Dennis Nilsen
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Dennis Andrew Nilsen (born November 23, 1945) is a Scottish serial killer who lived in London. During a murderous spree lasting five years, he killed at least 15 men.
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[edit] Early life and leadup to murders
Nilsen was born in Strichen, Aberdeenshire to a Scottish mother and a Norwegian father. His father was an alcoholic and his parents divorced when he was four years old. His mother remarried and sent her son to his grandparents, but after a couple of years he was sent back to his mother again.
Nilsen claimed the first traumatic event to shape his life came about when he was a small child, when his beloved grandfather died. His strict Catholic mother insisted that he view the body before burial. Whether this incident, or his mother and stepfather's lectures on the "impurities of the flesh" helped shape him into what he was to become, no one really knows.
In 1961, Nilsen enlisted in the British Army and became a cook in Aden, Cyprus and Berlin. He left the army in 1972 and served briefly as a police officer. From the mid 1970s, Nilsen worked as a civil servant in a jobcentre. He was also active in the trade union movement, even going on other people's picket lines in solidarity.
He was involved in a series of superficial, transitory relationships with men, though they did not assuage his feelings of profound isolation and loneliness. Like Jeffrey Dahmer, he sought somebody "who wouldn't leave"; that is, a corpse.
[edit] Aspects of the murders and arrest
All his victims were students or homeless men whom he picked up in bars and brought to his house either for sex or just for company. Nilsen strangled and drowned his victims during the night, waking up with little memory of what he had done. He used his butchering skills, learned in the army, to help him dispose of the bodies. Nilsen had access to a large garden and was able to burn many of the remains in a bonfire.
In 1981, however, Nilsen moved to an upstairs flat. As his murders continued, he found it difficult to dispose of the remains and had suitcases full of human organs stored in his wardrobe, and plastic bags with human remains under the floorboards. Neighbours had begun to notice the smell. When he tried to dispose of the bodies by flushing them down the toilet, he blocked the sewerage of his house, 23 Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill , north London.
When a company was called to unblock the sewer system, they first found the drain to be packed with a flesh-like substance. The drain inspector then called his supervisor, but no assessment was made until the next day, by which time the drain had been cleared. This aroused the suspicions of the drain inspector and his supervisor, who immediately called the police. Upon closer inspection, some small bones and what looked like chicken flesh were found in a pipe leading off from the drain; these were later discovered to be of human origin. Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay was called to the scene with two colleagues and waited outside until Nilsen returned home from work. As they entered the building DCI Jay introduced himself to Nilsen and explained that he had come about his drains. Nilsen asked why would the police be interested in his drains and also if the two officers were health inspectors. He was told they were police colleagues and given their names. They then climbed the stairs together and as they entered the flat DCI Jay immediately smelt rotting flesh. Nilsen queried why the police would be interested in his drains, so the officer told him they were filled with human remains. "Good grief, how awful!" exclaimed Nilsen. "Dont mess about, where's the rest of the body" replied Jay. Nilsen responded calmly by saying they were in two plastic bags in his wardrobe. He was then arrested and cautioned on suspicion of murder and taken to the police station. On the way back to the station, Nilsen was asked how many bodies they were talking about..."15 or 16" was his reply.
He later apologised to the police for not being able to tell them the exact number of people he had killed. When his house was searched, they found three heads in a cupboard, and 13 more bodies in Nilsen's former home, 195 Melrose Avenue, Cricklewood. During the trial at Old Bailey, Nilsen was cold and distant, and seemed unaffected by the fact that he had murdered 15 people.
[edit] The murders and attempted murders
- Murder 1: Nilsen's first murder took place on December 30, 1978. Nilsen claimed to have met his first victim in a gay bar. Nilsen strangled him with a necktie until he was unconscious and then drowned him in a bucket of water. On January 12, 2006, it was announced that the victim had been identified as Stephen Dean Holmes, who was born on March 22, 1964 and was therefore only 14 at the time; Holmes had been on his way home from a pop concert. On November 9, 2006, Nilsen finally confessed to the murder of Holmes in a letter sent from his prison cell to the Evening Standard, a London newspaper. [1]
- Between the first and second murders, Nilsen attempted to murder a student from Hong Kong he had met in the West End. Although questioned by police, the student decided not to prosecute, and Nilsen was released without charge.
- Murder 2: The second victim (on December 3, 1979) was Canadian student Kenneth Ockendon. During their sexual intercourse, Nilsen strangled him. Ockendon was one of the few murder victims who was reported as a missing person.
- Murder 3: Martyn Duffey was a 16-year-old homeless boy from Birkenhead. In May 1980, he accepted Nilsen's invitation to come over to his place. He was strangled and subsequently drowned in the kitchen sink.
- Murder 4: Billy Sutherland was a male prostitute from Scotland. Nilsen could not remember how he murdered Sutherland; however, it was later revealed that the victim had been strangled by bare hands.
