Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now.
Millions of people have lost weight with personalized plans from Noom. Like Evan, who can't stand salads and still lost 50 pounds. Salads generally for most people are the easy button, right? For me, that wasn't an option. I never really was a salad guy. That's just not who I am. But Noom worked for me. Get your personalized plan today at Noom.com. Real Noom user compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, the typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary.
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 work. You really, really want it all to work out while you're away. Monday.com gives you and the team that peace of mind. When all work is on one platform and everyone's in sync, things just flow. Wherever you are, tap the banner to go to Monday.com.
This summer, Instacart presents famous summer flavors coming to your front door or pool or hotel. Your grocery delivery has arrived, sir. That was faster than room service. No violins in the lobby? Seriously? Anyway, sit back, relax, and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Starring your favorite snacks, drinks, and more. Download Instacart for free delivery on your first three orders. Rated H for hungry audiences. Offer valid for a limited time. Minimum $10 per order. Excludes restaurants. Additional terms and fees apply.
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 Thu. This is part six in my series on Dennis Andrew Nilsson, aka The Kindly Killer. If you haven't listened to part one through five,
Please do so now. The saga of Dennis Nilsen is a long, dark, twisted road through a foggy forest with crooked and hooked trees obscuring the way. I am nearing the end of the road, though, and I can glimpse something lighter in the distance.
Last episode ended with Dennis telling us how he killed a man eating an omelette in his apartment. Tonight, we'll go through his very last murder, as well as more details as to what Dennis did with the corpses piling up. This is episode 105. Do you wish to hear more from your humble host?
If you donate as little as one dollar on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast, you will get access to bonus content produced by me. On Patreon, I branch out and cover other topics aside from serial killers, but always with an emphasis on the dark underbelly of human nature.
Torture, murder, satanism, the death penalty and more are waiting for you. So, go to patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast now to get access. It was a frigid London evening in January the 26th and the year was 1983.
Your humble host was a toddler of barely two years and was tumbling around on the floor in the family living room in Norway, many, many kilometres away. At the same time, a young man, just twenty years old, was hustling for drug money in the dingy alleyways of London's upscale West End.
His name was Stephen Sinclair, and he was the last person to die at the hands of the kindly killer. Everyone knew Stephen as a punk. He was a very disturbed young man who was in the habit of self-harm, usually by slashing his arms with sharp objects and knives. When he wasn't hurting himself that way, he was hurting himself by injecting any drug he could get his hands on.
His favorite was amphetamine, colloquially known as speed, but he also took cocaine, heroin, various sorts of pills, and of course, marijuana. He was last seen by his so-called mates on the streets of West End going off with a strange man we know to be Dennis Nilsen.
They didn't think much of it at the time, as they were sure he was simply selling sex to feed his drug habit. As Dennis was walking with Stephen, he told him that he could follow him to the underground station. He also offered to buy Stephen a McDonald's hamburger, and the pair stopped along the way to buy hard liquor and beer. By then, they had agreed to go back to Nilsen's place to drink, and perhaps something more.
So they walked side by side onto the tube, which they took to Highgate Station. From there they walked the last brief mile Stephen would ever walk in his life, to Cranley Gardens, and arrived at Dennis Snilson's flat around 9 p.m. During the evening they drank a lot of alcohol and listened to music. At one point Stephen disappeared into the bathroom, and Dennis assumed it was to inject drugs.
What follows is a detailed account of how Dennis Nilsen murdered Stephen. He, as always, says it best himself. I quote, I'm sitting cross-legged on the carpet, drinking and listening to music. It finished with the theme from Harry's Game. I drain my glass and take the phones off. Behind me sits Stephen Sinclair on the lazy chair.
He was crushed out with drink and drugs. I sit and look at him. I stand up and approach him. My heart is pounding. I kneel down in front of him. I touch his leg and say, Are you awake? There is no response. Oh, Stephen, I think. Here I go again. I get up and go slowly and casually through the kitchen. I take some thick string from the drawer and put it on the stainless steel draining board.
