The Infamous Case of Serial Killer Dennis Nilsen

Dennis Nilsen was a monster curated from an inability to manage regular human connection and dark sexual fantasies being left to fester.

Dennis Andrew Nilsen was born on the 23rd of November 1945 in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire; he was the second child of Elizabeth Duthie Whyte and Olav Magnus Moksheim (he changed his last name to Nilsen).

Olav was a Norwegian soldier who had travelled to Scotland in 1940; his duties with the Free Norwegian Forces didn’t allow much time for his family, which had quickly grown upon meeting Elizabeth. Olav also didn’t try making time for his family; he didn’t try finding a new home for the family, which was the biggest area of strife for Elizabeth since the newlyweds lived at her parent’s house with their three children.

They married in May 1942, but six years later, after the birth of their third child, Elizabeth decided enough was enough and decided to divorce Olav. Her parents were supportive of the decision as they had never approved of the relationship to begin with.

As a child, Nilsen was described as quiet but adventurous; he would later describe his earliest memories as picnics in the Scottish countryside and long walks with his grandfather. Nilsen described the man as a “great hero and protector” and said that “life would be empty until he returned” from working at sea as a fisherman.

In 1951, Nilsen’s grandfather’s health began to decline rapidly, but he continued working, and on the 31st of October 1951, he had a heart attack at sea. He died at age 62. His body was returned home, and an open casket viewing was held in the Whyte family home before his burial. Nilsen’s mother, Elizabeth, reportedly asked him if he’d like to see his grandfather without warning him that he had passed; Nilsen was told after seeing his grandfather’s dead body that he was sleeping and had “gone to a better place”.

Over the following years, Nilsen began to withdraw from the world and became quieter than ever before. He would supposedly stand alone at the harbour watching the herring boats, and at home, he rarely participated in family activities. Eventually, Nilsen grew envious of his older brother’s popularity and resent the attention he got from their mother, grandmother and eventually their stepfather. Nilsen grew closer with his younger sister, spending time playing and talking to her almost as much as he did with his grandfather.

According to Nilsen, in 1954 or 55, he had gone out to the beach alone, became submerged beneath the water, and was almost dragged out to sea. He claimed that he believed his grandfather would arrive and rescue him before a wave of tranquillity washed over him. His life was saved by another young boy who dragged him ashore.

Shortly after this claimed event, Elizabeth (Nilsen’s mother) moved out of her parents’ home into her own flat in Strichen with her three children. She would go on to marry a builder named Andrew Scott, and she would have a further four children with him.

During the onset of puberty, Nilsen discovered he was gay, which reportedly confused and shamed him; Nilsen, like many others at the time and to this day, hid his sexuality from family and few friends.

He assumed that his attraction to boys was actually an extension of the care he had for his younger sister, Sylvia. To test his theory, Nilsen, on one occasion, sexually assaulted Sylvia by groping her.

Another confirming factor, according to Nilsen, was when an older boy groped him, and he didn’t find the experience unpleasant.

Nilsen also sexually assaulted his older brother, Olav Jr, while he slept, which led Olav Jr to begin believing he was gay and started to belittle him out in public.

Nilsen was fourteen years old when he joined the Army Cadet Force; his goal was to join the British Army as a potential avenue to escape the stifling environment of his small town. Three weeks before he enlisted, he worked at a canning factory, which seemingly solidified his desire to escape the small town and work as an army chef.

He passed his entrance exams and received official notification that he was enlisted for nine years of service in September 1961; his training commenced in the Army Catering Corps at St Omer Barracks in Aldershot, Hampshire. He would later describe the three years of training as the “happiest of my life.”. He relished in the travel opportunities and recalled a highlight of his regiment was taking part in a ceremonial parade attended by both the Queen and Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein.

While stationed in Aldershot, Nilsen’s hidden feelings began to stir, but he managed to keep his sexuality hidden from colleagues. One of the many ways he managed this was by showering alone, never entering the shower room when other soldiers were inside.

In mid-1964, Nilsen passed his initial catering exam and was assigned to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers in Osnabrück, West Germany; he served as a Private. During deployment, Nilsen began to drink more alcohol and would later describe himself and his colleagues as a “hard-working, bozzy lot.”.

