153 Facts About Dennis Nilsen

Dennis Andrew Nilsen was a Scottish serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys between 1978 and 1983 in London.

All of Dennis Nilsen's murders were committed at the two North London addresses where he lived between 1978 and 1983.

Dennis Nilsen became known as the Muswell Hill Murderer, as he committed his later murders in the Muswell Hill district of North London.

Dennis Nilsen died at York Hospital on 12 May 2018 of a pulmonary embolism and a retroperitoneal haemorrhage, which occurred following surgery to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

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.

Dennis Nilsen's father did not view married life with any seriousness, being preoccupied with his duties with the Free Norwegian Forces and making little attempt to spend much time with or find a new home for his wife.

Dennis Nilsen's body was brought ashore and returned to the Whyte family home prior to burial.

In what Dennis Nilsen later described as his most vivid childhood recollection, his mother, weeping, asked him whether he wanted to see his grandfather.

Dennis Nilsen grew to resent what he saw as the unfair amount of attention his mother, grandmother and later, stepfather displayed towards his older brother and younger sister.

Dennis Nilsen often talked to or played games with his younger sister, Sylvia, to whom he was closer than any other family member following his grandfather's passing.

On one of his solo excursions to the beach at Inverallochy, in 1954 or 1955, Dennis Nilsen became submerged beneath the water and was almost dragged out to sea.

Dennis Nilsen's life was saved by another youth who dragged him ashore.

Shortly after this incident, Dennis Nilsen's mother moved out of his grandparents' home and into a flat with her three children.

Dennis Nilsen later married a builder named Andrew Scott, with whom she had four more children in as many years.

At the onset of puberty, Dennis Nilsen discovered he was gay, which initially confused and shamed him.

Dennis Nilsen respected his parents' efforts to provide and care for their children, but 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 friends to the family home.

Dennis Nilsen displayed a flair for history and art, but shunned sports.

Dennis Nilsen finished his schooling in 1961 and briefly worked in a canning factory as he considered which career path he should choose.

Dennis Nilsen passed the entrance examinations and received official notification he was to enlist for nine years' service in September 1961, commencing his training with the Army Catering Corps at St Omer Barracks in Aldershot, Hampshire.

Dennis Nilsen relished the travel opportunities afforded him in his training, and recalled as a highlight his regiment taking part in a ceremonial parade attended by both the Queen and Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein.

Dennis 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 afforded him the privacy to masturbate without discovery.

In mid-1964, Dennis Nilsen passed his initial catering exam and was officially assigned to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers in Osnabruck, West Germany, where he served as a private.

Dennis Nilsen described himself and his colleagues as a "hard-working, boozy lot"; his colleagues recalled he often drank to excess in order to ease his shyness.

When Dennis Nilsen awoke, he found himself on the floor of the German youth's flat.

Dennis Nilsen was kidnapped by an Arab taxi driver, who beat him unconscious and placed him in the boot of his car.

Dennis Nilsen then locked the man in the boot of the taxi.

Unlike his previous postings, Dennis Nilsen had his own room while stationed in Aden.

When Dennis Nilsen completed his deployment in Aden, he returned to the UK and was assigned to serve with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Seaton Barracks in Plymouth, Devon.

Dennis Nilsen served at these barracks for one year before being transferred with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to Cyprus in 1969.

Between October and December 1972, Dennis Nilsen lived with his family as he considered his next career move.

On more than one occasion in the three months Dennis Nilsen lived in Strichen, his mother voiced her opinion as to her being more concerned with his lack of female companionship than his career path, and of her desire to see him marry and start a family.

On one occasion, Dennis Nilsen joined his older brother Olav Jr.

Dennis Nilsen never spoke to his older brother again, and maintained only sporadic written contact with his mother, stepfather and younger siblings.

Dennis Nilsen enjoyed the work, but missed the comradeship of the army.

Between December 1973 and May 1974, Dennis Nilsen worked as a security guard.

Dennis Nilsen found work as a civil servant in May 1974.

Dennis Nilsen was initially posted to a Jobcentre in Denmark Street, where his primary role was to find employment for unskilled labourers.

At his workplace, Dennis Nilsen was known to be a quiet, conscientious employee who was active in the trade union movement.

Dennis Nilsen 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.

In November 1975, Dennis Nilsen encountered a 20-year-old man named David Gallichan being threatened outside a pub by two other men.

Dennis Nilsen intervened in the altercation and took Gallichan to his room at 80 Teignmouth Road in the Cricklewood district of North London.