- Murder 5: The fifth victim was another male prostitute; however, this one was never identified. All that is known is that he was probably from the Philippines or Thailand.
- Murder 6: Nilsen could recall very little about this and the following two victims. All that he could remember about number 6 was that he was a young Irish labourer that he had met in a bar.
- Murder 7: The seventh victim was what Nilsen described as a starving "hippy-type" he had found sleeping in a doorway in Charing Cross.
- Murder 8: Nilsen could recall nothing at all about his eighth victim.
- Murder 9 and Murder 10: Both were young Scottish men, picked up in pubs in Soho.
- Murder 11: The 11th victim was a skinhead Nilsen picked up at Piccadilly Circus who had a tattoo around his neck saying "cut here". He had boasted to Nilsen how tough he was and how he liked to fight; however, once he was drunk, he proved no match for Nilsen, who hung his naked torso in his bedroom for 24 hours before he was buried under the floorboards.
- At some point between murders 6 and 11, on November 10, 1980, a potential victim of Nilsen's woke up while being strangled and was able to fend off his attacker. Although he called the police almost immediately after the attack, no action was taken by the officers who, it is reported, considered the incident to be a domestic disagreement.
- Murder 12: The 12th victim (and the last before Nilsen moved home) was a man called Malcolm Barlow. He was murdered on September 18, 1981. Nilsen found him in a doorway not far from his own home, and took him in and called an ambulance for him. When Barlow was released the next day, he returned to Nilsen's home to thank him and was pleased to be invited in for a meal and a few drinks. He was murdered that night.
- After moving to a new house in Muswell Hill in October 1981, Nilsen met a student in a bar in Soho and invited him back to his new home. The student awoke the next morning with little recollection of the previous evening's events, and later went to see his doctor because of some bruising that had appeared on his neck. The doctor revealed that it appeared as if the student had been strangled and advised him to go to the police. However, afraid of his sexual orientation being disclosed, the student decided not to.
- Following this attempted murder, Nilsen met a drag queen in a pub in Camden. After passing out from strangulation, he came to while Nilsen was trying to drown him in a bath of cold water and managed to fight off his attacker.
- Murder 13: John Howlett was the first to be murdered in Nilsen's Muswell Hill home, in December 1981. Howlett was one of the few who was able to fight back; however, Nilsen had taken a disliking to him and was determined that he should die. There was a tremendous struggle, in which at one point Howlett even tried to strangle Nilsen back. Howlett was eventually drowned, however, after having his head held under water for five minutes. Howlett's was the first body to be dismembered, and the various body parts were either hidden around the house or flushed down the toilet.
- Murder 14: Graham Allen was another homeless man who met Nilsen in Shaftesbury Avenue. After murdering him, Nilsen left Allen's body in the bath, unsure how to dispose of it. After three days, he was dismembered like Nilsen's previous victim.
- Murder 15: Nilsen's final victim was a drug addict called Stephen Sinclair. They met in Oxford Street and Sinclair managed to scrounge a hamburger off Nilsen, who then suggested that they go back to his place. After dropping into an alcohol and heroin fuelled stupor, Sinclair was strangled and his body dismembered. It was Sinclair's dismembered remains in the drain outside Nilsen's home that first alerted the police to Nilsen's murders.
[edit] Trial and Sentence
Nilsen was convicted of six murders and two attempted murders, and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983.
Nilsen's minimum term was set at 25 years by the trial judge, but the Home Secretary later imposed a whole life tariff, which meant he would never be released. But after the Home Secretary was stripped of his powers to set minimum terms in November 2002, Nilsen could be freed on life licence in 2008 because of his original 25-year minimum sentence. In 1993 he was given permission to give a televised interview from prison.
[edit] Prison
Nilsen is currently held at HMP Full Sutton maximum security prison near Pocklington in East Yorkshire.
During his time in prison he has proved a thorn in the side of prison authorities, bringing Judicial Review procedings over Whitemoor prison's decision not to allow him access to homosexual pornography. In 2003 he brought a further Judicial Review over a decision not to allow him to publish his autobiography, titled The History of a Drowning Boy.
[edit] References
- J.H.H. Gaute and Robin Odell, The New Murderer's Who's Who, 1996, Harrap Books, London
- Brian Masters, Killing for Company, 1985, London
- John Lisners, House of Horrors, 1983, London
- Brian McConell and Douglas Bence, The Nilsen File, 1983, London
[edit] Trivia
- Macabre made a song about Nilsen called "You're Dying to Be with Me". It appeared on their album Murder Metal, which appeared in 2003.
- Swans' song "Killing for Company" was also based on the Dennis Nilsen case, appearing on the album The Great Annihilator. Michael Gira states this explicitly in a Czech documentary about the band made in 1997. A clip is avaible on this link; [2]