Once, Nilsen and a German youth drank themselves into a stupor and stayed at the German’s apartment. Nilsen woke up on the floor. He claimed nothing happened between them, but Nilsen claimed this fueled his dark sexual fantasies. The fantasies included a young, slender male being entirely passive, unconscious, or dead.

Afterwards, Nilsen began making efforts to have his body be sexually used by his colleagues. He would drink with them and pretend to be unconscious, hoping they would assault him.

Following the two years in Osnabrück, Nilsen went to Aldershot, where he passed another catering exam before deployment in Norway with the British Army to serve as a cook.

In 1997, Nilsen was deployed to the State of Aden (now a part of Yemen), where he again served as a cook at the Al Mansoura Prison. The posting was more dangerous than his previous two in West Germany and Norway. Nilsen later recalled that the regiment lost several men, often through ambushes en route to the army barracks.

Nilsen claimed that he was kidnapped by an Arab taxi driver who beat him unconscious and put him in the boot of his car. He was awake when the driver dragged him out of the boot. Nilsen attacked with a jackhandle and beat the driver unconscious. He then locked the man in the boot of his taxi before escaping.

At the posting, he had his private room where he would masturbate without discovery, allowing his dark fantasies to grow. Nilsen compensated for his unfulfilled fantasies of sex with an unresistant or deceased partner by imagining the encounters while watching his body in a mirror. He had discovered that by using a free-stand mirror that wasn’t showing his head, he could “split” his personality to live out these fantasies, envisioning himself as both the dominant and the submissive partner.

Nilsen claimed that the fantasies became more extreme after his near-death experience of the kidnapping, witnessing multiple dead bodies while in Aden and the imagery of the 19th-century oil painting entitled The Raft of the Medusa. One of the most vivid of his fantasies involved washing a dead man’s body in a bathtub, something that he would live out with most of the murders he would commit in years to come.

After Aden, Nilsen returned to the UK and was assigned to serve with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Seaton Barracks in Plymouth; he was required to cook for thirty soldiers and two officers daily. He served there for a year before being transferred to Cyprus in 1969.

He was only there for a few months before once again getting transferred to West Berlin.

There, he would have his first sexual encounter with a woman. Nilsen hired a prostitute and bragged about the encounter to his colleagues despite him later describing the experience as “over-rated” and “depressing”.

Nilsen was then selected to cook for the Queen’s Royal Guard for a short while before January 1971, when he was reassigned to serve as a cook in the Shetland Islands. This would be his final assignment before ending his eleven-year-long career in the military at the rank of Corporal in October 1972.

Between October and December 1972, Nilsen lived with his family while considering his next career move. His mother would voice her opinions about being more concerned over Nilsen’s lack of female companionship, and she desired to see him marry and start a family more than seeing him get another career.

The final straw that pushed Nilsen to leave his family completely was an outing with his older brother, his sister-in-law, and another couple to watch a documentary about gay men. All present mocked the topic while Nilsen defended gay rights. A fight ensued between the two brothers, leading to Olav Jr informing their mother that Nilsen was gay. Nilsen never spoke to his brother again and maintained a sporadic written relationship with the rest of his family.

To escape his family, Nilsen joined the Metropolitan Police Force and moved to London in December to begin training.

April 1973. Nilsen had finished training and was posted to Willesden Green. His job with the police force wouldn’t last long, however. In December 1973, Nilsen resigned from his job with the force following a failed relationship, which led him to believe his work was poorly affecting his career.

After a brief stint working as a security guard, Nilsen found work as a civil servant at a Jobcentre on Denmark Street in May 1974. Co-workers knew Nilsen as quiet and conscientious and was active in the trade union movement. He frequently volunteered to work overtime, making several co-workers suspect he was a loner.

In June 1982, Nilsen was transferred to a Jobcentre in Kentish Town, where he would act as an executive officer with additional supervisory responsibilities. This is the job he was working up until his arrest in 1983.

In November 1975, Nilsen encountered David Gallichan (20) while he was being threatened outside of a pub by two other men. Nilsen intervened in the altercation and offered to take David home to his place in the Cricklewood district of North London. There, they spent the evening talking and drinking, Nilsen learning that David was gay, unemployed and residing in a hostel.

