‘I was pen pals with Dennis Nilsen’
ANDREA KUBINOVA STRUCK UP A CONTROVERSIAL FRIENDSHIP WITH THE SERIAL KILLER. HERE IS HER STORY
One day in 2013, I was with a friend when she mentioned a book she’d just finished reading. She was fascinated with true crime, and this particular book was about serial killers. “Here you go, have a read,” she said, handing it over to me. I hadn’t given the subject much thought before, but as I read the book, I found it really interesting – and for some reason, I was most intrigued by Dennis Nilsen.
He was one of Britain’s worst serial killers, believed to have murdered at least 15 young men in London in the 1970s and ’80s, before he was jailed for life in 1983. I read how Nilsen would strangle and drown his victims, before performing sex acts on their bodies and hiding their remains under the floorboards. He even boiled some of them or flushed them down the toilet.
What Nilsen did was truly awful, and I wondered what had happened in his past for him to commit such horrific crimes. Reading more, I learned that Nilsen had experienced an isolated upbringing and his motivation for killing was driven by loneliness.
Despite the terrible things he’d done, I began to feel sympathy towards him, so a couple of months later, I wrote him a letter. I explained a bit about myself and, because I knew he shared my love of animals, I drew a sketch of his dog, Bleep. I never expected him to reply, but just three days later, I received a letter back. I couldn’t believe it. He thanked me for my letter and complimented me on my drawing. Then he told me about his life growing up, and how he was gay and an atheist. When I told my friends about the letters, they all thought I was joking.
One was so appalled, they never spoke to me again. But the others accepted it.
When I told my mum – who lives in my native country of the Czech Republic – she was horrified that
I’d got in touch with him, and she told me not to respond. But I thought it would be insensitive if I didn’t reply, so I immediately wrote back to “Des”, as he liked to be called. From then on, we became pen pals and wrote to each other every week. In his letters, Des told me all about his life before the murders, how he was in the army and worked in job welfare. I spoke about my job as a hotel housekeeping supervisor in London, my friends, and my dating life. It may sound strange, but I enjoyed opening up to him about my life. I began to see him as a parental figure and cherished the advice he’d give me.
In September 2014 – a year after we’d started writing to each other
– Des invited me to visit him. I was thrilled, but it was a very long process, and a police officer had to come and interview me before I was accepted on his visitors’ list. Three months later, I took a seven-hour coach trip to Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire. I was excited, but extremely nervous. Des and I were getting on so well in our letters, I was worried that we wouldn’t connect as much in real life. Entering the prison was a scary experience. After going through security and handing over my belongings, I went into the huge visitors’ hall, filled with guards and inmates.
Des didn’t scare me, but I was terrified of his fellow prisoners, because I had no idea why they were in there. When I spotted Des, he immediately stood up from his chair and scowled. “You’re late,” he said as we shook hands. I started apologising, but he shrugged it off. “Why don’t you get us both a coffee,” he said, and by the time I came back with our drinks, he was completely fine. He could tell I was nervous and he did everything he could to make me feel comfortable – joking around and laughing. We chatted for the next hour-and-a-half about animals, work and current events. He was just so friendly, it was easy to forget the crimes he had committed.
Des seemed to enjoy my visit, too, and over the next four years, we exchanged at least 300 letters. I never asked him about the murders and he didn’t talk about them. But he did say once that he didn’t deserve to be free, and expressed remorse about the pain he’d caused the victims’ families. Other than that, he never mentioned it, and that was fine with me. We tried to arrange for me to travel up again, but I was either too busy or didn’t have the money.
I met my boyfriend Johnathon at work in 2017, and he knew about my friendship with Des and completely supported it. My mum had also softened to the idea of me being pen pals with him. Then, in May 2018, I got a call from Des’ friend. He’d been pen pals with him for many years, too, and was also his next of kin. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he said. He told me Des, who was 72, had died of a pulmonary embolism following surgery. He wanted me to know before it was reported in the news. I was devastated and started to cry. To avoid any public outrage, no funeral was held for Des and he didn’t get a gravestone. But his friend sent me a pair of his reading glasses. “Des would have wanted you to have some of his ashes,” he said in a note. He gave them to me, and I keep them in a box on a shelf in my bedroom, next to the glasses. It took me a long time to get over Des’ death. He’d been my close friend for five years, and it was tough to think I’d never receive a letter from him ever again.
When I watched the ITV drama series about him, it was like seeing a ghost. David Tennant’s portrayal of Des was spot on, from his hand gestures to his facial expressions.
I also saw the ITV documentary The Real Des: The Dennis Nilsen Story, and it was difficult seeing victims’ families speaking about their loved ones. But that hasn’t changed how
I feel about Des. For the time I knew him, Des was a good man and a good friend to me, and I miss him a lot. ◼
‘ONE FRIEND WAS SO APPALLED, WE NEVER SPOKE AGAIN’