Denis Nilsen was a serial killer and necrophile who was born in Fraserburgh, Scotland. Nilsen had recognized he had homosexual desires and was not comfortable with them and began acting them out by murder and dismemberment. He went on to kill 12 young men and dissect their bodies.
Dennis Nilsen was born on November 23, 1945. His parents’ marriage wasn’t necessarily the best, and due to that, Nilsen, his mom, and his siblings went to live with his maternal grandfather, whom Nilsen loved. Nilsen claimed that his grandfather’s death, which happened when he was six years old, and the traumatizing view of the corpse at the funeral, led to his behavioral psychopathology. His mom went on to remarry and have 4 kids, leaving Nilson to be lonely. Once he was aware of his homosexual attractions, he claimed that he didn’t have any sexual encounters as a teenager. At the age of 16, he enlisted in the army, and became a cook, serving as a butcher, learning skills that would soon be very helpful during his 5-year killing spree. After he left the army in 1972, he became a police officer, where he discovered his fascination with morgue visits and autopsied bodies. He later resigned and went on to become a recruitment interviewer. In 1975, he took up cohabitation with David Gallichan in a garden apartment, where Gallichan denied that they had a homosexual relationship. This lasted about 2 years, and when Gallichan left him, Nilsen’s life fell into alcohol and loneliness, which got to a really bad point which led to his first murder 18 months later.
Nilsen is known to have killed 12 young men and boys between the years 1978 and 1983, but it’s suspected that the real number of victims could possibly be 15. At least 9 victims were killed at 195 Melrose Avenue, and his other three were killed at 23 Cranley Gardens. Out of the eight identified victims, only three were able to be identified since they had a permanent address at the time of their murder. Those three were Stephen Holmes, Kenneth Ockenden, and Graham Allen. The rest of the victims largely consisted of runaways, vagrants, and male prostitutes.
On December 29, 1978, he met his first victim in a pub where he then invited him home. The next morning he woke up with a desire to keep the man from leaving in which he strangled him with a tie before drowning him in a bucket of water. Then he took the corpse to the bathroom to wash it, and then placed it back on his bed. He later remarked that he found the corpse beautiful. He attempted to have sex, which was unsuccessful, and then he spent the night sleeping next to the dead man. He hid the corpse under the floorboards for seven months, before removing it and burning the decaying remains in the back garden. Nilsen did this to his 11 other victims. Nilsen stated that on seven occasions he was able to snap out of it and actually free the men instead of continuing the act. He had to spray his room twice a day to get rid of the flies that hatched from the decomposing bodies. Many neighbors were complaining about the smell, but he convinced them that it had something to do with the building. He got rid of the bodies by dismembering them on the stone kitchen floor with a large kitchen knife, occasionally boiling the skulls to get rid of the flesh, and placing organs and viscera in plastic bags for disposal. He buried limbs in the garden and in the shed and placed the torsos into suitcases until he could burn them in a bonfire at the end of the garden. Once the fire had consumed the flesh, he would crush the bones.
In 1982, Nilsen moved to a top-floor apartment to try and control his tendencies. This move didn’t help since he went on to kill John Howlett, Archibald Graham Allan, and Steven Sinclair. Since he didn’t have much space to dispose of the bodies he would boil the heads, hands, and feet, and dissect the bodies into small pieces which would later be flushed down the toilet or put into small plastic bags. One of his neighbors called a drain specialist to investigate a drain blockage where he then found rotting human remains in the outdoor manhole. Nilsen tried to cover his tracks but got caught by a tenant who grew suspicious of him. On February 9, Nilsen was met by a detective to whom he confessed that what they were looking for was in plastic bags that were placed around the house.
Nilsen was later arrested after confessing to his crimes and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 25 years. He was convicted of six counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. In May 2018, Nilsen was taken to York Hospital after he had been complaining of severe stomach pain. They found that he had a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, which was repaired, but a blood clot formed due to some complications.
Dennis Nilsen died on May 12, 2018. His body was cremated with only 5 mourners present at the service. No family members were present at the service.