The following morning, they agreed to live together in a larger residence, and Nilsen immediately began searching for a home for the two. Several days later, they viewed a ground-floor flat at 195 Melrose Avenue and decided that the property was perfect for them and wanted to move in. Nilsen negotiated a deal with the landlord where they had exclusive use of the garden at the rear of the property. Nilsen used a large portion of the inheritance he got from his biological father’s passing to get the home.

Over the following months, the pair decorated the flat; most of the physical work was done by David, while Nilsen began viewing himself as the breadwinner of the home. Nilsen claimed that while he was sexually attracted to David, they never slept together.

The partnership began showing strain at the beginning of 1976 when they started arguing constantly, but David testified that Nilsen was only verbally abusive towards him. Following a heated argument in May 1977, Nilsen reportedly told David to leave the house and thus ended the partnership between them.

Afterwards, Nilsen formed brief relationships with several young men, but he claimed that he developed an increasing conviction that he was “unfit to live with”, and by late 1978, he was living a solitary existence.

On December 30th, 1978, Nilsen went to the Cricklewood Arms pub after drinking heavily in his flat alone for hours; he had decided that he must “at all costs” leave his flat to seek out company. There, he met fourteen-year-old Stephen Dean Holmes, who was in the pub attempting to buy alcohol.

Nilsen invited Stephen to his house with the promise of drinks and music; he later claimed that he believed Stephen was around seventeen years old. At Nilsen’s home, he and Stephen drank heavily before falling asleep.

The following morning, Nilsen awoke before Stephen, finding the young teen asleep in his bed beside him. Nilsen later confessed that he was “afraid to wake him in case he left me”. He caressed Stephen while he slept before deciding that Stephen was going to “stay with me over the New Year whether he wanted to or not”.

Using a necktie, Nilsen strangled Stephen into unconsciousness before drowning him in a bucket of water. Nilsen went and washed Stephen’s body in the bathtub before putting him back into his bed.

Nilsen masturbated over his body twice before waiting for rigour mortis to pass before stowing Stephen’s body underneath the floorboards.

Stephen’s body would never be recovered after being in Nilsen’s possession for eight months; Nilsen put him on a bonfire in the garden on the 11 of August 1979.

Stephen had gone to attend a pop concert in Willesden and went to finish the night at the pub when his life was tragically taken. The Holmes family had no idea what happened to him for decades, Nilsen holding the information of what happened to Stephen’s life for twenty years after he was arrested.

On the 3rd December 1979, Nilsen encountered twenty-three-year-old Canadian student Kenneth Ockenden while they were both drinking in a West End pub. Through casual conversation, Nilsen found out that Kenneth was touring England to visit relatives and offered to give him a tour of London landmarks, an offer that Kenneth accepted. After meeting at the pub, the pair visited places like Trafalgar Square, Downing Street and Westminster Abbey.

Nilsen lured Kenneth back to his flat with the promise of food and more drinks. They stopped at an off-licence while on the way to Nilsen’s home, they purchased whisky, rum and beer.

Nilsen claimed he couldn’t recall the precise moment that he strangled Kenneth, but while using a pair of wired headphones, Nilsen used the wire to strangle him. He could recall dragging Kenneth across the floor, the wire still wound around his neck, before pouring himself a glass of rum and continuing to listen to music, using the same headphones he had murdered Kenneth with.

The following day, Nilsen purchased a Polaroid camera and photographed Kenneth’s body in several suggestive positions. Nilsen would also recall laying Kenneth’s body spreadeagle above him on his bed as he watched TV for several hours, cuddling his dead body. After he was done, Nilsen wrapped Kenneth with plastic bags and stowed his corpse beneath the floorboards.

Around four times over the following two weeks, Nilsen took Kenneth’s body from under the floorboards and seated him on an armchair; he sat beside Kenneth’s body, watching TV and drinking. He was returned under the floorboards when Nilsen noticed signs of decay.

On May 13th 1980, after being questioned by British Transport Police for evading his train fare, sixteen-year-old Martyn Duffey hitchhiked from Birkenhead, Merseyside, to London without his parents’ knowledge. For four days, Martyn slept rough near the Euston Railway Station before Nilsen bumped into him while returning from a union conference in Southport. Nilsen recalled Martyn being exhausted and hungry and had happily accepted the offer of a meal and a bed for the night.

