Dennis Nilsen’s life story sounds like a script for a sadistic horror movie but tragically for his victims he turned out to truly be their worst nightmare.
The cannibal is currently being portrayed by David Tennant in ITV’s Des, leaving fans wanting to know more about the sadistic serial killer.
Nilsen, who is now thankfully dead, ate parts of the 12 victims he murdered and was only caught when a plumber discovered human remains were stuck and clogging the drains in his flat.
His crimes were so brutal that criminologist Professor David Wilson went as far as to describe them as “extraordinary” due to Nilsen’s desire for power and control.
The professor said: “His crimes were extraordinary.
“He was a serial killer interested in power and control. Nilsen was a genuine cannibal, necrophiliac and trophy killer.”
Creepy Dennis Nilsen said he murdered 15 men (Image: mirrorpix)
Nilsen’s victims were all men who were either gay or homeless and he himself was gay but says he never felt comfortable with his desires.
The vile killer was born in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, and had an 11-year career in the army from the age of 16.
But it was his stint as a butcher in the catering corps where he learnt the skills which he would soon use to chop up his victims’ bodies and eat them.
He left the army in 1972 and took up police training. Nilsen then developed a bizarre obsession with visiting morgues and autopsied bodies.
Despite his fascination with all things death, he quit the training a year in and took a job as a job centre worker.
He hid the remains under the floorboards of his flat in Cranley Gardens, London (Image: mirrorpix)
Nilsen worked helping people find jobs until he was arrested a decade later.
His first run in with the cops was in 1973 when he was accused by a young man, who was looking for a job with the centre, of taking pictures of him when he was sleeping.
The police did question Nilsen but he was released without charge due to lack of evidence.
Tragically this meant he was a free man to perform his first kill in 1978.
Nilsen’s killing streak began after his room mate David Gallichan, who denies a sexual relationship with Nilsen, moved out of their shared flat in Melrose Avenue, Cricklewood, North West London.
Carl Stottor survived an attack by the serial killer (Image: Daily Mirror)
His first victim was teenager Stephen Holmes who was only 14-years-old.
Holmes and Nilsen met in a pub on December 29, 1978, and the soon-to-be killer invited him back to his flat.
The morning after, Holmes tried to leave and at the time, 33-year-old Nilsen throttled the teen with a tie before drowning him in a bucket of water.
Horrifically, Nilsen still wanted to keep Holmes by his side and washed the corpse in his bathroom, before putting it in his bed and sleeping beside it.
For the next few months, seven to be precise, Nilsen left Holmes’ corpse decaying under his floorboards before burning his remains in his garden.
Dennis was convicted of only murdering six people (Image: Unknown)
A year went by between his first and second murder, but once again during that period of time Nilsen came face-to-face with the cops who let him go once again.
In October 1979, a young male student nurse accused Nilsen of trying to strangle him during a bondage sex session, but no charges were brought against Nilsen once again.
“In the Seventies, a couple of young men escaped Nilsen,” says Prof Wilson.
“Being gay was still not widely accepted. It became legal in 1967. The police didn’t take it seriously. If they had, other men could have been saved.”
Over the next half a year things escalated quickly as his taste for killing grew and he murdered another two men.
Malcolm Barlow was tragically brutally murdered by Dennis (Image: Daily Record)
Nilsen killed Canadian tourist Kenneth Ockenden, 23, and homeless 16-year-old Martyn Duffey.
Inquests later discovered he killed them by strangling both before hiding them under his floorboards.
He developed a creepy bond with Ockenden’s corpse and would pull it up from the floorboards so that he could talk to his remains.
It was also discovered at some of the victims inquests that the psychopath would have sexual intercourse with their dead bodies.
In the 1980s, Nilsen went on to kill a further six males, but tragically, only one of them was ever identified.
In 2003, Nilsen lost his High Court battle for the right to continue working on and publishing his autobiography (Image: Press Association)
That was Billy Sutherland who was only 26 when he was slaughtered by Nilsen.
Prof Wilson said: “He’d ply these men with alcohol and strangle them.”
The professor explained how sometimes he’d wake the victim, just to strangle them again as to long out their murder.
By 1981 he had murdered three more men and was running out of room to store the bodies in his flat.
He stuffed the last poor victim to die in his flat under his kitchen sink before he moved to a flat in Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, North London, in 1982.
There he went on to strangle another three men, and attempt to murder two others.
It was there that he chopped up his victims John Howlett, 23, and Graham Allan, 27, and flushed pieces down the toilet – which later thankfully led to him being caught.
Nilsen was caught for his horrific crimes in February 1983, when Dyno-Rod technician Michael Cattran discovered the drain pipes from Nilsen’s attic were blocked with human flesh and bones.
The chilling discovery led to a police search of his flat which revealed he was hoarding bags filled with human remains.
The bags also contained the corpse of his final victim, 20-year-old Stephen Sinclair.
His trial took place at the Old Bailey, in London, where he admitted to killing 15 men.
Sadly, due to difficulty identifying victims meant he was convicted of six murders and two attempted murders.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
