guilty in relation to the attempted murder of Paul Nobbs. The judge sentenced Nilsen to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years' imprisonment.

Imprisonment

Following his conviction, Nilsen was transferred to Wormwood Scrubs prison to begin his sentence. As a Category A prisoner, Nilsen was assigned his own cell, although he was able to mix freely with other inmates.

Nilsen did not lodge an appeal, accepting that the Crown case — that he had had the capacity to control his actions and that he had killed with premeditation — was essentially correct. He would further elaborate on the day of his conviction that he took an enormous thrill from the "social seduction; the getting the 'friend' back; the decision to kill; the body and its disposal". Nilsen also added that the sole reason at least two of his attempted murders had been unsuccessful was due to the fact he had consumed too much alcohol.

In December 1983, Nilsen was attacked with a razor blade by an inmate named Albert Moffatt, who inflicted wounds to Nilsen's face and chest which required 89 stitches to heal. Following this attack, Nilsen was briefly transferred to Parkhurst Prison, before being transferred to Wakefield Prison, where he was to remain until 1990. The following year, Nilsen was transferred to a vulnerable-prisoner unit at HMP Full Sutton upon concerns for his safety. He was to remain at Full Sutton until 1993, when he was transferred to Whitemoor Prison, again as a Category A prisoner, and with increased segregation from other inmates.

The minimum term of 25 years' to life imprisonment to which Nilsen was sentenced in 1983 was replaced by a whole life tariff by the Home Secretary (Michael Howard) in December 1994. This ruling ensures Dennis Nilsen will never be released from prison, although Nilsen has repeatedly expressed no desire to obtain freedom — insisting that he fully accepts his punishment.

In 2003, Nilsen was again transferred to HMP Full Sutton, where he remains incarcerated as a Category A prisoner. He spends much of his free time reading, painting, composing music upon a keyboard and exchanging letters with numerous individuals who have sought his correspondence.

Aftermath

• In September 1992, Central Television conducted an interview with Dennis Nilsen as part of the TV series Viewpoint 1993 - Murder In Mind, which focused upon offender profiling. A four-minute section of this interview, in which Nilsen frankly discussed his crimes, was initially scheduled to be broadcast on 19 January 1993, although the Home Office sought to ban the interview from being broadcast on the grounds that they had not granted permission for Central Television to conduct interviews with Nilsen which would later be broadcast to the public, and claiming ownership of copyrighted material. Central Television challenged the ruling by the Home Office to ban the interview from public screening; citing sections of the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, and that full permission to conduct an interview with Nilsen had been granted in advance. The decision not to ban the interview from public screening was made on 26 January 1993, and the interview was screened in full that evening.
• Nilsen remains alert to trade union activities, and has repeatedly sought legal avenues to challenge real and perceived abuses of prison rules by warders — regularly petitioning the Home Office and, later, the European Court of Human Rights with complaints. As a result, he has proven himself an unpopular inmate with successive governors at the various prisons in which he has been incarcerated.
• In October 2001, Nilsen brought a judicial review against the prison service; citing that the homosexual softcore pornography magazines, Vulcan and Him, to which he subscribed regularly had some images and articles of a more explicit nature removed before the magazine reached him. The legal case he brought against the prison service was dismissed because he could not establish that any breach of his human rights had occurred.
• In the years following his incarceration, Nilsen has composed an unpublished, 400-page autobiography, entitled The History of a Drowning Boy (the title being a reference to his concepts of the tranquility of death following the death of his grandfather at sea and his own near-fatal drowning in 1954).
• A copy of The History of a Drowning Boy remains in the possession of one of many individuals with whom Nilsen corresponds and in whom Nilsen holds unquestioning trust. In his autobiography, Nilsen states that, beginning with his service in the British Army, he constantly lived two separate lives: his "real life" and his "fantasy life". He writes: "When I was with people, I was in the "real" world, and in my private life, I snapped instantly into my fantasy life. I could oscillate between the two with instant ease." With reference to his murders, Nilsen claims that his emotional state upon the dates of the murders, in conjunction with the amount of alcohol he had consumed, were both core factors in his decision to kill. He further emphasises that, when feeling low, seizing an opportunity to satisfy the sexual fantasies he had developed in which the victim would be the young, attractive and passive partner, and he the older active partner, would temporarily relieve him of a general feeling of inadequacy.
• The first murder victim of Dennis Nilsen was identified in 2006 as 14-year-old Stephen Dean Holmes. Formal identification was confirmed via a combination of circumstantial evidence and by Nilsen identifying a photograph of the youth shown to him by police (all bone fragments found at Melrose Avenue had been destroyed). Nilsen was not charged with this murder as the Crown Prosecution Service decided that a prosecution would not be in the public interest, and would not contribute to his current sentence.
• At least four victims killed between 1980 and 1981 at Melrose Avenue remain unidentified. A forensics expert testified at Nilsen's 1983 trial that "at least eight bodies" had been incinerated at Melrose Avenue, academically confirming he had murdered at least 11 victims.
• Several items confiscated from Nilsen's Cranley Gardens address — some of which had been introduced as evidence at Nilsen's trial — now remain on display at New Scotland Yard's Black Museum. These exhibits include the stove upon which Nilsen had boiled the heads of his final three victims; the knives he had used to dissect several of his victims' bodies; the headphones Nilsen had used to strangle Kenneth Ockenden; the ligature he had fashioned to strangle his last victim; and the bath from his Cranley Gardens address in which he had drowned John Howlett and retained the body of Graham Allen prior to dissection.

