Disturbing and Creepy Facts About Dennis Nilsen

Serial killer Dennis Nilsen is one of the most notorious British serial killers to have ever lived. Between1978 and 1983, this North London resident killed between 12 and 15 young men. He strangled some, drowned others, dismembered their bodies (but not before performing sexual acts on some of them,) and then disposed of their remains in various ways. Nilsen, as with most serial killers, has a number of nicknames. He is also known as the Kindly Killer and the Muswell Hill Murderer, based on the ways in which he picked up his victims and the place where he lived when he killed them. Some also call him the British Jeffrey Dahmer. 

The gruesome details of Dennis Nilsen's crimes are horrifying and have captured the fascination of people worldwide. This necrophiliac killer was demented and twisted in more ways that one. 

Nilsen realized at a young age he was gay. Rather than pursue a regular relationship, he instead suppressed his natural urges and that, combined with a disturbing upbringing and some homicidal tendencies, turned him into a serial killer. He not only murdered the young men he lured into his house, dismembering their bodies and stashing them in various places, but he also performed sexual acts with at six of their dead bodies. He stated on the stand that before he even began killing, he fantasized about having sex with passive, unconscious, and even dead bodies. 

Graham Allen was Nilsen's second last victim. He met Allen while hailing a cab, and lured him to his home with the promise of a good meal and some company. Instead, Nilsen cooked Allen an omelet and then strangled him with a ligature while he was eating. Allen's body then sat in Nilsen's bathtub for several days before dissecting him on the kitchen floor and sending his remains down the drain. After Nilsen's arrest, when the authorities tested the odd flesh and bone fragments that plugged up the drains, they found DNA evidence that matched Allen. 

Stephen Sinclair was Nilsen's last victim. He was killed on January 26, 1983. Sinclair came home with Nilsen, and together they listened to The Who's Tommy. Sinclair fell asleep, and Nilsen strangled him with a necktie before bathing his body and applying talcum powder. He then laid Sinclair out on his bed, arranged three mirrors around the space, and then fell asleep next to his dead body. 

Later, after his arrest, Nilsen said he was in love with Sinclair and could feel him with him in his cell. 

Kenneth Ockenden was Nilsen's second victim. The two met at a bar in December 1979. Ockenden went home with Nilsen, and the two listened to music through a pair of headphones. Nilsen strangled the man with those same headphones later on that evening, only to sit down afterwards - while Ockenden's dead body lay on the floor - and continue listening to music through them as if nothing had happened. 

Malcolm Barlow was a 23-year-old man killed by Nilsen on September 18, 1981. Nilsen ran into Barlow the previous day in an alley. In a twisted act of kindness, Nilsen helped Barlow get to the hospital, who was having a reaction to his medication. Once Barlow left the hospital, he went straight to Nilsen's house in order to thank him. Instead, Nilsen fed him dinner and then strangled him to death. Since Nilsen had no more room under the floorboards for another body, he instead stashed Barlow's remains under his kitchen sink. 

Nilsen's final body count stands between 12 and 15. He was unable to name all of his victims, and it is possible that he made up some of them. In some cases, he stated he awakened in the morning only to find a dead body on his floor. Either he truly did not remember killing them, or he was trying to prove that he was insane, and therefore nor fully liable for the murders attributed to him. Some speculate he could even have killed more people than he claimed. 

Nilsen began his murderous spree in 1978. At the time, he lived in a house at 195 Melrose Avenue in North London. While there, he killed at least 12 men, depositing their remains in various places around the structure. He removed their organs and threw them over the back fence, burned some body parts in a bonfire, and most horrifically, stashed bits of his victims underneath the floorboards of his bedroom. Before he moved out of the house, he removed the remaining body parts and burned them in the backyard, masking the smell by burning an old tire along with them. 

John Howlett was Nilsen's first victim at his new apartment, located at 23 Cranley Gardens. Nilsen first attempted to strangle him, then held his head into a bucket. Once Howlett was dead, Nilsen then had to find a way to dispose of his body. He couldn't just stuff Howlett under the floorboards like he did at his previous home. So, he dismembered the man on his kitchen floor and flushed what bits of flesh and organs he could down the toilet. 

Stephen Dean Holmes was Nilsen's first victim. He died on December 30, 1978, after a rock concert. Nilsen invited Holmes back to his place where he strangled him with a necktie before drowning him in a bucket of water. Holmes's body then spent the next seven months under the floorboards of Nilsen's bedroom, before it was dissected and burned in a bonfire in the backyard. 

The day after he killed Sinclair, Nilsen wrote a letter to his landlord complaining about the drains. He stated they were blocked and that this was "intolerable" for himself and his fellow tenants. On February 8, 1983, Michael Cattran was sent out to clear the drains. He found off bits of bone and flesh that made him instantly suspicious. He called his supervisor who helped him remove them and take the bits to a mortuary for inspection. The police were called. During their questioning of the tenants, they ended up in Nilsen's apartment where they recognized the smell of decaying human flesh. He was promptly arrested.