Once Martyn went to sleep in Nilsen’s bed, he fashioned a ligature around Martyn’s neck and then sat on his chest for leverage while tightening the ligature. He continued until Martyn fell unconscious before dragging his body into the kitchen and drowning him in the sink. He bathed his body before placing him in a kitchen chair, then back into the bed he was murdered in. Nilsen repeatedly kissed, complimented and caressed Martyn’s body both before and after he masturbated while sitting on his stomach.

For two days, Nilsen kept Martyn’s body stowed in a cupboard before Nilsen noted signs of bloating and “he went straight under the floorboards”.

Martyn’s father spent years searching for his missing son, keeping his picture on his bedside table. His siblings said in a documentary later, “Something like this can tear families apart, but this brought us together, Martyn was part of our family he was loved and we miss him.”.

During August 1980, twenty-six-year-old William Sutherland left his home in Muirhouse, Edinburgh, for London in search of a job to better support his growing family. Within days of arriving, he had vanished. Nilsen met William in a pub near Piccadilly Circus.

Nilsen claimed that he couldn’t recall how he murdered William other than he strangled him while standing or kneeling in front of him and that he used his hands. He claimed that the following morning, there was “another dead body.”. Nilsen claimed that William was a male prostitute, but William’s family adamantly denied the fact.

Not much else is known about the murder of William.

In September 1980, Nilsen claimed another life that, to this day, remains unidentified. All Nilsen claimed he could remember about the man was he was around 5'9" or 5'10", an Irish labourer and about twenty-seven to thirty years old. He had rough hands and wore an old suit, jacket and shoes. The pair met in Cricklewood Arms.

Nilsen later claimed that he fabricated the man.

The following month, Nilsen would once again take the life of a man who remains unidentified to this day. All Nilsen claimed to remember about him was he was a slender-framed male prostitute who stood around 5'10". He was reportedly aged 20 to 30 years and was either of Filipino or Mexican descent; Nilsen stated he had gypsy-like features.

They met in Salisbury Arms.

A month after that, November 1980, potentially around the 11th to the 18th, as Nilsen was absent from work those days, another life was taken. He is still unidentified, but Nilsen described him as being an English vagrant in his 20s; he was described as emaciated, pale and had several missing teeth.

Nilsen encountered him while he slept in a doorway at the top of Charing Cross Road; the two took a taxi back to Nilsen’s home, most likely after Nilsen offered the man a place to stay for the night and a warm meal. That evening, Nilsen strangled the man to death while he slept.

Nilsen would later claim that he believed the man’s life had been “one of long-suffering” and that savagely murdering him had been “as easy as taking candy from a baby.”

The four different people’s remains underneath the floorboards began to smell, attracting insects, especially throughout the summer months. When Nilsen brought the remains out of their temporary graves, they were covered with pupa, the stage most insects go through between immaturity and maturity, and they were infested with maggots. He tried combating the bugs and smells by putting deodorants under the floorboards, and Nilsen would spray insecticide around his flat twice a day, but the odour and bugs remained.

During late 1980, Nilsen removed the bodies from throughout his apartment; he dissected them and burnt their remains on a communal bonfire he constructed. Like he had before, he crowned the fire with an old car tyre. Nilsen later recalled three local children standing to watch the flames until they had almost died out. Once the fire was out and the children left, Nilsen used a rake to search the debris for any recognisable bones. He only found a skull, which he smashed with his rake.

Shortly after the bonfire, during November or December 1980, Nilsen struck again. He described the still unidentified man as an English “long-haired hippy” aged between 25 and 30. They met in the West End after pubs had closed. The victim’s body was stowed beneath the floorboards of the flat until Nilsen removed him to cut him into three pieces and returned him underneath the floorboards.

Nilsen claimed to have fabricated this victim.

Around January 4th 1981, Nilsen murdered another unidentified man. He described him as an “18-year-old, blue-eyed Scot” with blonde hair and wore a green tracksuit top and trainers. They had met in the Golden Lion pub in Soho, Nilsen luring him back to his apartment under the guise of a drinking game or contest. They played their game before Nilsen murdered him.

Nilsen told his employers he was ill and unable to attend work on the 12th, and it’s believed he took the day to dissect both victims.