Victims

Dennis Nilsen is known to have killed a minimum of 12 young men and boys between 1978 and 1983, although it is suspected that the true number of victims may be 15. At least nine victims had been killed at 195 Melrose Avenue, with his final three victims being killed at 23 Cranley Gardens. Of Nilsen's eight identified victims, only three — Stephen Holmes, Kenneth Ockenden and Graham Allen — had a permanent address at the time of their murder, with the remaining victims largely (though not exclusively) consisting of vagrants, runaways and male prostitutes.

In 1992, Nilsen would claim that the true total of victims he had claimed was 12, and that he had fabricated three additional victims he initially confessed to having killed at Melrose Avenue; both in response to pressure as he was interviewed and to simply "stick with the figure" of approximately 15 victims he had provided investigators with as he was escorted to the police station. Nilsen has claimed that three unidentified victims he had initially confessed to killing — an Irishman in September 1980; a "hippy" in November or December 1980, and a skinhead in April 1981 — had been invented to simply "complement the continuity of evidence". However, Detective Chief Inspector Jay dismisses Nilsen's claims to have only killed 12 victims — stating that in the more than 30 hours of interviews police had conducted with Nilsen, when discussing the 15 victims he had initially confessed to killing, he had never provided any inconsistencies in the physical characteristics, the date or place of encounter, the act of murder, or the ritual he observed with the body of any of the 15 victims.

1978

• 30 December: Stephen Dean Holmes, 14. Last seen on his way home from a rock concert; Holmes encountered Nilsen in the Cricklewood Arms on the evening of 29 December before accepting an offer to drink alcohol with him at Melrose Avenue. The following morning, Nilsen strangled Holmes with a necktie until he was unconscious, before drowning him in a bucket of water. His body was to remain beneath Nilsen's floorboards for over seven months before being disposed of upon a bonfire, and Holmes was the only victim not to have been dissected before disposal. Remains identified November 2006.

1979

• 3 December: Kenneth Ockenden, 23. A Canadian student on a tour of Britain; Ockenden encountered Nilsen in a pub on 3 December 1979. He was escorted on a tour of London, before agreeing to accompany Nilsen to his flat for a meal and further drinks. One of the few murder victims who was widely reported as a missing person, Ockenden was strangled with the cord of Nilsen's headphones as he listened to a vinyl record.

