Dennis Nilsen - Conversations with Britain's most evil serial killer

Product Information

Noting conflicting details in accounts given by both men, police had dismissed the incident as a lovers' quarrel.

On 26 January 1993 Judge William Aldous ruled in Central's favour, and the same day, three appeal court judges, Sir Thomas Bingham, Master of the Rolls; Lord Justice McCowan; and Lord Justice Hirst upheld his decision. In January 2021, a former confidant of Nilsen's named Mark Austin revealed that an edited version of The History of a Drowning Boy was to be posthumously published by RedDoor Press. The families of Dennis Nilsen’s victims feel the killer is “laughing at them from beyond the grave”. All the bodies of the victims killed at Melrose Avenue were dismembered after several weeks or months of interment beneath the floorboards. In one of these statements, Nilsen had said: "I have no tears for my victims; I have no tears for myself, nor those bereaved by my actions".As a result, he was an unpopular inmate with successive governors at the various prisons in which he was incarcerated. One bereaved relative said it was as if Nilsen is “still laughing at us from beyond the grave”, while the sister of survivor Carl Stottor suggested the book was “morally wrong”. Several items confiscated from Nilsen's Cranley Gardens address—some of which had been introduced as evidence at Nilsen's trial—are on display at New Scotland Yard's Crime Museum. Prior to Nilsen's trial, Bowden had interviewed the defendant on sixteen separate occasions in interviews totalling over fourteen hours. Immediately after the testimony of Nobbs had concluded, Carl Stottor took the stand to recount how, in May 1982, Nilsen had attempted to strangle and drown him, before bringing him "back to life".

All of Nilsen's murders were committed at the two North London addresses where he lived between 1978 and 1983. The body was usually dressed in socks and underpants, before Nilsen draped the victims around him as he talked to the corpse. Because many of the boys to whom he was attracted had facial features similar to those of his younger sister, Sylvia, on one occasion he sexually fondled her, believing that his attraction towards boys might be a manifestation of the care he felt for her.

Nilsen invited Holmes to his house with the promise of the two drinking alcohol and listening to music, [63] believing him to be approximately 17 years old. Duffey's body was first placed upon a kitchen chair, then upon the bed on which he had been strangled. What this book offers, though, is an insight into how those killings are comprehended and understood by the killer in retrospect. An excellent foreword by criminologist Dr Mark Pettigrew offers some context to Nilsen's words, and this important work provides an extraordinary journey through the life of a remarkable and inadequate man. Upon cross-examination, Green largely focused upon the degree of awareness shown by Nilsen and his ability to make decisions.

DCI Jay then recounted the circumstances of Nilsen's arrest and his "calm, matter-of-fact" confessions, before reading to the court several statements volunteered by Nilsen following his arrest. The evidence provided by Stottor was not included as part of the indictment against Nilsen as his whereabouts were not known until after the indictment had been completed. A four-minute section of this interview, in which Nilsen frankly discussed his crimes, was initially scheduled to be broadcast on 19 January 1993; the Home Office sought to ban the interview from being broadcast [168] on the grounds that they had not granted permission for Central to conduct interviews with Nilsen which were later broadcast to the public, and claimed ownership of copyrighted material.Nilsen was adamant that he was uncertain as to why he had killed, simply saying, "I'm hoping you will tell me that" when asked his motive for the murders.

In a tactful reference to the primary dispute between opposing counsel at the trial, Green closed his opening speech with an answer Nilsen had given to police in response to a question as to whether he needed to kill: "At the precise moment of the act [of murder], I believe I am right in doing the act". The prosecution counsel opened the case for the Crown by describing the events of February 1983 leading to the identification of human remains in the drains at Cranley Gardens and Nilsen's subsequent arrest, the discovery of three dismembered bodies in his property, his detailed confession, his leading investigators to the charred bone fragments of twelve further victims killed at Melrose Avenue, and the efforts he had taken to conceal his crimes. To Nilsen, this ruse created the ideal circumstance in which he could visually "split" his personality: in these masturbatory fantasies, Nilsen alternately envisaged himself as being both the domineering and the passive partner. Nilsen manually strangled Barlow as he slept, before stowing his body beneath his kitchen sink the following morning.Nilsen did not lodge an appeal, accepting that the Crown's case—that he had had the capacity to control his actions and that he had killed with premeditation—was essentially correct. Within weeks, Nilsen began to excel in his army duties; he later described his three years of training at Aldershot as "the happiest of my life". In protest at having to wear a prison uniform and what he interpreted to be breaches of prison rules, Nilsen threatened to protest against his remand conditions by refusing to wear any clothes; as a result of this threat, he was not allowed to leave his cell. That evening, Detective Superintendent Chambers accompanied DCI Jay and Bowen to Cranley Gardens, where the plastic bags were removed from the wardrobe and taken to Hornsey mortuary.