In February 1981, Nilsen struck again; apparently, he couldn’t remember much about the man other than he was from Belfast, was of slim build and was approximately 5'9", in his early 20s and had dark hair. The two met in the West End after the pubs had closed.

Nilsen strangled him with a necktie before his body was placed underneath the floorboards with the other two men’s remains.

In April 1981, there was another unidentified victim that Nilsen described as a muscular young English skinhead approximately 20 years old. He had worn a black leather jacket and had a tattoo around his neck that simply read “cut here”. The victim reportedly boasted about how tough he was and how he liked to fight; Nilsen lured him back to his flat under the promise of a free meal and alcohol.

Nilsen hung this victim’s naked torso in his bedroom for 24 hours before placing the body beneath the floorboards.

Nilsen later claimed the victim was fabricated.

The following month, Nilsen removed the internal organs of several of these unidentified victims and discarded the innards both upon the waste grounds behind his home and into his household waste.

The final victim at the Melrose Avenue flat was on September 18th 1981.

The day before Nilsen found twenty-three-year-old Malcolm Barlow slumped against the wall outside the home, Malcolm barely managed to tell Nilsen that his epilepsy medication caused his legs to weaken. Nilsen suggested that Malcolm go to the hospital and help Malcolm walk inside the flat while he called an ambulance.

The following day, Malcolm returned to the home after being released from the hospital to reportedly thank Nilsen for his help. Nilsen invited him inside for a chat over a meal and some drinks. Malcolm eventually fell asleep on the sofa. While he slept, Nilsen manually strangled Malcolm, stowing his remains underneath the kitchen sink the following morning.

In mid-1981, Nilsen’s landlord decided to renovate the building and requested all tenants to vacate the property. Initially, Nilsen was resistant to the proposal, but after being offered £1000 to vacate, he left, rushing to clean the flat beforehand.

The day before he left, Nilsen took the remains of the five men in the flat, dissected the ones he hadn’t already and burnt them on a pyre crowned with old tyres.

Nilsen moved into a flat at 23D Cranley Gardens in the Muswell Hill district on October 5th 1981. The new place was on the top floor, meaning Nilsen couldn’t access the floorboards. For almost two months, any guests Nilsen lured back to his new home left unharmed the following morning and weren’t assaulted by Nilsen.

This all changed on November 23rd 1981 when Nilsen attempted to strangle nineteen-year-old Paul Nobbs but stopped himself from finishing the act. It’s unclear why Nilsen did stop, but he claimed it was an act of self-control.

In March 1982, Nilsen met twenty-three-year-old John Howlett while drinking in a pub near Leicester Square; he lured him to the flat on the promise of continuing to drink and watch a film. John went into a different room to Nilsen and fell asleep in his bed.

An hour later, Nilsen went into his bedroom to find John still sleeping; when he couldn’t stir him from slumber, Nilsen decided that he would murder him. Taking an upholstery strap, Nilsen began strangling John; the man woke and began to fight back but was eventually knocked unconscious by the lack of oxygen.

Nilsen claimed he returned to the living afterwards, shaking from the “stress of the struggle,” which he believed he would be overpowered. Over the next ten minutes, Nilsen tried three different times to kill John after noticing he was still breathing after each attempt. It was the third attempt that Nilsen filled the bathtub and drowned John in the water.

For over a week after the killing, Nilsen’s neck was still bruised by John’s fingerprint.

Nilsen, unable to hide John’s body under the floorboards, later dismembered his body and flushed portions of flesh and his internal organs down the toilet; he placed various “large bones out with the rubbish” as well.

In May 1982, Nilsen encountered twenty-one-year-old Carl Stottor while out drinking at the Black Cap pub in Camden. They spoke, and Nilsen discovered that Carl was depressed following a failed relationship. Nilsen lured Carl to the flat, assuring his guest that nothing sexual would happen.

They drank further at the apartment, Carl falling asleep in an open sleeping bag. He awoke to Nilsen strangling him while whispering at him to “stay still”.

In his testimony, Carl stated he believed that Nilsen was initially trying to free him from the zip of the sleeping bag before he fell unconscious. Carl awoke again to the sound of water running before he realised he was immersed underwater with Nilsen trying to drown him. Carl just barely managed to get his head above water and pleaded for his life before he was once again submerged, before falling unconscious.

