British serial killer dennis nilsen

That much is an easy enough cut as it threatened to humanize Nilsen in Des - far more important were the real and very disturbing quotes that came out of the interview. Despite confessing, Nilsen complicated the run-up to his trial by firing his initial legal aid, Ronald Moss, before reinstating him, then firing him again and hiring Ralph Haeems, who he was introduced to thanks to a fellow prisoner with whom he fell in love.

That much was left out of Des. It was Haeems who decided to go for a "diminished responsibility" defense, based on a mental abnormality in his client. The show's depiction of Nilsen's books of "Sad Sketches" and diary notes, upon which "Killing For Company" was true to real-life too. The scrawled books showed in grim detail what he had done to some of his victims, though Nilsen seemed to express some regret, becoming ill when confronted with the crime scene photos and, as Des shows, saying on the eve of his trial that " I have judged myself more harshly than any court ever could.

The trial began on October 24, with Nilsen attempting to undermine the credibility of his surviving victims called as witnesses, as is shown in Des, in the face of weighty evidence, including Martyn Duffey's knives, which also come up in the show. During the trial and the interviews with Nilsen, his past and the traumatic impact of his grandfather's death came up and one defense psychiatrist suggested the killer had a "Borderline False Self As If Pseudo-Normal Narcissistic Personality Disorder" that made him unable to commit malicious pre-meditative acts.

A prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Bowden, who had spent more time with Nilsen suggested he was manipulative but without a mental disorder. The judge simplified that in the summing up by telling the jury that a mind could be evil without being abnormal. The jury retired on Thursday, November 3rd.

Two dissenters split the verdict, but the judge ruled that he would accept a majority. At pm that day, the jury returned the verdict that nilsen was guilty on all counts, and Nilsen was sentenced to life in prison, without eligibility for parole for 25 years. Each of the named victims in Des are Nilsen's real victims, though some of the details were truncated to fit the show's format. Eventually, he was buried under the floor boards. Appleyard But no link to Dennis could be established.

Although many of those who visited the flat in Melrose Avenue emerged unscathed, Dennis now began to deliberately target victims. He cruised the gay bars seeking out lonely, young homosexuals. He would chat them up, buy them drinks and invite them home for something to eat.

Martyn Duffey was one the many who accepted that invitation, except that this was one invitation that would prove fatal. Kray Martyn was just sixteen and when he left his home in Birkenhead, Merseyside to seek work in London.

On the 13th May, they spent the evening drinking and Martyn told him he was homeless. Dennis invited him home. They had some more drinks and went to bed. Whilst he slept Dennis climbed on top of him trapping his arms. Then he strangled him until he was unconscious. He went limp but he was still alive. He stripped him and put him in the bath and got in beside him.

There he washed the corpse and took it to his bed where he talked to it, kissing it all over and cuddling it before sitting on its stomach and masturbating on it.

Dennis put the body into a cupboard, but after two days, finding it had become bloated, he immediately put it under the floorboards.

Masters Although Dennis targeted many victims, some like twenty seven year old Billy Sutherland just fell into his lap. Billy was a male prostitute and a father to one child.

He had come from Edinburgh to London to work as a rent boy. Dennis met him while out on a pub crawl. They had an argument. Dennis was very drunk.

Billy followed him home on the underground. His body went under the floorboards to join the others. He went out to celebrate. Paul was a nineteen year old gay student. Paul went back home with him and they sat drinking together.

Then they went to bed and Paul woke up at in the morning with a terrible headache and a sore throat. He woke again at six and went into the kitchen. He looked in the mirror.

He had a deep red mark across his throat. The white of his eyes were bloodshot and his face looked bruised. Dennis told him he looked awful and advised him to see a doctor.

He did. That day, Paul went to the university infirmary. After examination they told him that the bruises on his throat were consistent with an attempted strangulation. Malcolm Barlow was a twenty four year old orphan with mental problems.

He was also a pathological liar. One night Dennis found him loitering outside his flat. He was complaining of weakness from epilepsy. Dennis took him home and called an ambulance. They took him to hospital for treatment. Dennis invited him in and they drank together before Malcolm fell into a deep sleep. The next day, he stuffed his body in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. He sat in the flat with a half dozen other bodies awaiting disposal. Dennis had kept some of these bodies in bed with him for sexual purposes for as long as a week.

He achieved a tremendous thrill by the control he exercised over these dead men. It both fascinated and thrilled him. He believed that he appreciated them more deeply than they had ever been appreciated before. But the bodies were beginning to be a problem. Dennis had to spray his flat twice a day to be rid of flies that were hatched.

The tenants were complaining about the awful smell. He told them it was from the dampness in the walls. Once he thought about ending it all and committing suicide, but Bleep came in, wagging her tail, and he decided against it.

Instead, he spat on his image in the mirror. But he desperately needed to get rid of the bodies. There was now the added problem that the landlord wanted vacant possession to renovate the house. He decided on a plan of action. He would lock Bleep and the cat out in the garden; strip down to his underwear, and cut the bodies up on the stone kitchen floor with a kitchen knife. There was no other alternative. Sometimes he would boil flesh off the head in the pot he had bought for the first victim.

