Dennis Andrew Nilsen, a man born in Fraserburgh, Scotland on November 23, 1945, known as Muswell Hill Murderer, is a serial killer from England who lives in the City of London.
Dennis killed at least 15 men, including children, and his killings were carried out between 1978 and 1983, and he also tried to kill at least 7 other people.
The majority of Dennis’ victims were homeless or male homosexuals, although there were also heterosexual individuals whom he usually met in bars, on public transport, or on one occasion outside his own home.
The life of Dennis Andrew Nilsen
Nilsen was born in Strichen, Aberdeen Shire to a Scottish mother and a Norwegian father. His father was an alcoholic and his parents divorced when he was 4 years old.
His mother later remarried and sent his son Dennis to his grandparents to be cared for, but after a few years, he was sent back to his mother again.
Dennis admits that the first traumatic event which later shaped the character of his life occurred when he was little when his beloved grandfather died.
His mother, who was a very devout Catholic, insisted that Dennis see his grandfather’s body before it was buried. Whether this incident or his mother and stepfather’s lectures about the “impurity of the human flesh” helped shape his character into what he is today, no one really knows.
In 1961, Dennis enlisted in the British Army and later became a cook in Aden, Cyprus, and Berlin.
He then resigned from the army in 1972 and then served briefly as a police officer. in the mid-1970s, and then Dennis worked as a civil servant at a workplace.
She engages in a series of same-sex relationships with men, her brief relationships with gays leave her alone, and finally, Dennis breaks up with someone ” who won’t go “; Namely with corpses.
Murder and Arrest
All of his victims were students or homeless, whom he met at bars and then brought to his house, for sex or just to chat.
Dennis strangled and drowned his victims at night. He used his killing skills while he studied and joined the army, and to help him get rid of the bodies. Dennis had access to a large park and also burned many of the bodies in a bonfire.
In 1981, Dennis then moved to a top-floor flat at Muswell Hill (23 Cranley Gardens), north London. As his killing spree continued, he found it difficult to dispose of the bodies, as access was difficult.
Finally, the victims who were killed were put into suitcases after being mutilated.
Dennis has a suitcase full of human organs tucked away in his wardrobe, as well as a large plastic bag with human remains tucked under the floorboards.
His neighbors actually started to get suspicious of the smell coming from his house, but they didn’t dare ask Dennis.
When Dennis found it difficult to dispose of the bodies of his victims, he started throwing the pieces of his victims’ bodies into the drains at his house.
Over time, the water channels around his house started to clog due to too many body parts that were thrown away by Dennis.
Finally, Dennis’ actions began to unfold, starting with the clogged drains around his house, then the cleaners found the cause of the clogged drains, namely the result of being clogged by pieces of a human body that were thrown away by Dennis.
Dennis Nilsen was arrested in 1983 on suspicion of multiple murders. He apologized to the police for not being able to say the exact number of people he had killed.
When the house was searched, Police found 3 heads in a cupboard, and they also found thirteen bodies in Nilsen’s former residence in Crinkleroot on Melrose Avenue.
During his trial at the Old Bailey, Dennis finally confessed that he had killed at least 15 people.
Then he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Where the minimum period of imprisonment for Dennis was set at 25 years by a court judge, but finally Dennis was then sentenced to life imprisonment, which means he will never be released.
With changes to the law establishing minimum detention requirements in November 2002, Dennis was finally released in 2008 as he had already served the minimum sentence of 25 years. And In 1993 he was granted permission to give television interviews from prison.
Murder and attempted murder
- First Murder: Dennis’ first murder occurred on December 30, 1978. Dennis claimed to have met his first victim at a gay bar. Dennis strangled her with a tie until she passed out and then drowned her in a bucket of water.
On 12 January 2006, it was announced that the victim had been identified as Stephen Dean Holmes, who was born on 22 March 1964, Holmes was on his way home from a pop concert.
Between the first and second murders, Dennis attempted to kill a student from Hong Kong he had met in the West End. Despite being questioned by the police, the student decided not to charge him, and Dennis was released free of charge.
- 2nd Murder: The second victim (on December 3, 1979) was a Canadian student named Kenneth Ockendon. During their sexual encounter, Dennis strangled her. Ockendon is one of the few homicide victims to be reported as missing.