Gallichan later insisted Dennis Nilsen had never been violent towards him, but that he did engage in verbal abuse, and the pair had begun arguing with increasing frequency by early 1976.

Dennis Nilsen later stated that, following a heated argument in May 1977, he demanded Gallichan leave the residence.

Dennis Nilsen formed brief relationships with several other young men over the following eighteen months; none of these relationships lasted more than a few weeks, and none of the men expressed any intention of living with him on a permanent basis.

Between 1978 and 1983, Dennis Nilsen is known to have killed a minimum of twelve men and boys, and to have attempted to kill seven others.

All of Dennis Nilsen's murders were committed inside the two North London addresses where he resided in the years he is known to have killed.

Dennis Nilsen killed his first victim, 14-year-old Stephen Holmes, on 30 December 1978.

Dennis Nilsen invited Holmes to his house with the promise of the two drinking alcohol and listening to music, believing him to be approximately 17 years old.

Dennis Nilsen then washed the body in his bathtub before placing Holmes on his bed and caressing his body.

Dennis Nilsen twice masturbated over the body, before awaiting the passing of rigor mortis to enable him to stow the corpse beneath his floorboards.

Holmes' bound corpse remained beneath the floorboards for almost eight months, before Dennis Nilsen built a bonfire in the garden behind his flat and burned the body on 11 August 1979.

Dennis Nilsen's limbs were more relaxed than when I had put him down there.

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

Dennis Nilsen attempted to strangle Ho, who managed to flee from his flat and reported the incident to police.

Dennis Nilsen was questioned in relation to the incident, but Ho decided not to press charges.

Two months after the attempted murder of Ho, on 3 December 1979, Dennis Nilsen encountered a 23-year-old Canadian student named Kenneth Ockenden, who had been on a tour of England visiting relatives.

Dennis Nilsen encountered Ockenden as they both drank in a West End pub.

Dennis Nilsen then invited the student to his house on the promise of a meal and further drinks.

Dennis Nilsen was adamant he could not recall the precise moment he strangled Ockenden, but recalled that he strangled the young man with the cord of his headphones as Ockenden listened to music.

Dennis Nilsen recalled dragging Ockenden 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 on the headphones with which he had strangled Ockenden.

Dennis Nilsen then laid 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.

Dennis Nilsen killed his third victim, 16-year-old Martyn Duffey, on 17 May 1980.

For four days, Duffey had slept rough near Euston railway station before Dennis Nilsen encountered the youth as he returned from a union conference in Southport.

Duffey, Dennis Nilsen recollected, was both exhausted and hungry, and happily accepted Dennis Nilsen's offer of a meal and a bed for the evening.

For two days, Duffey's body was stowed in a cupboard, before Dennis Nilsen noted signs of bloating; therefore, "he went straight under the floorboards".

On occasions when Dennis Nilsen disinterred victims from beneath the floorboards, he noted that the bodies were covered with pupae and infested with maggots; some victims' heads had maggots crawling out of eye sockets and mouths.

Dennis Nilsen placed deodorants beneath the floorboards and sprayed insecticide about the flat twice daily, but the odour of decay and the presence of flies remained.

In late 1980, Dennis 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.

Three neighbourhood children stood to watch this particular bonfire, and Dennis 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".

On or about 4 January 1981, Dennis Nilsen encountered an unidentified man whom he described for investigators as an "18-year-old, blue-eyed" young Scot at the Golden Lion pub in Soho; he was lured to Melrose Avenue upon the promise of partaking in a drinking contest.

Dennis Nilsen discarded these innards both upon the waste ground behind his flat, and in his household rubbish.

The final victim to be murdered at Melrose Avenue was 23-year-old Malcolm Barlow, whom Dennis Nilsen discovered slumped against a wall outside his home on 17 September 1981.

When Dennis Nilsen enquired as to Barlow's welfare, he was informed the medication Barlow was prescribed for his epilepsy had caused his legs to weaken.

Dennis Nilsen suggested that Barlow should be in hospital and, supporting him, walked him into his residence before phoning for an ambulance.

Dennis Nilsen was invited in and, after eating a meal, began drinking rum and coke before falling asleep on the sofa.

Dennis Nilsen manually strangled Barlow as he slept, before stowing his body beneath his kitchen sink the following morning.

In mid-1981, Dennis Nilsen's landlord decided to renovate 195 Melrose Avenue, and asked Dennis Nilsen to vacate the property.

Dennis Nilsen 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, Dennis 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, Dennis Nilsen ensured the bonfire was crowned with an old car tyre to disguise the smell of burning flesh.

