Nilsen dismembered the corpse, flushed flesh down the toilet…and left the big bones for the binmen
AS DAVID TENNANT PLAYS NOTORIOUS SERIAL KILLER IN NEW ITV
GUILTY: Nilsen on his way to prison after he was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years
FOR five years London’s gay community lived in fear of a serial killer in their midst.
But only after 14 murders did the beast make a mistake – leading police straight to the door of Dennis Nilsen.
The former soldier and cook had used his skills to dismember his victims’ bodies, helping him evade capture.
When his luck ran out the 37- year- old confessed his crimes, only apologising to cops for forgetting some of the details.
The grisly story will be re- told in a forthcoming ITV drama with former Doctor Who actor David Tennant in the lead role – looking eerily like Nilsen.
But we can tell the whole shocking tale right here…
To all who knew him Dennis Nilsen was a respectable civil servant. He was diligent, some would say a workaholic, and he was a committed trade unionist.
Most of all the Scot was normal, likable even.
Hobby
But away from the office he had a secret hobby… killing, and he was responsible for the deaths of at least 15 men.
His first kill was a young, unidentified Irishman in December 1978.
The pair had met in the Cricklewood Arms in north London. As they drank together Nilsen convinced the man to come back to his house on nearby Melrose Avenue, where the pair drank more before falling asleep.
In the night Nilsen awoke with the desire to take his first life.
He took a cord from the end of the bed, wrapped it around the young man’s neck and pulled.
There was a brief struggle but soon the man was still.
What followed next set a pattern for most of the murders that followed.
He bathed the dead man’s still warm body, shaving it of all its body hair before drying it and putting it to bed. The next day the body was placed under floorboards.
It lay hidden for eight months until Nilsen burnt it on a bonfire in his garden and buried the remains.
It took Nilsen nearly 12 months to kill again.
His second victim was 19- year- old Canadian Kenneth Ockendon, who he’d met in the Princess Louise pub in Holborn on December 3, 1979.
When the pub closed
Kenneth accepted an invitation to go back to Melrose Avenue.
As he sipped whisky, listening to music on a pair of headphones, Nilsen wrapped the stereo cord around the young man’s neck.
Again he was bathed and taken to bed, before being hidden under floorboards.
Kenneth was later taken out from the hiding place to watch television with Nilsen.
Victim number three was Martyn Duffy, a 16- year- old rent boy Nilsen picked up in London’s West End.
Nilsen would later go on to describe Martyn’s death in grim detail, saying: “I strangled him with great force in almost pitch darkness. As I sat on him, I could feel his urine come through the bedding. I pulled him over my shoulder. He was unconscious but still alive. I put him down, filled the kitchen sink up with water and held his head under it.
“I carried him to the bathroom. I got in the bath myself this time and he lay on top of me. Then I sat him on the kitchen chair and dried us both. He was still warm and I spoke to him.
“I kissed him all over and held him close to me. I sat on his stomach and masturbated.
“I kept him temporarily in the cupboard. Two days later I found him bloated. He went straight under the floorboards.”
The fourth victim was Billy Sutherland, 27, from Edinburgh, a male prostitute. He was strangled with Nilsen’s bare hands.
Drinking
At this point Nilsen’s drinking was out of control and he had trouble remembering the details of his targets as he cruised the gay bars.
Yet his confessions are the only means police have of establishing the truth about his crimes and they struggle to fill in the gaps in Nilsen’s memory.
All he could recall of his fifth victim was that he was an Asian sex worker, the sixth was an Irish labourer, and the seventh a “hippy type”.
Victim eight was only remembered by what happened to his corpse – cut into three pieces and shoved under floorboards.
Nine and 10 were young Scots picked up in Soho’s gay Dean Street area.
Nilsen did manage to remember more about his 11th kill, a skinhead picked up in Piccadilly Circus.
Around his neck was the tattoo, “cut here”.
Victim 12 ironically had his life saved by Nilsen.
Malcolm Barlow had collapsed outside a pub in Dean Street. Nilsen found him and called for an ambulance.
After release from hospital on September 18, 1981, Malcolm paid a visit to Nilsen to thank him for saving his life.
He was invited inside, plied with drink and then throttled.
He was Nilsen’s last victim at Melrose Avenue.