- 3rd Murder: Martyn Duffey is a 16-year-old homeless boy originally from Birkenhead. In May 1980, he accepted Dennis’ invitation to come to his place. She was strangled and then drowned in the kitchen sink.
- 4th Murder: Billy Sutherland was a male prostitute from Scotland. Dennis has no memory of how he killed Sutherland; However, it was later revealed that the victim had been strangled by someone using their bare hands.
- 5th Murder: The 5th victim was a male prostitute as well; However, this one was never identified. All that is known is that he may be from the Philippines or Thailand.
- 6th Murder: Dennis can remember very little about this victim and the next two. All he could remember about his 6th murder was that he was a young Irish worker he met in a bar.
- 7th Murder: The seventh victim was someone Dennis described as the “hippy type” and hungry, this man he found in a doorway in Charing Cross.
- 8th Murder: Dennis can’t remember anything about his eighth victim.
- 9th Murder and 10th Murder: Both were young Scottish men, whom she picked up at the pub in Sotho.
- 11th Murder: The eleventh victim was someone Dennis picked up at Piccadilly Circus, the victim had a tattoo on his neck, and the tattoo said: “cut here”.
The man tells Dennis how tough he is, and how he loves fighting; However, once she was drunk Dennis then killed her, and then hung her naked body in her bedroom for 24 hours before she was buried under the floorboards.
At some point between the 6th and 11th murders, occurring on November 10, 1980, a potential victim of Dennis woke up strangled and was able to fend off his assailant.
Although he contacted the police immediately after the attack, no action was taken by the officers who were reported, regarding the incident as a domestic altercation between two homosexual lovers.
- 12th Murder: The twelfth (and last before Dennis moved house) victim was a man named Malcolm Barlow. He was assassinated on September 18, 1981.
Dennis met the man not far from his own home, brought him in, and called an ambulance for him.
When Barlow is released the next day, he returns to Dennis’ house to thank him and is happy to be invited in for a meal and a few drinks with some alcohol. He was killed that night.
After moving into a new home in Muswell Hill in October 1981, Dennis met a student at a bar in Soho and invited him back to his new home.
The student awakens the next morning with little memory of the previous night’s events and then goes to see his doctor because of the multiple bruises that have appeared on his neck.
The doctor revealed that it was as if the student had been strangled and then advised him to go to the police. However, fearing that his sexual orientation would be disclosed, the student decided against it.
- 13th murder: John Howlett was the first person killed at the Muswell Hill Nilsen home, in December 1981.
Howlett is one of the few people who is able to stand up to Dennis, but Dennis really dislikes him and is determined to kill him.
There’s an incredible struggle, at one point Howlett even tries to strangle Dennis back. Howlett eventually drowned, after holding his head underwater for five minutes.
Howlett’s body was the first to be dismembered, and several body parts were hidden around Dennis’ house and also flushed down the toilet.
- 14th Murder: Graham Allen is a homeless person who met Dennis on Shaftesbury Avenue. After killing him, Dennis left Allen’s body in the bathtub, not knowing how to get rid of it. After three days, he was dismembered like the previous victim.
- 15th Murder: Dennis’ final victim was a drug addict named Stephen Sinclair. They met on Oxford Street. After Sinclair gets high on alcohol and heroin which causes him to pass out,
Sinclair was then strangled and Dennis dismembered. Sinclair’s dismembered body is finally dumped in the sewer outside Dennis’ house.
Judicial Process
Dennis was brought to court at the Old Bailey on October 24, 1983. to be found guilty of murder, however, he was convicted of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder.
Then Dennis was sentenced to life imprisonment on November 4, 1983. In 1993, he was given permission to give a television interview from prison.
Dennis’s minimum term of detention was set at 25 years by a trial judge but later imposed his sentence on life, meaning he will never be released. In 2006, he was denied his request for parole.
Jail sentence
Dennis is being held at the high-security prison at HMP Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
While in prison, Dennis protested and brought it up to court proceedings against the decision of the Whitemoor Prison, regarding the prohibition of accessing gay pornographic content.
This application was then rejected by a single judge at the licensing stage. Dennis considered that violations of his human rights had occurred in the prison and that the prison rules were discriminatory against him. He also failed to receive greater access to such materials as a result.
In 2003, he then took this case to the Judicial Review, then later Dennis wrote his autobiography entitled The History of a Drowning Boy.