Dennis Nilsen

Dennis Nilsen, AKA The Kindly Killer and The Muswell Hill Murderer, is a narcissist and a necrophiliac, who killed at least 15 men & boys between 1978 and 1983 and kept their corpses for sex & companionship.

Background.

Dennis Andrew Nilsen was born on 23rd of November 1945 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

His father, Olav Moksheim, changed his surname to Nilsen after fleeing the Nazi occupation of Norway.

Olav met and married local girl, Elizabeth Whyte, in Scotland.

Dennis was the second of three children, he had a brother, Olav Jr, and a sister, Sylvia.

However, Olav Snr was an alcoholic, and eventually abandoned his family and the stormy marriage to return to Norway.

Dennis later described his childhood as “lonely”, though he had a happy and close relationship with his grandfather.

When his grandfather died of a heart attack, six-year-old Dennis was devastated, he had no friends at all now.

Dennis left school in 1961 and joined the British Army.  It was during his army days as a chef that his homosexual tendencies started to emerge, but he kept it well hidden.

He left the army of his own accord in November 1972 after serving 11 years.  He described it as the best years of his life.

After the army, he went home to stay with his family where it became clear to his brother Olav Jr that Dennis was gay.  Olav announced it to the family and it wasn’t easily accepted.

Dennis never spoke to his brother again and only kept in occasional contact with the rest of the family.

In December 1972 he moved to London and joined the Police force.   Nilsen completed his police training by April 1973 and was posted to Willesden Green, north west London.

In the evenings Nilsen starting going to gay pubs and clubs and had several casual relationships with men, one of them a fellow officer.

Dennis later said these encounters were “soul destroying” and a “vain search for inner peace“.

Eventually, he concluded  that his personal life was at odds with his professional life as a Policeman and he resigned from the force after just 11 months.  His estranged father died the same month. leaving him £1000 in his will.

After a brief stint as a security guard, Dennis found work as a job adviser in a Job Centre.  By 1982 he was promoted and moved to a supervisory role at the Kentish Town office.

Melrose Avenue.

In November 1975, Nilsen rented a flat at 195 Melrose avenue, Criklewood, north-west London.

He rented it because he had just found a new friend, David Gallichan, of whom he had saved from a possible beating by thugs outside a pub one night.

After a tumultuous relationship, Gallichan decided to leave in may 1977, after the pair had one row too many.   Nilsen counter-claims that he demanded that Gallichan leave.

Dennis Nilsen was now living alone again and after several more failed relationships he was starting to realise that maybe he was “unfit to live with“.

From then on, most of his evenings would be spent alone at home with his dog “Bleep”, consuming alcohol and listening to classical music. Other nights he would visit gay pubs trying to pick up a date.

First Murder.

On December 30th, 1978 Nilsen observed a 14-year-old Irish boy trying to buy alcohol in the pub he was drinking in.  The boy was refused service.  Nilsen offered the boy back to Melrose Avenue for free drinks, he later claimed he assumed Stephen Holmes was about 17 years old.

They both got drunk and fell asleep. In the morning Nilsen woke first and found the boy laying on top of his bed still asleep, Nilsen later stated that he was “afraid to wake him in case he left me“.

Nilsen decided he couldn’t let Holmes leave, he needed him to stay over the new year holiday, whether the boy wanted to or not.

Before Holmes fully awoke, Nilsen strangled him with a necktie until he was fully unconscious.  He then drowned the boy in a bucket of water.

Nilsen admits that he washed the corpse and put it in his bed, he said later that he found the corpse “beautiful”

He then attempted to have sex with the body, unsuccessfully.  He twice masturbated over the corpse and then hid the body under the floorboards.

Nilsen left the body there for nearly 8 months until eventually burning the rotting remains on a bonfire in his back garden.

Victim escapes.

During  October 1979, Nilsen lured a student, Andrew Ho, to his flat where he tried to strangle him.  Ho fought Nilsen off, escaped, and went to the police.

Nilsen was questioned about the incident, but in the end, Ho decided not to press charges in what would have been a “his word against mine” type of case.

Second murder.

Two months later Dennis met a 23-year-old Canadian tourist, Kenneth Ockendon, at a pub in the west end.  When they went back to Nilsen’s flat, Dennis again became fearful of abandonment and so strangled Ockendon with a headphone cable that Ockendon was listening to music through.

He performed the same sexual acts with the corpse as he had done with Stephen Holmes, except this time he took photographs as well.

Nilsen, on occasion, would retrieve the corpse from the floorboards, wash and dress it, sleep with it and sometimes have sex with it. He would also have conversations with the corpse as if the person was still alive.

Third Victim.

It was about five months later that Nilsen found his third victim, a homeless 16-year-old boy, to whom Nilsen offered a place to sleep.  Martyn Duffey was strangled and drowned and after Nilsen’s usual sexual antics, he was stored in a cupboard until enough room was made for him under the floorboards, along with Ockenden’s corpse.

