(Dennis Nilsen. Picture credit: imdb)When some people talk about Dennis Nilsen, they often refer to him as the UK's version of Jeffrey Dahmer. There are similarities between the two but unlike Jeffrey, Dennis is often not spoken about as much or as over-glamourized. I've mentioned the crimes of Dennis Nilsen briefly on this blog in the past but I will be doing a more in-depth post on him soon. In the meantime, here is the sixth instalment in my '10 Facts You May Not Know About Serial Killer...' series and the focus is on UK serial killer, Dennis Andrew Nilsen.
1) Dennis was born on the 23rd of November 1945 in Fraserburgh, Scotland.
2) He was said to have been responsible for the gruesome murders of 15 men and boys, possibly more. As with a lot of serial killers, nobody can ever be 100% sure of the exact number of victims.
3) When it came to nicknames often given to serial killers by the media, Dennis was often referred to as 'The Muswell Hill Murderer' but is mostly just known by his real name, Dennis Nilsen.
4) Due to the fact that Nilsen committed his crimes in the UK and was a UK native, his sentence was not death but life imprisonment no matter how disturbing his crimes had been. The death penalty was suspended by the UK in 1964 and officially made illegal in 1998.
5) Nilsen died at the age of 72 due to complications following surgery on his abdominal area.
6) Nilsen's crimes were discovered when a local plumber was sent out to the property he was living in. The drains had been blocked due to the gruesome practice of Dennis flushing human remains down the toilet.
7) He had spent some time in the Army and trained as a chef.
8) He once worked in a Jobcentre as an employment advisor helping skilled labourers with employment opportunities.
9) Brian Masters wrote a very detailed book about his correspondence with Dennis Nilsen whilst he was in prison. You can find the book here. A TV series based on the book was also later released to critical acclaim with the brilliant David Tennant in the role as Nilsen.
10) Dennis had a dog that he doted on. After his arrest the police thought it would be best for the dog to be 'put to sleep' because they believed that nobody would want to adopt a dog that had previously been owned by a serial killer.
As mentioned before, I will be covering the disturbing case of Dennis Nilsen in more detail so stay tuned for that. I hope that you found this post to be an interesting read even though parts were disturbing.
RIP to the known victims of Dennis Nilsen. I know quite a bit about the case and I'm surprised myself that I haven't covered it yet. I know that there was also survivors of Nilsen, one unfortunately could never get over the horrific trauma that Dennis had put him through and the man sadly took his own life. I will talk all about that and more in my future post.
Further Reading & Sources:
- Killing For Company | Book by Brian Masters
- The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers | Book by Michael Newton
I hope you will join me next time for the final instalment in this series.
Stay safe, until next time x
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