At 23 Cranley Gardens, Dennis 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.

In March 1982, Dennis Nilsen encountered 23-year-old John Howlett while drinking in a pub near Leicester Square.

One hour later, Dennis 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.

On three occasions over the following ten minutes, Dennis Nilsen unsuccessfully attempted to kill this victim after noting he had resumed breathing, before deciding to fill his bathtub with water and drown him.

In May 1982, Dennis Nilsen encountered Carl Stottor, a 21-year-old gay man, as the young man drank at the Black Cap pub in Camden.

Dennis Nilsen engaged Stottor in conversation, discovering he was depressed following a failed relationship.

At the flat, Stottor consumed further alcohol before falling asleep upon an open sleeping bag; he later awoke to find himself being strangled with Dennis Nilsen loudly whispering, "Stay still".

Dennis Nilsen rubbed Stottor's limbs and heart to increase circulation, covered the youth's body in blankets, then laid him upon his bed.

When Stottor regained consciousness, Dennis 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.

Dennis Nilsen then led Stottor to a nearby railway station, where he informed the young man he hoped they might meet again before he bade him farewell.

Allen accepted Dennis Nilsen's offer to accompany him to Cranley Gardens for a meal.

Allen's body was retained in the bathtub for a total of three days before Dennis Nilsen began the task of dissecting his body upon the kitchen floor.

On 26 January 1983, Dennis Nilsen killed his final victim, 20-year-old Stephen Sinclair.

Sinclair was last seen by acquaintances in the company of Dennis Nilsen, walking in the direction of a tube station.

Dennis 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.

The bags used to seal Sinclair's remains were sealed with the same crepe bandages Dennis Nilsen had found upon Sinclair's wrists.

Dennis 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.

On 4 February 1983, Dennis 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.

Dennis Nilsen's murders were first discovered by a Dyno-Rod employee, Michael Cattran, who responded to the plumbing complaints made by both Dennis Nilsen and other tenants of Cranley Gardens on 8 February 1983.

When Dennis 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.

Dennis Nilsen asked why the police were interested in his drains and whether or not the two officers present with Jay were health inspectors.

Dennis Nilsen questioned further as to why the police were interested in his drains, to which he was informed the blockage had been caused by human remains.

Dennis Nilsen stated that, beginning in December 1978, he had killed "twelve or thirteen" men at his former address, 195 Melrose Avenue.

Dennis Nilsen admitted to having unsuccessfully attempted to kill approximately seven other people, 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.

Formal questioning of Dennis Nilsen began the same evening, with Dennis Nilsen agreeing to be represented by a solicitor.

Dennis Nilsen was adamant that 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.

Dennis Nilsen was adamant that the decision to kill was not made until moments before the act of murder.

All the victims' personal possessions were destroyed following the ritual of bathing their bodies in an effort to obliterate their identity prior to their murder and their now becoming what Dennis Nilsen described as a "prop" in his fantasies.

The bodies of the victims killed at his previous address were kept for as long as decomposition would allow: upon noting any major signs of decomposition in a body, Dennis Nilsen stowed it beneath his floorboards.

When questioned as to why the heads found at Cranley Gardens had been subjected to moist heat, Dennis Nilsen stated that he had frequently boiled the heads of his victims in a large cooking pot on his stove so that the internal contents evaporated, thus removing the need to dispose of the brain and flesh.

At Melrose Avenue, Dennis Nilsen typically retained the victims' bodies for a much longer period before disposing of the remains.

Dennis Nilsen kept "three or four" bodies stowed beneath the floorboards before he dissected 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.

Dennis 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.

Dennis Nilsen recalled that the putrefaction of these victims' bodies made this task exceedingly vile; he recalled having to fortify his nerves with whisky and having to grab handfuls of salt with which to brush aside maggots from the remains.

Nonetheless, immediately prior to his dissecting the victims' bodies, Dennis Nilsen masturbated as he knelt or sat alongside the corpse.

Dennis Nilsen emphasised that he took no pleasure from the act of killing, but "worshipped the art and the act of death".

On 11 February 1983, Dennis Nilsen was officially charged with the murder of Stephen Sinclair.

Dennis Nilsen was transferred to HMP Brixton to be held on remand until his trial.

Dennis Nilsen objected to wearing a prison uniform while on remand.

In protest at having to wear a prison uniform and what he interpreted to be breaches of prison rules, Dennis 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.

Dennis Nilsen was brought to trial on 24 October 1983, charged with six counts of murder and two of attempted murder.