1980

• 17 May: Martyn Duffey, 16. Duffey was a 16-year-old runaway from Birkenhead. On 17 May 1980, Nilsen encountered the youth at a London railway station as he himself returned from a union conference in Southport. Nilsen strangled Duffey and subsequently drowned him in the kitchen sink before bathing with the body. Two days later, Duffey's body was placed beneath the floorboards.
• c. August 20: William Sutherland, 26. A 26-year-old father-of-one originally from Edinburgh, who occasionally worked as a male prostitute. Sutherland met Nilsen in a pub near Piccadilly Circus in August 1980. Nilsen could not recall precisely how he had murdered Sutherland, other than that he had strangled Sutherland as he himself stood or knelt in front of this victim and, in the morning, there was "another dead body".
• September: Unidentified. All that Nilsen could remember about his fifth victim was that he was an Irish labourer with rough hands, who wore an old suit and jacket, and whose age he estimated to be between 27 and 30 years old. He had met this victim in the Cricklewood Arms in late 1980. Nilsen later claimed to have fabricated this victim.
• October: Unidentified. Nilsen's sixth victim was described by his murderer as a slender male prostitute, approximately 5 ft. 10 in height, who was aged between 20 and 30, and of either Filipino or Mexican descent. To Nilsen, this victim had gypsy-like features. Nilsen met this victim in the Salisbury Arms in October 1980.
• November: Unidentified. This victim was described by Nilsen as being an English vagrant in his 20s, whom he encountered sleeping in a doorway at the top of Charing Cross Road. He was emaciated, with a pale complexion and had several missing teeth. Nilsen and the youth took a taxi to Melrose Avenue; that evening, the victim was strangled to death as he slept, with his legs moving in a cycling motion as he was strangled. Nilsen later stated he believed this victim's life had been "one of long suffering", and that the act of killing this victim had been "as easy as taking candy from a baby".
• November–December: Unidentified. The last victim to be killed by Nilsen in 1980 was an English "long-haired hippy", aged between 25 and 30, whom he had met in the West End after the pubs had closed in November or December 1980. This victim's body was retained beneath the floorboards of the flat until Nilsen removed the corpse, cut it into three pieces, then replaced the dissected remains beneath the floorboards. He burned the corpse one year later. Nilsen was to later claim to have fabricated this victim.

1981

• c. 4 January: Unidentified. The ninth victim was described by Nilsen as an "18-year-old, blue-eyed Scot" who wore a green tracksuit top and trainers. Nilsen met this victim in the Golden Lion pub in Soho in early January 1981. Killed after partaking in a drinking contest with Nilsen at Melrose Avenue, the body of this victim was dissected on 12 January.
• February: Unidentified. Murdered sometime in February 1981. Nilsen recalled little about this victim, other than the fact he was originally from Belfast, was slim, approximately 5 ft. 9 in. tall, and was aged in his early 20s. He had encountered this victim somewhere in the West End after the pubs had closed. He was strangled with a tie and his body subsequently placed beneath the floorboards.
• April: Unidentified. Nilsen encountered his eleventh victim, a muscular young English skinhead aged approximately 20, at a food stall in Leicester Square in April 1981. He was lured to Nilsen's home with the promise of a meal and alcohol. Nilsen recalled this victim had a tattoo around his neck, simply reading "cut here", and that he had boasted about how tough he was and how he liked to fight. Nilsen hung this victim's naked torso in his bedroom for 24 hours, before placing the body beneath the floorboards. Nilsen later claimed to have fabricated this victim.
• 18 September: Malcolm Barlow, 23. The final victim to be murdered at Melrose Avenue. Barlow was an orphan who had spent much of his life in care homes. Murdered after returning to Nilsen's home to thank him for having ensured he received medical attention the previous day. Prior to dissection, Barlow's body was stowed in a kitchen cupboard as Nilsen had no further room beneath his floorboards by this time.

1982

• March: John Howlett, 23. Originally from High Wycombe, Howlett was the first victim to be murdered at Cranley Gardens. He was strangled as he slept in Nilsen's bed, with Nilsen shouting, "It's about time you went" as Howlett awoke to find himself being strangled. Eventually, Nilsen drowned John Howlett by holding his head in a bathtub filled with water for five minutes. Nilsen subsequently dismembered Howlett's body, flushed portions of flesh and internal organs down the toilet, and placed various "large bones out with the rubbish".
• September: Graham Allen, 27. Allen was a 27-year-old father-of-one, originally from Motherwell, whom Nilsen encountered in Shaftesbury Avenue as Allen attempted to hail a taxi in September 1982. Allen was strangled with a ligature as he sat eating an omelette Nilsen had cooked for him. His body was identified from dental records and healed fractures to his jawbone. Dissected portions of flesh and small bones from the body of Allen subsequently blocked the drains at Cranley Gardens.