Nilsen, assuming that Carl was dead, Nilsen seated him in his armchair. There, Nilsen’s dog, Bleep, began licking Carl’s face, which made Nilsen notice that Carl was still desperately clinging to his life. Nilsen began rubbing Carl’s limbs and his chest, trying to increase circulation. He quickly moved Carl to the bed and swaddled him with blankets, continuing to try and resuscitate him.

Over the following two days, Carl repeatedly lapsed in and out of consciousness until he regained the strength to question Nilsen about his recollections of being strangled and immersed in cold water. Nilsen told him that he had been caught in the zip of his sleeping bag after a nightmare, and Nilsen put him in cold water as “you were in shock”.

Once Carl was nearly one hundred per cent better, Nilsen walked him to a nearby railway station; he bid him farewell and hoped they would meet again.

In September 1982, Nilsen met twenty-seven-year-old Graham Allen, attempting to hail a taxi on Shaftesbury Avenue. Nilsen reportedly asked Graham to accompany him to his home in Cranley Gardens for a meal.

Once again, Nilsen claimed that he couldn’t recall the precise moment he strangled Graham, but he could remember approaching him while he sat eating an omelette with the full intention of murdering him.

Graham’s body was stored in the bathtub for a total of three days before Nilsen began his process of dissecting him on the kitchen floor. It’s likely he did this on October 9th 1982, as Nilsen took the day from work, claiming to be ill and unable to attend. Once again, Nilsen flushed chunks of flesh and smaller bones down the toilet, subsequently blocking the house’s drains.

On the 26th of January 1983, Nilsen’s last victim, twenty-year-old Stephen Sinclair, was last seen by acquaintances walking with Nilsen in the direction of a tube station. At the time of meeting Nilsen, Stephen was addicted to heroin and suffered from habitual self-harming and suicidal thoughts.

At Nilsen’s flat, Stephen reportedly fell asleep after he injected a dose of heroin and drank alcohol with Nilsen. While he slept, Nilsen knelt in front of him before using a rope and necktie fashioned together as a ligature to strangle Stephen. Once he was unconscious, Nilsen noticed the crepe bandages on each of Stephen’s wrists; after removing them, he discovered the wounds from his most recent attempt on his own life underneath them.

Following the same routine he had with all his previous victims, Nilsen applied talcum powder to Stephen’s body after washing him, placing him on the bed in his bedroom. Nilsen arranged three mirrors around the bed before lying naked beside the dead man; several hours later, Nilsen turned Stephen’s head towards him. He kissed him on the forehead before saying goodnight and falling asleep beside his body.

Like with his previous two victims, Nilsen dissected Stephen’s body, wrapping some parts in plastic bags and storing them around his apartment, sealing the bags with the bandages taken from Stephen’s wrists. He disposed of pieces of his flesh, internal organs and smaller bones down the toilet, further clogging the home’s pipes.

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On February 4th 1983, Nilsen wrote a letter of complaint to the estate agents because of the blocked drains that he called intolerable to the many tenants in the three different flats.

On the following day, Nilsen refused an acquaintance from entering his property, likely the reason being that he had begun the process of dismembering Stephen’s body on the kitchen floor.

Following Nilsen’s written complaint, Dyno-Rod (a drainage and plumbing company in the UK) employee Michael Cattran responded on the 8th of February.

Michael opened the drain cover on the side of the house and discovered the drain was packed with a flesh-like substance and numerous small bones of unknown origin. He reported the suspicious substances to supervisor Gary Wheeler, but due to the time, they agreed to postpone further investigation into a blockage until the following morning.

Prior to them leaving, Nilsen and a fellow tenant convened to discuss the source of the flesh. Nilsen had heard Michael say it seemed similar to human flesh, and Nilsen tried concealing his dumpsite by saying, “It looks to me like someone has been flushing down their Kentucky Fried Chicken.”.

At 7:30 am the following day, the Dyno-Rod workers returned, but when they uncovered the drain, it had been cleared, arousing further suspicions from both men. Michael discovered some scraps of flesh and four bones in a pipe leading from the drain linked to the top flat, Nilsen’s home.

The workers called the police, who discovered further small bones and fleshy scraps from inside the same pipe. The remains were all taken to the mortuary at Hornsey, where pathologist David Bowen advised police that the remains were human and that one piece brought forward was from a human neck that bore a ligature mark.

