In an interview conducted on 10 February, Nilsen confessed there were further human remains stowed in a tea chest in his living room, with other remains inside an upturned drawer in his bathroom. "[9], By 1951, Nilsen's grandfather's health was in decline, but he continued to work. The first witness to testify for the prosecution was Douglas Stewart, who testified that in November 1980, he had fallen asleep in a chair in Nilsen's flat only to wake to find his ankles bound to a chair and Nilsen strangling him with a tie as he pressed his knee to his (Stewart's) chest. Allen accepted Nilsen's offer to accompany him to Cranley Gardens for a meal. [120] The same day, Nilsen accompanied police to Melrose Avenue, where he indicated the three locations in the rear garden where he had burned the remains of his victims. Nilsen formed brief relationships with several other young men over the following eighteen months; none of these relationships lasted more than a few weeks, and none of the men expressed any intention of living with him on a permanent basis. When Nilsen returned home, DCI Jay introduced himself and his colleagues, explaining they had come to enquire about the blockage in the drains from his flat. The bodies of the victims killed at his previous address were kept for as long as decomposition would allow: upon noting any major signs of decomposition in a body, Nilsen stowed it beneath his floorboards. [177] These exhibits include the stove upon which Nilsen had boiled the heads of his final three victims; the knives he had used to dissect several of his victims' bodies; the headphones Nilsen had used to strangle Ockenden; the ligature he had fashioned to strangle his last victim; and the bath from his Cranley Gardens address in which he had drowned Howlett and retained the body of Allen prior to dissection. Make-up was again applied to "enhance its appearance" and to obscure blemishes. At Nilsen's flat, Sinclair fell asleep in a drug- and alcohol-induced stupor in an armchair as Nilsen sat listening to the rock opera Tommy. [112] Opening a drain cover at the side of the house, Cattran discovered the drain was packed with a flesh-like substance and numerous small bones of unknown origin. In December, Nilsen resigned from the police. (n.d.). [164] In the prison workshop, Nilsen translated books into braille. Nilsen was questioned in relation to the incident, but Ho decided not to press charges. Months later, the regiment was transferred to West Berlin, where, the same year, Nilsen had his first sexual experience with a female: a prostitute whose services he solicited. He initially panicked, flailing his arms and shouting. Born in Aberdeenshire in 1945 to a Norwegian father and Scottish mother, Nilsen's parents divorced in 1948 after his father - who had been involved in the anti-Nazi resistance in Norway during the. Central Television challenged the Home Office ruling in court, citing sections of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and that full permission to conduct an interview with Nilsen had been granted in advance. The psychiatrist also described Nilsen's association between unconscious bodies and sexual arousal; stating that Nilsen possessed narcissistic traits, an impaired sense of identity, and was able to depersonalise other people. [110] As had been the case with both Howlett and Allen, Sinclair's body was subsequently dissected, with various dismembered parts wrapped in plastic bags and stored in either a wardrobe, a tea chest or within a drawer located beneath the bathtub. [91] The following day, Barlow was released from hospital and returned to Nilsen's home, apparently to thank him. Nilsen enjoyed the work, but missed the comradeship of the army. After the youth had fallen asleep in Nilsen's bed, Nilsen fashioned a ligature around his neck, then simultaneously sat on Duffey's chest and tightened the ligature with a "great force". [138] With Nilsen's full consent, Moss had fully prepared his defence; five weeks before his trial, Nilsen again dismissed Moss, and opted instead to be represented by Ralph Haeems, upon whose advice Nilsen agreed to plead not guilty by diminished responsibility.