Dennis Nilsen was tried at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Croom-Johnson and pleaded not guilty on all charges.

The primary dispute between the prosecuting and defence counsel was not whether Dennis Nilsen had killed the victims, but his state of mind before and during the killings.

The prosecuting counsel, Allan Green QC, argued that Dennis Nilsen was sane, in full control of his actions, and had killed with premeditation.

The defence counsel, Ivan Lawrence QC, argued that Dennis Nilsen suffered from diminished responsibility, rendering him incapable of forming the intention to commit murder, and should therefore be convicted only of manslaughter.

The fact Dennis Nilsen had selected a university student as a potential victim was at odds with the prosecution's claim that Dennis Nilsen intentionally selected rootless males whose disappearance was unlikely to be noted.

Immediately after the testimony of Nobbs had concluded, Carl Stottor took the stand to recount how, in May 1982, Dennis 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 Dennis 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 Dennis Nilsen's mongrel dog licking his face; on several occasions, the judge had to allow Stottor time to regain his composure.

In one of these statements, Dennis Nilsen had said: "I have no tears for my victims; I have no tears for myself, nor those bereaved by my actions".

MacKeith testified as to how, through a lack of emotional development, Dennis Nilsen experienced difficulty expressing any emotion other than anger, and his tendency to treat other human beings as components of his fantasies.

Dennis Nilsen stated his conclusions that Nilsen displayed many signs of maladaptive behaviour, the combination of which, in one man, was lethal.

Gallwey conceded that Dennis Nilsen was intellectually aware of his actions, but stressed that, due to his personality disorder, Dennis Nilsen did not appreciate the criminal nature of what he had done.

Over two days, Bowden testified that, although he found Dennis Nilsen to be abnormal in a colloquial sense, he had concluded Dennis Nilsen to be a manipulative person who had been capable of forming relationships, but had forced himself to objectify people.

Dennis Nilsen further elaborated 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".

Dennis Nilsen claimed drunkenness was the sole reason at least two of his attempted murders were unsuccessful.

In December 1983, Dennis Nilsen was cut on the face and chest with a razor blade by an inmate named Albert Moffatt, resulting in injuries requiring eighty-nine stitches.

In 1991, Dennis Nilsen was transferred to a vulnerable-prisoner unit at HMP Full Sutton upon concerns for his safety.

Dennis Nilsen remained there until 1993, when he was transferred to HMP Whitemoor, again as a Category A prisoner, and with increased segregation from other inmates.

The minimum term of 25 years imprisonment to which Dennis Nilsen was sentenced in 1983 was replaced by a whole-life tariff by Home Secretary Michael Howard in December 1994.

In 2003, Dennis Nilsen was again transferred to HMP Full Sutton, where he remained incarcerated as a Category A prisoner.

Dennis Nilsen spent much of his free time reading and writing, and was allowed to paint and compose music upon a keyboard.

Dennis Nilsen exchanged letters with numerous people who sought his correspondence.

Dennis Nilsen remained at HMP Full Sutton until his death on 12 May 2018.

Central Television challenged the Home Office ruling in court, citing sections of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and that full permission to conduct an interview with Dennis Nilsen had been granted in advance.

In October 2001, Dennis Nilsen brought a judicial review against the prison service, citing that the gay 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.

Formal identification was confirmed via a combination of circumstantial evidence and by Dennis Nilsen identifying a photograph of the youth shown to him by police.

Dennis 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.

In January 2021, a former confidant of Dennis Nilsen's named Mark Austin revealed that an edited version of The History of a Drowning Boy was to be posthumously published by RedDoor Press.

The autobiography, based upon the 6,000 pages of typewritten notes Dennis Nilsen authored while incarcerated, examines his life and crimes, and is edited by Austin, who became a pen pal of Dennis Nilsen's in the years prior to his death and who exchanged more than 800 letters with him.

On 10 May 2018, Dennis Nilsen was taken from HMP Full Sutton to York Hospital after complaining of severe stomach pains.

Dennis Nilsen 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.

Dennis Nilsen is known to have killed twelve young men and boys between 1978 and 1983; it is suspected that the true number of victims may be fifteen.

In 1992, Dennis Nilsen claimed the true total of victims he killed was twelve, and that he had fabricated the three additional victims he initially confessed to having killed at Melrose Avenue, both in response to pressure as he was being interviewed as well as to simply "stick with the figure" of approximately fifteen victims he had provided investigators with as he was initially escorted to Hornsey police station.