By 1981, Nilsen had murdered twelve men in a similar fashion and there was nowhere left to hide the bodies.  So he built a huge bonfire to dispose of them.  Of the twelve victims, only four were ever identified.

Cranley Gardens.

Later that year Nilsen’s landlord offered him £1000 to move out of the flat as he wanted to renovate and sell the property.  Nilsen eventually accepted the offer and moved to 23D Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, in north London.

The flat was the attic part of a shared house with five other tenants, there were no floorboards and there was no private garden.

Dennis allegedly hoped this would stop him from killing anyone else as it was obviously going to be impractical disposing of dead bodies in his new circumstances.

Nilsen says he desperately tried to quell his desire to kill to stop his friends and lovers leaving him.

Now a chronic alcoholic, he eventually gave in to his murderous urges, in a haze of drink and within the space of a year he had killed and stored three more victims in his new flat.

The victims were John Howlett, Archibald Allan and Steven Sinclair.  To dispose of the bodies  he used the knowledge he gained in the army where he was a chef and a trained butcher.

He boiled the heads, feet and hands to remove the flesh.  The small body parts and some flesh were flushed down his toilet.

The rest he cut up into the smallest pieces he could and put them in plastic bin bags which were then stored in cupboards and wardrobes around the flat.  He would then wait for the weekly rubbish collection to come around and put the bags out for collection that morning.

Arrested.

During February 1983, Dennis Nilsen’s neighbours noted a putrid smell coming from the drains on the property of number 23.  On inspection by a drainage specialist company, Dynarod, workers found what they thought might be human remains in the drains.

The workers informed the tenants, but as it was late in the evening they decided to investigate further the following morning.

Nilsen saw his chance, and late that night he attempted to remove the remains from the drain but he was spotted by a neighbour, who reported it to Police.

At work the following day, Nilsen joked with a workmate, that by tomorrow he would be either, ill, dead or in jail.

Meanwhile, at 23 Cranley Gardens, Police had discovered from Dynarod that the remains could be traced to the attic flat with some certainty.

Combined with what the neighbour saw the previous night, detectives decided to wait for Dennis to get home from work and question him.

When Dennis arrived, he let the Police into his flat and they immediately noted the foul stench of rotting flesh.

Dennis Nilsen decided not to play games, he knew he was caught and was happy to give himself up.  He later said it was a great relief to get it all off his chest.

Nilsen told Police where the bags of flesh and bones were and as he got into the police car he was asked how many people he had killed, he said, “maybe 15 or 16”.

During interviews, Nilsen said that he took no pleasure from inflicting pain on his victims and tried to kill them as quickly and painlessly as possible. This may be why Nilsen is sometimes known as “The Kindly Killer”.

 

Dennis Nilsen Sentenced.

On November 4th, 1983, a jury found Dennis Nilsen guilty on six counts of murder and attempted murder. The judge sentenced him to life in prison, without eligibility for parole for at least 25 years.

In December 1983, Nilsen was attacked by a fellow prisoner with a razor blade, slashing open his face and chest, which required 89 stitches.

In December 1994 Dennis Nilsen’s original sentence was replaced by a whole life tariff by the then Home Secretary Michael Howard . This ruling ensures Dennis Nilsen will never be released from prison.

Nilsen has repeatedly said that he fully accepts his punishment and has no desire to ever be released.

Nilsen’s Mother said in a documentary in 2015 that  “Dennis was two separate persons”

In another documentary Nilsen is quoted by detective Peter Jay as saying to him;

"You know, if you hadn't caught me when you did, it wouldn't of been 15, 
it would of been 150, because I couldn't have stopped myself."

Dennis Nilsen now spends his time reading, painting, composing music and writing letters from his cell in HMP Full Sutton.

Dennis Nilsen’s Mother passed away in 2009. He did not attend the funeral.

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A definitive book by Brian Masters, based on his interviews with Nilsen and Nilsen’s writings, called Killing For Company, is widely accepted as the best piece of work on the serial killer. It is available in many formats and prices on Amazon.

Other books of note on the subject are:

Dennis Nilsen – Conversations with Britain’s most evil serial killer by Russ Coffey.

Kindly Killer :The True Story of Dennis Nilsen by Carl Woodley

 

Authors note:

I have a personal interest in this story as I lived just about 500 yards from 23 Cranley Gardens at the time of the murders.  I was living in the Cranley Hotel on Muswell Hill Road (it’s gone now) with my girlfriend.

We used to walk in the same wood behind the hotel as Nilsen walked his dog and I’m sure he must have frequented the local pubs like we did.

I was 23 years old, unemployed and with no fixed address.  If my circumstances were that I was also alone and gay then who knows what may have happened?

I recall coming home late one night from a club and walking past number.23.  It had two Policemen standing on the door, a friend of mine asked the copper what was going on and he replied,

“You will read about in the morning!”

He was right, the next day Cranley Gardens was chock full of TV crews and reporters.

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