[139]. [n 3], Initially, Nilsen experienced domestic contentment with Gallichan, but within a year of their moving to Melrose Avenue, the superficial relationship between the two men began to show signs of strain. No sexual activity had occurred, but this incident fuelled Nilsen's sexual fantasies, which initially involved his sexual partnerinvariably a young, slender malebeing completely passive. Case 144 of, This page was last edited on 27 April 2023, at 11:53. This is achieved by taking increased amounts of alcohol and plugging into stereo music which mentally removes me to a high plane of ecstasy, joy and tears. [66], "I eased him into his new bed [beneath the floorboards] A week later, I wondered whether his body had changed at all or had started to decompose. Throughout 1978, he devoted an ever-increasing amount of his time, effort and assiduity to his work,[54] and most evenings he spent consuming spirits and/or lager as he listened to music. He described himself and his colleagues as a "hard-working, boozy lot"; his colleagues recalled he often drank to excess in order to ease his shyness. [34][n 2], Between October and December 1972, Nilsen lived with his family as he considered his next career move. The couple met in Hamilton, Ontario, where Irene's family fled Russia's invasion of Estonia at the end of World War II. The remains stowed inside suitcasesthose of Ockenden and Duffeywere placed inside a shed in the rear garden, and were disposed of upon the second bonfire Nilsen had constructed at Melrose Avenue. After they'd go to sleep in his . [72] Nilsen was adamant he could not recall the precise moment he strangled Ockenden, but recalled that he strangled the young man with the cord of his (Nilsen's) headphones as Ockenden listened to music. Nilsen was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in1983 and died in 2018 in prison. Meanwhile, David Wilson, who was a prison governor while the serial killer, has recently discussed details of his encounters with Nilsen. If a body did not display any signs of decomposition, he occasionally alternately stowed it beneath the floorboards and retrieved it before again masturbating as he stood over or lay alongside the body. Nilsen later stated that, following a heated argument in May 1977, he demanded Gallichan leave the residence. When Nilsen awoke, he found himself on the floor of the German youth's flat. He often talked to or played games with his younger sister, Sylvia, to whom he was closer than any other family member following his grandfather's passing.[14]. [176] Several items confiscated from Nilsen's Cranley Gardens addresssome of which had been introduced as evidence at Nilsen's trialare on display at New Scotland Yard's Crime Museum. [158] As a Category A prisoner, he was assigned his own cell and could mix freely with other inmates. On 4 February 1983, Nilsen wrote a letter of complaint to estate agents complaining that the drains at Cranley Gardens were blocked, and that the situation for both himself and the other tenants at the property was intolerable. In December 1979, Nilsen crossed paths with a 23-year-old Canadian student who was visiting London. The majority of Nilsen's victims were homeless or gay men; others were heterosexual people he typically met in bars, on public transport oron one occasionoutside his own home. [70], Two months after the attempted murder of Ho, on 3 December 1979, Nilsen encountered a 23-year-old Canadian student named Kenneth Ockenden,[71] who had been on a tour of England visiting relatives. A year later, he killed 23-year-old Canadian student Kenneth Ockenden after offering to show him the sights of London. [85] When the bonfire had been reduced to ashes and cinders, Nilsen used a rake to search the debris for any recognisable bones. Sinclair was last seen by acquaintances in the company of Nilsen, walking in the direction of a tube station. Nilsen suggested that Barlow should be in hospital and, supporting him, walked him into his residence before phoning for an ambulance. He was then arrested and cautioned on suspicion of murder before being taken to Hornsey police station. When Stottor regained consciousness, Nilsen embraced him; he then explained to Stottor he had almost strangled himself on the zip of the sleeping bag, and that he had resuscitated him. [165][166], In September 1992, Central Television conducted an interview with Nilsen as part of the programme Viewpoint 1993 Murder In Mind, which focused upon offender profiling. Following Jay's testimony, DS Chambers recited Nilsen's formal confession to the court. Next he killed Kenneth Ockenden on December 3, 1979, a 23-year-old Canadian student. An investigation into the disappearance of one of his earliest victims, Canadian backpacker Kenneth Ockenden, was stymied by a reluctance among police to acknowledge that Ockenden was a gay. Nilsen envied Olav Jr.'s popularity. The couple divorced in 1948. In the years following his incarceration, Nilsen composed an unpublished, 400-page autobiography, entitled The History of a