Through tenants, the police learned the top flat was Nilsen’s and Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay, alongside two colleagues, opted to wait outside the house for Nilsen to return from work. When he did return, they explained that they were there to enquire about the blockage in the drains coming from his flat. Nilsen quizzed why the police were interested in his drains and questioned if the other two officers were health inspectors. Jay informed Nilsen they were all police and requested they continue their discussion in his flat.

Upon entrance, the officers noted the scent of rotting flesh. Accustomed to the scent, Nilsen questioned why the police were interested in the blocked drains. This is when Nilsen learns of the police’s knowledge that the flesh isn’t animal but rather human.

Nilsen feigned shock, but when Detective Chief Inspector Jay pressed for the rest of the body, Nilsen caved and calmly guided officers to the nearby wardrobe. They didn’t open the closet, as officers could tell the pungent smell was coming from inside. When they tried pushing further, 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 arrested and cautioned (right to silence in England) on suspicion of murder before being taken to Hornsey police station. While en route, Nilsen was asked whether the remains belonged to one or two people. Nilsen responded, “Fifteen or sixteen, since 1978”

On the evening of Nilsen’s arrest, Detective Superintendent Chambers accompanied DCI Jay and Bowen back to the flat. Plastic bags were removed from the wardrobe and taken to Hornsey mortuary. One bag contained two dissected torsos, one of which had been vertically cut, and it had a shopping bag containing various internal organs. A second bag contained a human skull completely devoid of flesh, a severed head and a torso with the arms attached, but the hands were missing; both heads had been subjected to moist heat.

On February 10th, Nilsen confessed to more remains in a tea chest in his living and further remains inside an upturned drawer in his bathroom. He claimed that he had attempted to kill around seven others who had either escaped or had been revived and allowed to leave (Carl Stottor).

A search on the same day found 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.

Also, on the 10th, Nilsen accompanied the police to his previous home on Melrose Avenue and showed them where he had burned the remains on three separate pyres.

At 5:40 pm on the 11th, Nilsen was charged with Stephen Sinclair’s murder; a formal questioning of Nilsen began the same evening with Nilsen agreeing to be represented by a solicitor, a facility he had earlier declined. The police interviewed Nilsen on sixteen separate occasions over the following days, an amount of time that accumulated to thirty hours.

Nilsen was adamant that he was uncertain as to why he had killed and said, “I’m hoping you will tell me that.” when questioned for a motive, he also remained adamant that the decision to kill was not made until moments before the act. After most murders, Nilsen typically bathed the victim’s bodies, shaved any hair from their torsos to conform it to his physical ideal and then applied makeup to any obvious blemishes upon the skin. The victim’s body was usually dressed in socks and underpants before Nilsen draped them around him.

With most victims, Nilsen masturbated as he either stood alongside or knelt above the body. Nilsen confessed to having occasionally engaged in intercrural (thigh) sex with the victims’ bodies, but he stressed he had never actually penetrated his victims because they were “too perfect and beautiful for the pathetic ritual of commonplace sex.”. Nilsen described them as “prop” in his fantasies.

All the victims’ personal possessions were destroyed or used by Nilsen following the ritualistic bathing.

When questioned as to why the heads found in 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 so that the internal contents evaporated, thus removing the need to dispose of the brain and flesh.

August 1st 1983, while at HMP Brixton, Nilsen threw the contents of his chamber pot out of his cell, hitting several officers. He was found guilty of assaulting prison officers on August 9th and spent 56 days in solitary confinement for the actions.

Nilsen was brought to trial on the 24th of October 1983, charged with six counts of murder and two attempted murder charges. By the 3rd of November, he was found guilty of all the murder charges and the attempted murder of Paul Nobbs.

Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years.

On the 10th of May 2018, Nilsen was taken from HMP Full Sutton to York Hospital after complaining of severe stomach pains. He was found to have a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, which was repaired, although he subsequently suffered a blood clot as a complication of the surgery. Nilsen died on May 12th.

Fifteen men were brutally murdered because of one man’s inability to manage his own loneliness, and he left families mourning, some without ever getting the decency of knowing if their loved one was one of the victims. Thank you for reading their story. If there are any updates regarding the unidentified men’s identity, I’ll be sure to add them to the comments of this post.