1983

• 26 January: Stephen Sinclair, 20. Nilsen's final victim. Sinclair was originally from Perth, Scotland; at the time he encountered Nilsen, he was a heroin addict, who suffered from the habit of self-harming. Nilsen encountered Sinclair in Oxford Street, where he first bought the youth a hamburger before suggesting that Sinclair accompany him to Cranley Gardens. After Sinclair had consumed alcohol and injected heroin at Nilsen's flat, Nilsen strangled him to death with a ligature. The head, upper torso and arms of Sinclair were stowed in the tea chest in Nilsen's living room; Sinclair's lower torso and legs were stowed beneath Nilsen's bathtub.

Media

Film

• Cold Light of Day (1989). Awarded the UCCA Venticittà Award at the 1990 Venice Film Festival.
• Tony (2009). Loosely based on Nilsen, the film depicts a North London-based serial killer whose appearance, manner of dissection and disposal and the murder of young gay men is similar to that of Nilsen. In addition, characters in the film complain of the smell in the killer's flat, which he blames on the drainage system.

Television

• The Black Museum (1988)
• Great Crimes and Trials of the 20th Century S02E15 "The Kindly Killer" (1993), commissioned by the BBC.
• Real Crime S03E04 "A Mind To Murder" (2003), commissioned by ITV1
• Serial Killers: The Evil Inside "Dennis Nilsen" (2008), commissioned by Discovery Networks Europe.
• Born to Kill? S03E05 "Dennis Nilsen" (2012)
• Countdown To Murder S01E02 "Dennis Nilsen's First Kill" (2013), commissioned by Channel 5

See also

• Incidents of necrophilia
• List of prisoners with whole-life tariffs
• List of serial killers by number of victims

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Coffey, Russell (2013). Dennis Nilsen: Conversations with Britain's Most Evil Serial Killer. John Blake. ISBN 978-1-782-19459-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Foreman, Laura, ed. (1992). Serial Killers. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books. ISBN 978-0-783-50001-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Masters, Brian (1985). Killing for Company: The Case of Dennis Nilsen. Random House. ISBN 978-0-812-83104-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Persaud, Raj; Masters, Brian; Wilson, Colin; et al., eds. (1997). "Murder in Mind: Dennis Nilsen" (8). London: Marshall Cavendish. ISSN 1364-5803. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Waddell, Bill (1993). The Black Museum: New Scotland Yard. London: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-751-51033-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

• Cawthorne, Nigel; Tibballs, Jeffrey (1994). Killers. Boxtree. pp. 417–423. ISBN 0-7522-0850-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lane, Brian; Gregg, Wilfred (1992). The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Headline Books. ISBN 978-0-747-23731-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Malekos, Matthew (2012). The Birth of Psychopathy; The Psychology of a Serial Killer; The Life of Dennis Nilsen. Lulu. ISBN 978-1-105-62061-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lisners, John (1983). House of Horrors: The Full Story of Dennis Andrew Nilsen. Corgi Press. ISBN 978-0-552-12459-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McConnell, Brian; Bence, Douglas (1983). The Nilsen File: The Inside Story of the Cricklewood Murders. Futura. ISBN 0-7088-2430-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Odell, Robin; Gaute, J.H.H. (1989). The New Murderers' Who's Who. Headline Books. ISBN 0-7472-3270-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Sunday Times article relating to Nilsen's autobiography, History of a Drowning Boy
• Extracts from Dennis Nilsen's unpublished autobiography
• Transcript of Nilsen's 2004 appeal to the Royal Courts of Justice, seeking to overturn a 2003 ruling his autobiography cannot be returned to him, and must remain unpublished