Drowning Boy (the title being a reference to his concepts of the tranquility of death following his grandfather's death and his own near-fatal drowning in 1954). [97][n 6], In March 1982, Nilsen encountered 23-year-old John Howlett while drinking in a pub near Leicester Square. [32], When Nilsen completed his deployment in Aden, he returned to the UK and was assigned to serve with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Seaton Barracks in Plymouth, Devon. In a practice which he had conducted upon several victims killed at Melrose Avenue, he also boiled the heads, hands and feet to remove the flesh off these sections of the victims' bodies. Despite only being five years old, Nilsen vividly recalled these walks as being "very long along the harbour, across the wide stretch of beach, up to the sand-dunes, which rise thirty feet behind the beach and on to Inverallochy". These fantasies gradually evolved into his partner being unconscious[26] or dead. He had no memory of the assault. But one man that didn't quite fit the same pattern was Kenneth Ockenden. "[143] This, the prosecution attested, reflected Nilsen's rational, cool presence of mind in that he hoped to be overheard by other tenants. Contrary to the prosecution claims, the defence counsel asserted that Nobbs' testimony reflected Nilsen's rational self being unable to control his impulses. Over two days, Bowden testified that, although he found Nilsen to be abnormal in a colloquial sense, he had concluded Nilsen to be a manipulative person who had been capable of forming relationships, but had forced himself to objectify people. He was invited in and, after eating a meal, began drinking rum and coke before falling asleep on the sofa. He had been on a tour of Britain when he came across Nilsen in a pub and he was taken around London. On 31 October, the prosecution called Paul Bowden to testify in rebuttal of the psychiatrists who had testified for the defence. Nilsen's scholastic record was above average. Kenneth and Irene Ockenden were the classic high school sweethearts. In these instances, whenever he and his colleagues drank to excess, Nilsen would pretend he was inebriated in the hope one of his colleagues would make sexual use of his supposedly unconscious body. I had no other thrill or happiness". An epileptic orphan, he had spent most of his life in care homes.. [10] His body was brought ashore and returned to the Whyte family home prior to burial. Birth 12 July 1929 - Leatherhead, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. Moss was to remain Nilsen's legal representative until July 1983, when Nilsenagain expressing his intention to defend himselfdischarged him, until 5 August when Nilsen once again reappointed Moss. His final three victims were killed at 23 Cranley Gardens. Ockenden was a Canadian student visiting relatives in Britain when he encountered Dennis Nilsen. In a tactful reference to the primary dispute between opposing counsel at the trial, Green closed his opening speech with an answer Nilsen had given to police in response to a question as to whether he needed to kill: "At the precise moment of the act [of murder], I believe I am right in doing the act". Among his victims were Stephen Holmes, Kenneth Ockenden, Martyn Duffey, William Sutherland and Malcolm Barlow. [156] Croom-Johnson sentenced Nilsen to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years' imprisonment. On one occasion, Nilsen and a German youth drank themselves into a stupor. [106] Nilsen approached Sinclair, knelt before him and said to himself, "Oh Stephen, here I go again",[107] before strangling Sinclair with a ligature constructed with a necktie and a rope. In this deployment, Nilsen began to increase his intake of alcohol. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. At home, he seldom participated in family activities and retreated from any attempts by adult family members to demonstrate any affection towards him. At 5:40 pm on 11 February, Nilsen was charged with Sinclair's murder, and a statement revealing this was released to the press. Nilsen later recollected that he was sexually attracted to Gallichan, but the pair seldom had intercourse. Nilsen's murders were first discovered by a Dyno-Rod employee, Michael Cattran, who responded to the plumbing complaints made by both Nilsen and other tenants of Cranley Gardens on 8 February 1983. In his subsequent written confessions, Nilsen stated he was "afraid to wake him in case he left me". One of Nilsen's stalking grounds was Camden, North London. One of Nilsen's stalking grounds was Camden, North London. [39] He began to