Dennis Andrew Nilsen (23 November 1945 – 12 May 2018) was a Scottish serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys between 1978 and 1983. Convicted at the Old Bailey of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years; this recommendation was later changed to a whole life tariff in December 1994. In his later years, Nilsen was imprisoned at HM Prison Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
All of Nilsen's murders were committed at the two north
London addresses where he lived between 1978 and 1983. His victims would be
lured to these addresses through deception and killed by strangulation,
sometimes accompanied by drowning. Following each murder, Nilsen would perform
a ritual in which he bathed and dressed the victim's body, which he retained
for extended periods of time, before dissecting and disposing of the remains by
burning them in a bonfire or flushing them down a toilet.
Nilsen became known as the Muswell Hill Murderer, as he
committed his later murders in the Muswell Hill district of north London. He
died at York Hospital on 12 May 2018 of a pulmonary embolism and a
retroperitoneal hemorrhage, which occurred following surgery to repair an
abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Early life
Childhood
Dennis Andrew Nilsen was born on 23 November 1945 in
Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, the second of three children born to Elizabeth
Duthie Whyte and Olav Magnus Moksheim (who had adopted the surname Nilsen).
Moksheim was a Norwegian soldier who had travelled to Scotland in 1940 as part
of the Free Norwegian Forces following the German occupation of Norway. After a
brief courtship, he married Elizabeth Whyte in May 1942. The newlyweds moved
into her parents' house.
The marriage between Nilsen's parents was difficult. His
father did not view married life with any seriousness, being preoccupied with
his duties with the Free Norwegian Forces and making little attempt to spend
much time with or find a new home for his wife. After the birth of her third
child, Nilsen's mother concluded she had "rushed
into marriage without thinking". The couple divorced in 1948. All
three of the couple's children — Olav Jr., Dennis and Sylvia — had been
conceived on their father's brief visits to their mother's household. Her
parents, Andrew and Lily (née Duthie) Whyte — who had never approved of their
daughter's choice of husband — were supportive of their daughter following her
divorce and considerate of their grandchildren.
Nilsen was a quiet yet adventurous child. His earliest
memories were of family picnics in the Scottish countryside with his mother and
siblings, of his grandparents' pious lifestyle (which he later described as "cold and dour"), and of being
taken on long countryside walks carried on the shoulders of his maternal
grandfather, to whom he was particularly close. Olav Jr. and Sylvia
occasionally accompanied Nilsen and his grandfather on these walks. Despite
only being five years old, Nilsen vividly recalled these walks as being "very long ... along the harbor, across
the wide stretch of beach, up to the sand-dunes, which rise thirty feet behind
the beach ... and on to Inverallochy". He later described this stage
of his childhood as one of contentment, and his grandfather being his "great hero and protector",
adding that whenever his grandfather (who was a fisherman) was at sea, "life would be empty [for me] until he
returned."
By 1951, Nilsen's grandfather's health was in decline, but
he continued to work. On 31 October 1951, while fishing in the North Sea, he
died of a heart attack at the age of 62. His body was brought ashore and
returned to the Whyte family home prior to burial. In what Nilsen later
described as his most vivid childhood recollection, his mother, weeping, asked
him whether he wanted to see his grandfather. When he replied that he did, he
was taken into the room where his grandfather lay in an open coffin. As Nilsen
gazed upon the body, his mother told him his grandfather was sleeping, adding
that he had "gone to a better
place".
In the years following the death of his grandfather, Nilsen
became more quiet and withdrawn, often standing alone at the harbor watching
the herring boats. At home, he seldom participated in family activities and
retreated from any attempts by adult family members to demonstrate affection
towards him. Nilsen grew to resent what he saw as the unfair amount of
attention his mother, grandmother and, later, stepfather displayed towards his
older brother and younger sister. Nilsen envied Olav Jr.'s popularity. He often
talked to or played games with his younger sister Sylvia, to whom he was closer
than any other family member following his grandfather's passing.
On one of his solo excursions to the beach at Inverallochy,
in 1954 or 1955, Nilsen became submerged beneath the water and was almost
dragged out to sea. He initially panicked, flailing his arms and shouting. As
he "gasped for air which wasn't
there", he recalled believing that his grandfather was about to arrive
and pull him out before experiencing a sense of tranquility. His life was saved
by another youth who dragged him ashore. Shortly after this incident, Nilsen's
mother moved out of his grandparents' home and into a flat with her three
children. She later married a builder named Andrew Scott, with whom she had
four more children in as many years. Although Nilsen initially resented his
stepfather (whom he viewed as an unfair disciplinarian) he gradually came to
grudgingly respect him. The family moved to Strichen in 1955.
At the onset of puberty, Nilsen discovered he was gay, which
initially confused and shamed him. He kept his sexuality hidden from his family
and his few friends. 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 made no efforts to seek
sexual contact with any of the peers to whom he was sexually attracted,
although he later said he had been fondled by an older youth and did not find
the experience unpleasant. On one occasion, he also caressed and fondled the
body of his older brother as he slept. As a result of this, Olav Jr. began to
suspect his brother was gay and regularly belittled him in public — referring
to him as "hen" (Scottish
slang for "girl"). Nilsen initially believed that his
fondling of his sister may have been evidence that he was bisexual.
As Nilsen progressed into adolescence, he found life in
Strichen increasingly stifling, with limited entertainment amenities or career
opportunities. He respected his parents' efforts to provide and care for their
children, but began to resent the fact that his family was poorer than most of
his peers, with his mother and stepfather making no effort to better their
lifestyles; thus, Nilsen seldom invited his friends to the family home. At the
age of 14, he joined the Army Cadet Force, viewing the British Army as a
potential avenue for escaping his rural origins.
Army service
Nilsen's scholastic record was above average. He displayed a
flair for history and art, but shunned sports. He finished his schooling in
1961 and briefly worked in a canning factory as he considered which career path
he should choose. After three weeks at the factory, