|
Kill Total: |
15+ |
Kill place: |
London |
|
Kill date: |
December 1978 -
January 1983
|
Victim(s): |
|
|
Date of Birth: |
23 November 1945 |
Marital Status: |
Single |
|
AKA: |
Kindly Killer |
Occupation: |
Civil servant |
So much has been said and written about
this most gruesome of killers, that l keep this
description to a minimum.
This alcoholic homosexual civil servant
could not come to grips with life in the closet and
resorted to murder and necrophilia. He would lure young
homeless men to his apartment, render them unconscious
with alcohol and strangle them to death He would stash
their bodies under the floor boards and in cupboards.
Occasionally he would take one out, wash and dress it, and
pretend to have a date. He would lay the corpse next to
him in bed and masturbate. Then, return it to the floor
boards. Like Jeferry Dahmer his American counterpart, he
killed out of loneliness.. He kept an assortment of body
parts around the house as company and sometimes even left
them in plain view when he went out to work. Nilsen killed
12 or 13 men over 4 years, and destroyed their bodies in a
series of large bonfires in his garden. However, when he
was forced to move to a new apartment with no garden he
had to improvise new ways to dispose of "his friends." In
1983 he was discovered when he tried to flush human
remains down the toilet, and clogged the plumbing. The
neighbours complained about the blocked drains, and caught
him trying to clear them at midnight. After a plumber had
been called, and discovered what he believed to be pieces
of chicken in the drains, the police were called. When the
Police searched his top floor apartment, they discovered
body parts of 3 men, who Nilsen had dismembered using his
army butchery skills.
The trial started on 24th October 1983.
Nilsen was charged with six counts of murder and two
charges of attempted murder. Nilsen pleaded “Not Guilty”
to each one.
Alan Green was the prosecutor. He claimed
that Nilsen had killed in full awareness of what he was
doing and should be found guilty of murder. His principal
evidence was from Nilsen’s own lengthy statement to the
police, while the defence relied on psychiatric analysis.
During the summing up, the judge instructed
the jury that a mind can be evil without being abnormal,
thereby dispensing with all of the psychiatric jargon. The
jury retired on Thursday, November 3rd. The following day,
4th November 1883, At 4:25pm they delivered a verdict,
Guilty on all counts.
4th November 1983 The judge
sentenced Dennis Andrew Nilsen to life in prison, and
specified that he should not be eligible for parole for 25
years, he was aged 37.
Thursday 25 October, 2001
Dennis Nilsen has, while in Whitemoor top
security prison, written his life story. Titled "The
Drowning Man", he had sent it to a book publisher. The
prison authority have since seized the manuscript and are
refusing to return it to him.
Nilsen took his fight to be allowed the
right to publish to the high court in London, he won the
case. Mr Justice Elias said Nilsen, could seek a judicial
review to challenge the decision not to return the
manuscript to him so he could edit it. Nilsen has stated
that all proceeds of the book will go to charity.
19 March, 2002 Dennis Nilsen lost
the legal battle over his planned autobiography. The High
Court said the Prison Service has the right to read - and
possibly censor - the manuscript before his solicitors are
allowed to return it to him so he can continue working on
it. His barrister Flo Krause argued the home secretary and
prison authorities had no powers to vet the manuscript,
currently held by his solicitors, before it was handed to
him. Ms Krause said the authorities would be breaching
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. She
argued it would be irrational and a "disproportionate"
action breaching his right to respect for family life,
home and correspondence. It would also breach Article 10,
protecting freedom of expression, argued Ms Krause.
Rejecting the challenge, Mr Justice Crane ruled that the
home secretary was "fully entitled to require that the
manuscript be stopped and read". Ms Krause said Nilsen,
56, now held at Full Sutton prison, near York, could have
had the book published before now, but wanted to do
further work on it. She insisted he was not being
underhand in any way. Nilsen says the book, called
"Nilsen: History of a Drowning Man", is a serious work
about his life and imprisonment. The manuscript, which he
started working on in the early 1990s, was taken out by
Nilsen's then solicitor in 1996 whilst he was being held
at Whitemoor prison. The prison authorities said it was
taken without their knowledge and authority.
Nilsen, who was given legal aid, was
refused permission to appeal. An anthology of poems and
tapes of music he recorded in prison were also blocked.
During the judicial review Nilsen was held
at Whitmore prison, he is currently held at HMP Full
Sutton maximum security prison in Yorkshire.
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