Dennis Nilsen | The Kindly Killer - Part 1
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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did and how. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Weyborg Thun. And tonight we celebrate...

Since my first episode, the infamous one concerning Jeffrey Dahmer, where I talk way too fast and seem awfully amateurish, this podcast has grown and developed far beyond what I initially hoped or dreamed of. From a few hundred listeners to millions. Soon I will pass the 20 millionth download mark. But tonight...

This show marks an even more prominent anniversary. This episode is the Serial Killer Podcast's episode number 100. To mark this, the subject of tonight's expose is a bona fide serial killer superstar. He is also of Norwegian descent, which I always find extra interesting.

He operated, as so many of the most infamous serial killers did, in the golden age of serial murder, the late 1970s and early 80s. I have also looked forward to bringing this man to your attention, as he is in many ways a mirror of my very first episode's subject, Jeffrey Dahmer.

Just as Dahmer originally killed because he didn't want the man he lusted after to ever leave his house, so did the kindly killer, a.k.a. Dennis Andrew Nilsen.

As part of my episode number 100 celebration, I have released a brand new bonus content episode on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast. The topic is torture and the practice of this by the Japanese Empire.

Usually, these episodes are only available to my $10 plus club members. But this time, and this time only, I have extended the listening privileges to include everyone who have donated $5 or more.

So, if you wish to listen to this exclusive episode, head on over to patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast after you've finished with this episode, and I really do think you'll enjoy it. Imagine, if you will, De Alicena, a pub in London in late 1978.

A slender thirty-three-year-old man of average appearance, having a slight effeminate countenance, named Dennis Nilsen, struck up a flirtatious conversation with a handsome young man in the pub, and ended up inviting him home. Home was 195 Melrose Avenue in London.

It was a handsome white townhouse, and the couple continued to drink and eventually crawled into bed together. Dennis Nielsen woke up at dawn the very next day and realized with a panic that his new friend was going to leave him. He ran his hand over his bedmate's body, his morning erection jumping to full attention. His heart pounded, and he began to sweat.

He watched the young man sleep, and looked over at the pile of clothing they had both discarded. He spotted his tie, so he got out of bed to retrieve it. "'I raised myself and slipped it on under his neck,' Nilsen wrote four years later. "'I quickly straddled him and pulled tight for all I was worth. His body came alive immediately. We struggled off the bed onto the floor.'"

Nilsen tightened his grip, not about to let go and lose this battle to the death. His victim pushed himself with his feet, with Nilsen on top of him, along the carpet in a desperate attempt to free himself. When he came up against the wall, he lay there and with a final shudder grew limp. Giving up, Nilsen relaxed, but realized the man was not yet dead, only unconscious. Again, dear listener,

I would like to reiterate the pain associated with strangulation. It is particularly important in the Nilsen case, as his nickname implies his victims died an easy death. This was not always the case. Being strangled, especially if you are not intoxicated or drugged, is extremely painful.

The throat is constricted, which is painful in itself, and it is a very sensitive area. For all my listeners who have shaved and nicked themselves with a razor can probably attest to this. Further, the trachea is crushed, sometimes causing internal bleeding, which then runs down into the victim's lungs. This is all before I have mentioned the effects of being deprived of oxygen.

Try holding your head under water for a while, and feel how you instinctively will try to raise yourself to breathe. You can also try holding your own throat tight with a hand. It's a painful sensation coupled with a tinge of panic as you feel how your blood flow and oxygen are halted.

Now, multiply all this by a factor of a thousand and add a sense of utter panic and dread. This is what someone being strangled experiences. It is a slow process, often taking several minutes before unconsciousness, and every second is pure agony.

After the man had passed out, Nilsen ran into the kitchen and filled a plastic bucket full of water in order to drown the man. Nilsen lifted him onto some chairs, draping his head back and pushed it into the bucket. The man, unconscious, did not struggle, although water splashed all over the carpet. After a few minutes, Nilsen recalled, the bubbles stopped coming.

I lifted him up and sat him on the armchair. The water was dripping from his short, brown curly hair." He had just killed a man, and did not even recall his name. Nilsen sat there, shaking, barely cognizant of what he had done, and what he now faced as a result. He made himself a cup of coffee, and smoked several cigarettes.

trying to think what to do. His black-and-white dog, Bleep, came in from the garden and sniffed at the corpse in the chair. He ran the dog off and then sat down in shock. He removed the tie from the dead man's neck and just stared at him. Then he got up, put a towel over the window, and hoisted the corpse onto his shoulders to carry it into the bathroom.

gently. Nilsen put him into the tub, ran water, and washed the man's hair. According to Nilsen himself, the man was quote-unquote very limp and floppy. He struggled to get him out of the tub and dry him off. Then he took him back into the other room and put him in the bed. His new friend was not going to leave him now.

