This is a series that sheds light on the serial killers who left their mark on the History of Britain.
Dennis Nilsen was born on November 23, 1945, to a Scottish mother and a Norwegian soldier father. His parents were said to have split while he was young as his Armed Forces dad failed to look after his family, focusing the majority of his attention on the Free Norwegian Forces.
Leaving Nilsen and his siblings to be mainly raised by their maternal grandparents. Nilsen was said to be very close to his grandfather until he suffered a heart attack while fishing one day and died. Nilsen ascribed this moment as when he began to refrain from society. Also, Nilsen mentioned that he discovered he was gay at his early teenage age, leaving him really confused and shameful. It was said that his brother often mocked him in public and belittled him. In a bid to escape from the rural location he had been raised, Nilsen joined the Army Cadet Force when he was 14 years old, enlisting for nine years of service in September 1961.
Advancing from his 11-year military career, he decided to join the Metropolitan Police, moving to London to begin training.
It was said that he was a miserable junior constable in London. Soon, he began drinking alone in the evenings and frequently started visiting gay bars where he engaged in casual sexual communications with other men. A year later, he left the police job and began to work as a civil servant in the Jobcentre. Nilsen was said to have a partner, a 20-year-old David Gallichan, where they lived on the ground floor of Melrose Avenue. However, Gallichan would leave Nilsen after a year following a series of arguments and misunderstandings. Nobody knows if that would trigger Nilsen to begin his murder rampage.
Nilsen was said to have confessed to killing about 15-16 victims who he lured under the guise of sex, accommodation where he would then strangle or drown his victims. His arrest was made in 1983 after a victim’s body caused a blockage in the pipes prompting Nilsen himself to call a plumber, who called the police after discovering human parts in the blocked drainage. The officers who arrested Nilsen mentioned an awful smell emanating from his attic flat. They were even more surprised when one of the inspectors questioned where “the rest of the body” was being kept. Nilsen showed them a body that was stored in two plastic bags in a nearby wardrobe.
On May 26, 1983, Nilsen was tried at the Central Criminal Court on five counts of murder, later changed to six and two attempted murders. Although he did not plead guilty, Nilsen was given a life sentence with a minimum of 25 years.