He knew how to butcher. He had learned this in the army. He placed the organs in a plastic bag. Then he would replace the whole package under the floor until the next step. At one stage, there were two entire bodies beneath the boards and one dismembered one. He also put pieces into the garden shed.

Some he placed down a hole near a bush outside. He hid internal organs in a gap between the double fencing in his yard. He had to stuff a few severed torsos into his suitcases.

When the opportunity afforded itself, he dragged the bags and suitcases out to the yard and burned the bodies a few feet from the garden fence. It always amazed him that no one tried to stop him or even questioned him about what he was doing. On one occasion, vandals broke into his flat and he was obliged to call the police.

Detectives came, asked him a few questions, looked around and left. He felt a peculiar feeling as they stood there talking to him while all the time dead bodies lay inches away from them underneath the floorboards. He made a bonfire to burn the bodies. Children from the neighbour came to watch. During the bonfire he saw a human skull in the centre of the fire but he crushed it into ash before anyone noticed.

Then he raked the remains into the earth. All in all, he had three bonfires. Eventually, the landlord offered him money to vacate so he agreed to move flat. Just before he left he checked around the flat and almost forgot that he had placed the hands and arms of Malcolm Barlow near a bush.

He took care of that final detail. As he drove away from the flat he hoped that he had, at last, put this part of his life behind him.

He was moving to Muswell Hill — a new life and a new beginning. Dennis took a lease of the attic flat at 23 Cranley Gardens. Brian Masters in his book Killing for Company describes the flat as follows:. A tiny hall, immediately before you as you opened the door, served as a kitchen, with a gas stove on the left against the wall, and next to it a sink.

The stove was thick with grease and fat left by a succession of tenants, which Nilsen had not bothered to clean. He never used the grimy oven, but confined his cooking to the rings on the top. Immediately opposite was the door to his bathroom, the bathtub on the right beneath a sloping ceiling, in which was a large square window, kept wide open.

Nilsen lived in the bedroom which contained a double bed, a large television set, stereo equipment, some posters on the wall, pot plants and a thick tall candle with months of molten wax cascading down the sides. The room at the front had two plain wardrobes, a tea-chest in the corner, and two armchairs either side of the window. Little else. The carpets were not fitted, but lay squarely on the floor, dull, brown, patterned, not alluring.

This room appeared never to have been used, but was distinguished by one feature, clearly visible from the street and often commented upon, the front windows were always flung wide open.

What you could not see from the street was the occasional joss-sticks in the room which struggled to disperse an indeterminate, unpleasant smell. His real name was John Howlett. He was from High Wycombe. He worked on the travelling fairs. He did so because he was on the run from the police. They had met once in a pub and had engaged in a long conversation.

One day Dennis was drinking on his own when John bumped into him. They chatted and had a few drinks. Afterwards, they decided to go to Cranley Gardens. Here they drank for a while before John got into bed with Dennis. Denis looked around his flat and saw a length of loose upholstery strap on an armchair.

He used it to strangle his guest. In the ensuing struggle he thought that John might overpower him so he tightened his grip as John fought for control. Then he struck his head and soon went limp. Dennis kept the strap on him until he was sure he was dead.

He then staggered into the other room, but he heard movement. John was still alive. He went back, lopped the strap around his neck again and held it for two or three minutes. So he decided to drag him into the bathroom and drown him. When he was finished he was exhausted so he just left him there the rest of the night.

Later he put the body in a closet as he contemplated how to get rid of it. His plan was to dissect it into small pieces and flush it down a toilet. It was imperative that this was done as quickly as possible as he had invited guests over.

Unfortunately for Dennis, he never stopped to think that he was now on the top floor of a house rather than on the ground floor and therefore further away from the main drains. When the flushing process took longer than expected, he boiled some of the flesh including the head, hands, and feet on the kitchen rings. He then separated the bones and put them into the trash. He threw some of the larger bones over the back garden fence into a waste area. He still had some bones left over so he put those in a bag, sprinkled them with salt and stored them in a tea chest, which he draped with a red curtain.

He was now ready to receive guests. Carl Stottor was a twenty one year old drag artist who had fled his home in Blackpool after being assaulted by his ex-boyfriend. His plan was to start a new life in London and he had been there just two weeks when in May Dennis approached him in the Black Cap Pub in Camden a haunt for gay men. After a few drinks and a chat he agreed to go back to Cranley Gardens for some fun.

They started by drinking large glasses of rum and coke and listening to music. Afterwards they retired to bed. Killer loses in manuscript battle. Image source, PA. Dennis Nilsen was jailed for life in for the murder of six men.

Nilsen, far right, was arrested after a plumber checking the drains at his flat found human remains. Published 13 May He was found guilty of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, and was sentenced to life in prison in November The memoir was banned from release in , and was only published this May.

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