drink alone in the evenings. Nilsen's identified victims were: Stephen Dean. [7] He later described this stage of his childhood as one of contentment,[8] and his grandfather being his "great hero and protector", adding that whenever his grandfather (who was a fisherman) was at sea, "Life would be empty [for me] until he returned. Nilsen strangled him with a headphone cord. He was adamant that the decision to kill was not made until moments before the act of murder. If the victim had been strangled into unconsciousness, Nilsen then drowned him in his bathtub, his sink or a bucket of water before observing a ritual in which he bathed, clothed and retained the bodies inside his residences for several weeks or, occasionally, months before he dismembered them. He respected his parents' efforts to provide and care for their children, but began to resent the fact that his family was poorer than most of his peers, with his mother and stepfather making no effort to better their lifestyles; thus, Nilsen seldom invited his friends to the family home. Nilsen manually strangled Barlow as he slept, before stowing his body beneath his kitchen sink the following morning.[92]. On approximately four occasions over the following fortnight, Nilsen disinterred Ockenden's body from beneath his floorboards and seated the body upon his armchair alongside him as he himself watched television and drank alcohol. Kenneth Ockenden 23-year-old Canadian student Kenneth Ockenden was killed on December 3, 1979. He bragged of this sexual encounter to his colleagues, but later stated he found intercourse with a female both "over-rated" and "depressing". All the victims' personal possessions were destroyed following the ritual of bathing their bodies in an effort to obliterate their identity prior to their murder and their now becoming what Nilsen described as a "prop" in his fantasies. The 23-year-old was due to fly home to Canada the following day. He then vaguely recalled hearing "water running" before realising he was immersed in the water and that Nilsen was attempting to drown him. (The evidence provided by Stottor was not included as part of the indictment against Nilsen as his whereabouts were not known until after the indictment had been completed. Kenneth Ockenden was one of his first victims and one of the few to be reported missing. In December 1983, Nilsen was cut on the face and chest with a razor blade by an inmate named Albert Moffatt, resulting in injuries requiring eighty-nine stitches. The image of my dead grandfather would be the model of him at his most striking in my mind. ", Duffey's body was first placed upon a kitchen chair, then upon the bed on which he had been strangled. Cattran reported his suspicions to his supervisor, Gary Wheeler. The work was intermittent, and he resolved to find more stable, secure employment. The three officers followed Nilsen into his flat, where they immediately noted the odour of rotting flesh. Kenneth Ockenden, 23. Once the victim had been killed, he typically bathed the victim's body, shaved any hair from the torso to conform it to his physical ideal,[128] then applied makeup to any obvious blemishes upon the skin. Each victim killed between 1978 and 1981 at his Cricklewood residence was disposed of via burning upon a bonfire. Both men immediately called the police who, upon closer inspection, discovered further small bones and scraps of what looked to the naked eye like either human or animal flesh in the same pipe. [62] Nilsen invited Holmes to his house with the promise of the two drinking alcohol and listening to music,[63] believing him to be approximately 17 years old. Martyn Duffey ITV's Des airs Monday-Wednesday this week (Image: Grab) [101], In May 1982, Nilsen encountered Carl Stottor, a 21-year-old gay man, as the young man drank at the Black Cap pub in Camden. The dismembered body parts were the bodies of three men, all of whom he had killed by strangulationusually with a necktie. His skin was very dirty. [129] With most victims, Nilsen masturbated as he stood alongside or knelt above the body, and Nilsen confessed to having occasionally engaged in intercrural sex with his victims' bodies, but repeatedly stressed to investigators he had never actually penetrated his victimsexplaining that his victims were "too perfect and beautiful for the pathetic ritual of commonplace sex".