"'Not long enough, I think. "'I go to the cupboard in the front room and search inside. "'On the floor therein I find an old tie. "'I cut off a bit and throw the rest away. "'I go back into the kitchen and make up the ligature. "'I look into the back room and Stephen has not stirred. "'Bleep comes in and I speak to her and scratch her head. "'Leave me just now, Bleep. "'Get your head down. "'Everything's all right.'
She wags her tail and slinks into the front room. Her favorite place is on one of the armchairs in there, where she curls up. Looking back, I think she knew what was going to happen. Even she became reassigned to it. If there was a violent struggle, she would always become excited and start barking. I was relaxed. I never contemplated morality. This was something which I had to do.
I knotted the string because I had heard somewhere that this was what the thug-eye did in India for a quicker kill. I walked back into the room. I draped the ligature over one of his knees and poured myself another drink. My heart was pounding very fast. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Stephen. I thought to myself, all that potential, all that beauty, and all that pain that is his life. I have to stop him. It will soon be over.
He was wearing his white running shoes, very tight drainpipe black jeans, a thick jersey, leather jacket, and blue and white football scarf. I did not feel bad. I did not feel evil. I walked over to him. I removed the scarf, picked up one of his wrists, and let go. His limp arm flopped back onto his lap. I opened one of his eyes, and there was no reflex. He was deeply unconscious.
I took the ligature and put it around his neck. I knelt by the side of the chair and faced the wall. I took each loose end of the ligature and pulled it tight. He stopped breathing. His hands slowly reached for his neck as I held my grip. His legs stretched out in front of him. There was a very feeble struggle. Then his arms fell limp down in front of him.
I held him there for a couple of minutes. He was limp and stayed that way. I released my hold and removed the string and tie. He had stopped breathing. I spoke to him. "'Steven, that didn't hurt at all. Nothing can touch you now.' I ran my fingers through his bleached blonde hair. His face looked peaceful. He was dead. The front of his jeans was wet with urine. I wondered if he had defecated as well.'
I got up and had a drink and a cigarette. He had made no noise. I had to wash his soiled body. I ran a bath. I kept the water in its hand warm and poured in some lemon-washing-up liquid. I returned and began to undress him. I took off his leather jacket, jersey, and T-shirt. Then his running shoes and socks. I had difficulty with his tight, wet jeans. He still sat there now, naked, in the armchair.
He had only urinated. He obviously had not had a square meal in a couple of days. I had not really known that his hair had been bleached until I had stripped him. I discovered that he had ginger pubic hair. Otherwise, his body was pale and hairless. He had crepe bandages on both forearms. I removed these to reveal deep, still-open, recent razor cuts.
He had very recently tried to commit suicide. His heart was stopped. He was very dead. I picked up his limp body into my arms and carried it into the bathroom. I put it into the half-filled bath. I washed the body. Putting my hands under his arms, I turned him over and washed the back of his body. I pulled him out. He was very slippery with all that soap. I sat him on the loo and toweled the body and his hair as best as I could.
I threw him over my shoulder and took him into the back room. I sat him on the white and blue dining chair. I sat down, took a cigarette and a drink and looked at him. His head hung back, with his mouth slightly open. His eyes were not quite closed. "'Steven,' I thought. "'You're another problem for me. What am I going to do with you? I've run out of room.'
To make switching to the new Boost Mobile risk-free, we're offering a 30-day money-back guarantee. So, why wouldn't you switch from Verizon or T-Mobile? Because you have nothing to lose. Boost Mobile is offering a 30-day money-back guarantee. No, I asked why wouldn't you switch from Verizon or T-Mobile. Oh. Wouldn't. Uh, because you love wasting money as a way to punish yourself because your mother never showed you enough love as a child? Whoa, easy there. Yeah.
applies to online activations, requires port in and auto pay. Customers activating in stores may be charged non-refundable activation fees.
This season, Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow. Let's face it, we were all that kid.
So, first, call your parents to say I'm sorry, and then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee with your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 in order, additional terms apply. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids...
i know first-hand 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
For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Everyone needs someone to talk to, even psychopaths, even your humble host. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp.