He ran his hand over the still warm flesh, noticing the slight discoloration of his lips and face. He pulled the bedclothes over him and sat on the bed, trying to think. It was the beginning of the end of my life as I had known it. I had started down the avenue of death and possession of a new kind of flatmate.

Nilsen later wrote in his statement, after her rests, "'Rather than being appalled by the sight of a corpse, he thought it quite beautiful. He did not really know why he had killed the young man. He just had not wanted him to leave. He had spent Christmas alone, and did not want to do the same for New Year's. Now he had someone to spend it with.'

Later that day, Nilsen went to a hardware store to buy an electric knife and a large pot. But he could not bring himself to cut the body up this way. Instead, he opened some new underwear and dressed the body. Then he took a warm bath. That's when he decided to try to have sex with the corpse.

He got into bed, but could not sustain the raging erection he had experienced moments earlier. So he pulled the body off the bed and laid it on the floor. He used a curtain to cover it. Exhausted, he got into the bed and fell asleep. Later in the evening he got up, made dinner, and watched some television with the body still lying there on the floor, not far away.

Finally, he knew he needed to do something. He pried loose some floorboards and tried to shove the body into the space, but rigor mortis had set in, preventing him from maneuvering. He stood the body against the wall, deciding to wait until the stiffness passed. The body stood stiff, with its blue lips and vacant eyes staring at nothing. It did not fall.

The next day, the corpse was still standing there, against the wall. So, Nilsen laid him down and worked on the limbs to loosen them. Finally, he was able to get him into his grave under the floor. He covered the corpse with boards. After a week, Nilsen grew curious. So, he lifted the carpet and opened the floor once again. The corpse was dirty.

So Nilsen carried it back into the bathroom to wash it. Then Nilsen washed himself in the same water. When he carried the body back to the living room, he was so aroused that he knelt beside the body and masturbated onto the corpse's stomach. Rather than stuff him beneath the floor again, he thrust him up by the ankles. Eventually it went back under the floorboards.

It remained there for seven and a half months, until Nilsen took it out and burned the remains in a bonfire. He added rubber to the fire to mask the smell of burning flesh. He raked the ashes into the ground. It was not until the 12th of January, 2006,

It was announced that this young victim had been identified as Stephen Dean Holmes, who was born on the 22nd of March 1964, and was therefore only 14 at the time of being murdered. Dennis Nilsen was astonished that he was able to get away with what had occurred, and believed it would never happen again.

He promised himself this was a one-time thing, and that from then on, he would walk the narrow path. He was wrong. It would happen at least 14 more times. It's that time of the year. Your vacation is coming up. You can already hear the beach waves, feel the warm breeze, relax, and think about...

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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night.

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Visit BetterHelp.com slash SerialKiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash SerialKiller. In October 1979, nearly a year after the first murder, a young Chinese student from Hong Kong, Andrew Ho, went home with Nilsen.

The young man wanted to try some bondage play. Nilsen became angry at this. He wasn't a fan of such sexual games and put a tie around Andrew's neck and tightened it. As he started to constrict the tie, he said in a menacing voice that Andrew was playing a quote-unquote dangerous game.

Realizing he was now in great danger, Andrew shoved Nilsen away, quickly left the apartment and informed the police that Nilsen had tried to kill him. Police apprehended Nilsen, but by the time they brought him back to the station, Andrew had changed his mind and refused to press charges. The police let Nilsen go with a warning.

It might be that getting away with crime a second time bolstered Nilsen's confidence that he was above the law. The second victim to die at the hands of Dennis Nilsen was Kenneth Ockendon, a Canadian tourist. He met Nilsen at lunch at a pub on the 3rd of December 1979.

They drank together for several hours, took a tour of London, and ended up in Nilsen's flat. They got along very well, and the more Nilsen enjoyed Kenneth's company, the more desperate he felt at the thought that the Canadian was flying home the following day. He refused to be left alone again. He wanted Kenneth to stay with him forever.

He strangled Kenneth with an electrical cord from some headphones, dragged him across the floor, and then sat down to listen to several pieces of music while the body lay there on the floor. Then he removed the clothing and carried him into the bathroom. When he got the naked body in the tub, he carefully washed it with warm water and soap.

Once finished, he placed the corpse in bed and slept with it the rest of the night, caressing it frequently. In the morning, Nilsen tossed all his clothes out of a large cupboard and stuffed the body inside before going to work. During the day, the body rigidified in a doubled-up position. Nilsen took him out a day later.