[130]. Successfully overpowering Nilsen, Stewart testified that Nilsen had then shouted, "Take my money! The Scottish killer's second victim was Canadian tourist Kenneth Ockenden. [2] Moksheim was a Norwegian soldier who had travelled to Scotland in 1940 as part of the Free Norwegian Forces following the German occupation of Norway. [30] These fantasies gradually evolved to incorporate his own near-death experience with the Arab taxi driver; the dead bodies he had seen in Aden; and imagery within a 19th-century oil painting entitled The Raft of the Medusa, which depicts an old man holding the limp, nude body of a dead youth as he sits aside the dismembered body of another young male. [83], In late 1980, Nilsen removed and dissected the bodies of each victim killed since December 1979 and burned them upon a communal bonfire he had constructed on waste ground behind his flat. They married after college, both going on to work in the life sciences Kenneth as a medical doctor, and Irene as a botany researcher. When Stottor had regained enough strength to question Nilsen as to his recollections of being strangled and immersed in cold water, Nilsen explained he had become caught in the zip of the sleeping bag following a nightmare, and that he had placed him in cold water as "you were in shock". [170][171] The legal case he brought against the prison service was dismissed because he could not establish that any breach of his human rights had occurred.[172]. [43] Nilsen was initially posted to a Jobcentre in Denmark Street, where his primary role was to find employment for unskilled labourers. He rubbed Stottor's limbs and heart to increase circulation, covered the youth's body in blankets, then laid him upon his bed. Nilsen never showered in the company of his fellow soldiers for fear of developing an erection in their presence; instead opting to bathe alone in the bathroom, which also afforded him the privacy to masturbate without discovery. DCI Jay later dismissed Nilsen's claims to have killed only twelve victims, stating that in the more than thirty hours of interviews police had conducted with Nilsen, when discussing the fifteen victims he had initially confessed to killing, he had never provided any inconsistencies in the physical characteristics, the date or place of encounter, the act of murder, or the ritual he observed with the body of any of the fifteen victims.[187]. His final victim was 20-year-old Stephen Sinclair, who went back to. Almost exactly a year after the first murder, this 23-year-old Canadian student was killed on December 3, 1979. . [51] Gallichan later insisted Nilsen had never been violent towards him, but that he did engage in verbal abuse, and the pair had begun arguing with increasing frequency by early 1976. [n 1], Following a brief period with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in Inverness, Nilsen was selected to cook for the Queen's Royal Guard before, in January 1971, being reassigned to serve as a cook for a different regiment in the Shetland Islands, where he ended his 11-year military career at the rank of corporal in October 1972. ", Nilsen's written recollections of the ritual he observed after the murder of his first victim. A fight ensued, after which Olav Jr. informed his mother that Dennis was gay. Two psychiatrists testified on behalf of the defence. THE heartbroken family of one of Dennis Nilsen's victims has slammed ITV for cashing in on the serial killer's twisted crimes. This included the cooking pot in which Nilsen had boiled the heads of the three victims killed at Cranley Gardens, the cutting board he had used to dissect John Howlett, and several rusted catering knives which had formerly belonged to victim Martyn Duffey. Most read in TV The 23-year-old was. [59], Nilsen admitted to engaging in masturbation as he viewed the nude bodies of several of his victims, and to have engaged in sexual acts with six of his victims' bodies,[60] but was adamant that he had never penetrated any of his victims. Family tree. View Source Suggest Edits Memorial Photos Flowers Created by: Jen Added: 20 Aug 2021 Find a Grave Memorial ID: 231005313 Source citation He had been on a tour around Britain when he met Nilsen in a pub, and was invited back to his flat for a meal. At the flat, Stottor consumed further alcohol before falling asleep upon an open sleeping bag; he later awoke to find himself being strangled with Nilsen loudly whispering, "Stay still". [16] Shortly after this incident, Nilsen's mother moved out of his grandparents' home and into a flat with her three children. This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Ockenden research. I disinterred him and pulled the dirt-stained youth up onto the floor. In his later years, Nilsen was imprisoned at Full Sutton maximum security prison.
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