Visit BetterHelp.com slash SerialKiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash SerialKiller. I dismissed the future problem from my mind. I would cross that hurdle when I came to it. I laid him on top of the double bed. It must have been well into the next morning of 27 January.
"'I lay beside him and placed a large mirror at the end of the bed. "'I stripped my own tie, shirt, and grey cords off, "'and lay there, staring at both our naked bodies in the mirror. "'He looked paler than I did. "'Being ginger-haired, he would anyway. "'I put talcum powder on myself and lay down again. "'We looked similar now. "'I spoke to him, as if he were still alive. "'I was telling him how lucky he was to be out of it all.'
I thought how beautiful he looked and how beautiful I looked. He looked sexy, but I had no erection. He just looked fabulous. I just stared at us both in the mirror. Soon I felt tired. I got in between the sheets as I was starting to become cold. He still lay there beside me on top of the bedclothes.
I knew he would become cold very soon, and I did not want to feel his coldness actually in bed with me. The coldness, of course, has nothing endearing in it. Bleep came into the room and jumped up on the bed beside me. "'Come on, old girl, get your head down. Stephen is all right now. He's okay.'
She settled down at the end of the bed, stopping only to sniff once near Stephen's leg. She knew that the warm, friendly Stephen was no more, and ignored his body completely. I turned his head towards me and kissed him on the forehead. "'Good night, Stephen,' I said, switched off the bedside lights and went to sleep. I was up a few hours later. It was an ordinary day of work for me. I had—' Stephen was cold.
I carried him into the front room and laid him on the floor under a blanket. I straightened him, as I knew that rigor mortis would set in soon. End quote. In previous episodes, I have briefly mentioned how Dennis would cut up his victims in his old flat and burn their remains in his back garden.
In his old flat, he also had space under his floorboards where he stored several corpses before disposing of them in his backyard bonfire. However, I did not give much detail as to how Dennis went about disposing of the corpses. I will do so in this episode. Having corpses in his flat never bothered Dennis. It actually gave him a sense of company, and he rather enjoyed it.
He only disposed of the corpses when they became so putrid that the neighbors might notice. The apartment might be permanently damaged from the rotting flesh and fluids, and or he simply ran out of room. It took seven and a half months before he removed his first victim at 195 Melrose Avenue and dragged it out in his backyard. There he burned the body whole without first cutting it up.
His next two victims he laid out on his kitchen floor and dissected them into several parts using a meat knife. Then he placed the various body parts into various bags and stuffed two suitcases with those bags. Then he put the suitcases in his garden shed, which had originally been constructed for his dog Bleep.
By the end of 1980, Nilsen had six corpses on his hands, some in pieces in the garden shed and some under the floor. These he chose to dissect and burn. Again, he describes the process best himself. I quote,
I prized up the floorboards. I uncovered the body and took it by the ankles. I pulled it through the gap in the floor and along the floor into the kitchen onto a piece of plastic sheeting. There were other bodies and parts of bodies under the floor. I get ready a small bowl of water, a kitchen knife, some paper tissues, and plastic bags. I had had to have a couple of drinks before I could start.
I removed the vest and undershorts from the body. With the knife, I cut the head from the body. There was very little blood. I put the head in the kitchen sink, washed it, and put it in a carrier bag. Then I cut off the hands, then the feet. I washed them in the sink and dried them. I wrapped each one in paper toweling and put them in plastic carrier bags.
I made a cut from the body's navel to the breastbone. I removed all the intestines, stomach, kidneys and liver. I would break through the diaphragm and remove the heart and lungs. I put all these organs into a plastic carrier bag. I then separated the top half of the body from the bottom half. I removed the arms and then the legs below the knee. I put the parts in large black carrier bags.
I put the chest and ribcage in a large bag, and thigh-slash-buttock-slash-private parts, the latter of which was in one piece, in another. I stored the packages back under the floorboards. I would leave the bag with the entrails-slash-organs out. I uncovered the next body, which had been there longer. I pulled it out by the ankles on the kitchen floor. There were maggots on the surface of the body.
