Dennis Nilsen: The British Jeffrey Dahmer

On a frigid winter day in London, a group of tenants complained of drainage problems in their apartments. Five days later, a plumber arrived to inspect the pipes and made a grisly discovery ... the drains were being blocked by a mass of rotting flesh. The plumber contacted the police. The remains were examined and found to be of human origin. This may sound like an excerpt from a horror movie, but these events did actually occur. Dennis Nilsen was a serial killer who resided in a London flat and killed no less than fifteen people during a five-year murder spree. He cremated the remains of his victims in his backyard. This method of disposal was no longer possible when he relocated to an apartment without a yard, and so he began dissecting his victims and flushing their remains down the toilet.

Dennis Nilsen was born in Scotland on November 23, 1945. His parents divorced when he was four years old. His father was an alcoholic who had nothing to do with him. His mother remarried and sent him to live with his grandparents. At the age of seven, his grandfather passed away and he was forced to view the corpse. Many experts feel that this incident was the start of Nilsen's infatuation with death. At the age of eight, Nilsen was rescued from drowning by an older boy who later sexually violated him. In 1961, he joined the British Army and served as a cook for eleven years. He briefly worked as a police officer after his discharge in 1972, but soon realized that police work was not for him. He became a civil servant and worked for the Manpower Commission Services.

In 1977, his two-year long cohabitation with a male partner came to an end. Nilsen was devastated by his roommate's departure and became terribly lonely. His solitary existence troubled him greatly and his feelings of isolation culminated on December 30, 1978. It was on that day that he took the life of his first victim. He picked up a young Irishman in a local pub. The young man was subsequently identified as 14-year-old Stephen Dean Holmes. Nilsen brought Holmes back to his home. The next morning, Nilsen awoke to find Holmes next to him. He was unable to handle the idea of spending New Year's Eve alone and became miserable at the thought of Holmes leaving. On impulse, he grabbed a nearby necktie and strangled the boy. He then held his head in a bucket of water until he was sure that Holmes was dead. After a cup of coffee and a cigarette, Nilsen carried the body into the bathroom where he bathed the corpse of the young boy. Holmes was then laid out on the bed and dressed. He kept the corpse around the house over the next few days, before burying it under the floorboards. Nilsen periodically dug up the corpse to bathe it and have necrophilic relations with it. In August 1979, he burned the corpse in his backyard.

Nilsen attempted to strangle a young man named Andrew Ho in November 1979, but Ho escaped. Ho refused to prosecute, so the police accepted Nilsen's fabricated account of events and no charges were ever filed.

The second murder occurred on December 3, 1979. Nilsen picked up 19-year-old Kenneth Ockendon and brought him back to his home for dinner and cocktails. Later that night, Nilsen strangled the young man with an electric cord from a pair of headphones. He bathed the body and slept with it beside him that night. The following day, Nilsen stashed the body in a cupboard. He subsequently dug up the corpse several times and sat it up next to him as he watched television. He had sex with it several times before finally burying it under the floorboards.

In May 13, 1980, the third murder took place. Nilsen picked up a 16-year-old homeless boy named Martyn Duffey and took him back to his home. After a couple of drinks, Nilsen strangled Duffey and submerged his head in a sink full of water. He brought him into the bathroom and got in the bathtub with him. Like with his other victims, Nilsen spoke to him as if he were still alive and listening. He then brought the corpse to the bed where he had sexual relations with it. He stored the body in a cupboard for two weeks before burying it under the floorboards.

That summer, Nilsen claimed his fourth victim. Billy Sutherland was a 27-year-old male prostitute who followed Nilsen home one night after the two went barhopping together. Nilsen killed him using the same MO that he used in his other murders.

On November 10, 1980, a 26-year-old man named Douglas Stewart had a close encounter with death. He met Nilsen at a local pub and agreed to go back to his house. After arriving at Nilsen's flat, he soon fell asleep. When he awoke, he was bound to a chair by his ankles and Nilsen was on top of him, trying to strangle him with a necktie. Stewart managed to escape and he contacted the police. The police came to the conclusion that the incident was nothing more than a domestic dispute and no legal action was taken.

Due to the fact that a majority of Nilsen's victims were drifters, the identities of many of them remain unknown. Nilsen did not even know the names of many of them and was only able to give vague descriptions based on race or physical features. The next five victims remain unidentified to this day.

On September 17, 1981, the next murder took place. Malcolm Barlow was a 24-year-old mentally disturbed orphan. Nilsen found the half-conscious Malcolm sitting on his stoop and called an ambulance. Upon his release from the hospital, Malcolm returned to Nilsen's flat and awaited his return from work. Nilsen invited him in for drinks. Soon after, Barlow fell asleep. Nilsen found the young man's presence to be irritating and he strangled him and stuffed his body in a cabinet in the kitchen.

The following month, Nilsen was asked to relocate to an apartment in Cranley Gardens. On November 25, 1981, approximately one month after settling at his new residence, Nilsen tried to strangle a young man named Paul Nobbs. Soon after he tried to strangle another young man. Neither of the two bothered to contact the police until after they received news of Nilsen's arrest.

The next victim was John Howlett. Nilsen met Howlett in a bar and invited him back to his flat. Nilsen tried to strangle Howlett with a loose upholstery strap from an armchair. Howlett fought back ferociously. It was not until Nilsen held his head under water that he was overcome. In his new flat, Nilsen no longer had the convenience of a garden or floorboards. He was forced to devise a new way to dispose of his victims. He dissected Howlett in his bathtub, boiled the remains and then flushed them down the toilet. The bones and some of the remains were packaged and discarded in nearby yards. This method of disposal was repeated with the rest of his victims.

Archibald Graham Allen became Nilsen's next victim. The exact details of the murder remain unclear, but Nilsen vividly recalls bathing the corpse, dissecting it and flushing it down the toilet.

On January 23, 1983, the final murder took place. Nilsen brought Stephen Sinclair, 20, back to his home and strangled him in his sleep. Sinclair was a troubled young man and Nilsen felt that by killing him, he was relieving him of his pain and problems. After killing him, Nilsen whispered, "Nothing can hurt you now." He bathed the corpse and laid in bed with it, caressing it periodically. Little did he know that the corpse before him would be the cause of his undoing.

Sinclair's remains were flushed down the toilet approximately one week later. Nilsen's activities were too much for the plumbing to handle and that is when complaints came pouring in from the other tenants in the building. The police were summoned by the plumber and the tenants were questioned. One reported the suspicious behavior of her upstairs neighbor, Dennis Nilsen, and police apprehended him the next day.

Nilsen confessed immediately and gave the police whatever information he was able to recall about the victims and their remains. On October 24, 1983, Dennis Nilsen was charged with six counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. After giving a detailed confession, Nilsen pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him. He was found guilty on all counts on November 4, 1983 and sentenced to life imprisonment. On November 4, 2006, he sent a letter to the editor of The Evening Standard, in which he recounts the details of his murders. The letter was posted on the Internet. At the time of this writing, Nilsen is 62 years old and remains in Full Sutton Prison.