The Scots sadist
Born in Fraserburgh in 1945, Dennis Nilsen recognised that he had homosexual desires from a young age.
However, he was never comfortable with his sexuality.
Instead, he began to act on his desire through murder and dismemberment.
Nilsen met his first victim, 14-year-old Stephen Holmes, on 30 December 1978 in a London pub.
After inviting him home, he strangled the boy with a tie before drowning him in a bucket of water.
Nilsen then washed Holmes’ corpse and attempted to have sex with it, before hiding it under the floor of his north London home.
He eventually burned and buried the remains in his back garden.
Over the next five years, Nilsen went on to murder at least 11 more men and boys.
Nilsen would keep corpses hidden in his home for months before dismembering, burning or flushing body parts down the toilet.
In 1983, a plumber responded to complaints made
by other tenants in Nilsen’s block of flats.
Opening a drain cover, the plumber noticed fleshlike substances and multiple small bones.
Police entered Nilsen’s flat and noticed a foul smell.
The killer confessed there were two dismembered bodies stored in bags around the apartment.
Nilsen was arrested and admitted to killing 15 young men and attempting to kill a further seven.
In November 1983, he was found guilty of six counts of murder and was sentenced to life in prison to serve at least 25 years, later upgraded to a whole-life tariff.
He died in prison in 2018, aged 72.