I poured salt on these and brushed them off. The body was a bit discoloured. I was violently sick. I drank a few more glasses of spirits and finished the job as with the other. Got a bit drunk that afternoon. The French windows were open and I had to go out every so often. I was naked to save soiling my clothes. After I replaced the packages under the floor, I had a bath.
To carry out these dissections, I only used a kitchen knife. No saws or power cutting tools. Afterwards, I would listen to music on the headphones and get really drunk, and perhaps take the dog out to Gladstone Park. End quote. The messiest part of the dissection, I do not have a direct quote from Nilsen on, but it concerned the removal of the internal organs.
This job involved liquids, and a smell worse than anything anyone could imagine. It was the smell of rotting flesh, feces and maggots. It was the smell of death. The disposal of this was easy at his first apartment at 195 Melrose. Here he could simply put the innards in the gap between the double fencing at the side of his garden.
within a day or two they would be completely gone having been devoured by insects and small animals however in his new place at cranley gardens he did not have a garden nor a garden shed nor a handy double fence or space under his floor boards there was no place he could build a bonfire
As such, the methods used to dispose of bodies there was even more repugnant than at 195 Melrose. The first victim, at Cranley Gardens, he placed in a wardrobe for a few days while he pondered what. He decided the safest course would be to dissect the body into very small pieces and flush it down the lavatory.
He carried the body into the bathroom and carried out the dissection in the bath itself. First he opened the stomach area and concentrated on the organs, chopping them on a cutting board into small two-inch pieces and putting them down the lavatory in loads of about half a pound in weight each time. At this rate it threatened to be a long and laborious business.
So he began cutting off large pieces, which he boiled on the kitchen stove to make them disintegrate. The boiling could continue while he dealt with further dissection. The head was boiled in the large cooking pot, followed by hands and feet, and the ribs cut from the body one by one.
Once boiled free of flesh, the bones were separated into smaller fragments and simply thrown in the dustbin, to be removed in the normal way by council's refuse collectors. Meanwhile, flesh, hair and organs were sent down into the sewage. Nilsen was then left with some large bones which still had some flesh attached.
The shoulder blades he hurled over the common back garden fence into a waste ground, while the skull, arm bones, leg bones and pelvis he placed in several bags, sprinkled with a large amount of salt, in the tea chest in the corner of the room. He packed the tea chest with material and covered it with the red curtain he had salvaged from Melrose Avenue.
There it remained until police removed the tea chest and its contents eleven months later. The two other victims at Cranley Gardens were butchered in a very similar fashion. Stephen Sinclair was in the process of being cut up and dissected when Nilsen was arrested on the 9th of February, 1983.
dismemberment had not proceeded very far and police were able to assemble the parts so that he could get a proper burial.
Until your ultimate demise. What if we just say forever? Okay. $25 a month forever. Get unlimited talk, text, and data for just $25 a month with Boost Mobile forever. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan. Need new glasses or want a fresh new style? Warby Parker has you covered. Glasses start at just $95, including anti-reflective, scratch-resistant prescription lenses that block 100% of UV rays.
Every frame's designed in-house with a huge selection of styles for every face shape. And with Warby Parker's free home try-on program, you can order five pairs to try at home for free. Shipping is free both ways too. Go to warbyparker.com slash covered to try five pairs of frames at home for free. warbyparker.com slash covered.
At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.
And so ends part six in the saga of Dennis Nilsson. Next week I will bring you episode 106 and part seven in this ongoing expose of a true serial killer superstar. In it, I will cover Dennis Nilsson's arrest and trial. 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, as always, like to thank in person.
These patrons are my 19 most loyal patrons. Many of them have contributed for at least the last 41 episodes, and their names are Maud, Amber, Cassandra, Christina, Claudette, Cody, Evan, Jennifer, Jill, Kathy, Lisa, Lisbeth, Mark, Mickey, Phillip,
PJ, Sam, and Troy. You really helped produce this show and you have my deepest gratitude. Thank you. If you wish to join this exclusive club of TSK producers, go to theserialkillerpodcast.com slash donate and pledge $15 or more to have your name read live on this show. Thank you. Good night.
And good luck.