"'The body has secreted some feces and mucus.' So he cleaned it once more in the bathtub. Then he dressed Corpse and sat him in a chair, taking photos of it in various positions. When he was finished with that, he took the young man into his bed and positioned it, spread-eagled, on top of him. He spoke to Kenneth as if he could hear. Then he crossed his legs together and had sex between his thighs. Finally,

Nilsen relegated Kenneth to the space beneath the floorboards. He took him back out several times so they could sit together and watch television. "'I thought that his body and skin were very beautiful,' Nilsen said later. "'Then he would dress him in something fresh, put him to quote-unquote bed, and tell him good night.'

Five months went by before the urge to dominate, to completely control and own another person became overwhelming to Dennis Nilsen. On the 13th of May, 1980, 16-year-old Martin Duffy turned up missing. He was homeless, and he accepted Nilsen's invitation to spend the night. After two beers, he went to bed.

Nilsen climbed on top, trapping his arms under the covers and strangled him with his bare hands. After a lengthy struggle, Martin went limp, but was still alive. So Nilsen carried him into the kitchen and drowned him by pushing his head into a sink full of water. Then he took him to the bathroom and got into the tub with him.

There he talked to him and mentioned that Martin's body was the youngest looking he had ever seen. He liked that. Nilsen brought him back to bed and kissed him all over. Then sat on his stomach and masturbated before ejaculating on the torso. Martin Duffery went into the cupboard for two full weeks before he was placed under the floorboards. The next one...

Twenty-seven-year-old Billy Sutherland slept with men for money. Nilsen did not even want to take him home, but he followed Nilsen after they went bar hopping one night. Nilsen barely recalls strangling him and was surprised at finding a dead body in his home the next morning. Malcolm Barlow, twenty-four years old, was an orphan with mental problems. He was also a pathological liar.

Nilsen found Barlow loitering outside his home, complaining of weakness from epilepsy, and he took him home and called an ambulance. When Barlow was released, he came back and sat on Nilsen's doorstep to await his return from work. Nilsen invited him in, and they drank together before Barlow fell into a deep sleep. Nilsen found his presence a nuisance, so he strangled him to death.

The next day he stuffed Barlow's corpse into the cabinet under his kitchen sink. He sat in the flat with a half-dozen other bodies awaiting disposal. Some of them Nilsen had kept in bed with him for sexual purposes for as long as a week. Having control over these men thrilled him, and the mystery of a dead body that would not respond fascinated him. But—

Dead bodies quickly decay, and with decay comes the smell of death. Dennis understood this, but he loved his corpses so much and didn't want to get rid of them. He didn't do anything about the smell. It might even be that he enjoyed it. Flies annoyed him, though, and he resorted to spraying his rooms twice a day to be rid of flies that were hatched.

Another tenant in the building mentioned the pervasive odor, but Nilsen assured her it was the decay of the building itself. But all good things must come to an end, and in order for the corpses to not completely ruin his apartment, he had to get rid of them. He would put his dog and cat into the garden,

"'stripped down to his underwear, and cut the bodies up on the stone kitchen floor with a kitchen knife. "'Sometimes he would boil flesh off the head in the pot he had bought for the first victim. "'He had learned how to butcher, so he knew how to best cut up a body, and he placed the organs in a plastic bag. "'Then he would replace the whole package under the floor until the next step.'

At one point there were two entire bodies beneath the boards, and one dismembered. He also put pieces into the garden shed or down a hole near a bush outside. Internal organs he put into a gap between the double fencing in his yard. A few severed torsos he stuffed into suitcases.

When he could, he dragged the bags and suitcases out to the yard and burned the bodies a few feet from the garden fence. It always amazed Nilsen that no one queried him about his activities or tried to stop him, and eventually he came to believe he was above the law and untouchable.

It went so far that when his apartment at one point had been vandalized, he had detectives investigate, and they remained completely unaware that they stood over the remains of at least two men. On several occasions, children came from the neighborhood to watch the blazing fire in Nilsen's front yard, not knowing that it contained human corpses which burned all day.

Nilsen just warned the children to not come too close to the fire, as it let out supposedly poisonous smoke. As the fire burned down, Nilsen spotted a skull in the center and quickly crushed it into ash. Then he raked the remains of six men into the earth. Five more were still to die in that apartment, their remains consumed in a third bonfire.

When he prepared to move to a new place, he checked around and nearly forgot that he had placed the hands and arms of Martin Barlow near a bush. He took care of that final detail and then drove away, hoping to put this part of his life behind him. Sixteen months later, after he was arrested, police officers found over one thousand bone fragments in his former garden.

Forever!

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In the saga of Dennis Nilsen. Next week I will bring you episode 101 and part 2 in this ongoing expose. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. This podcast would not be possible if it had not been for my dear patrons who pledge their hard-earned money every month. There are especially a few of those patrons I would like to thank in person.

These patrons are my 18 most loyal patrons. They have contributed for at least the last 37 episodes and their names are...

Thank you. Good night and good luck.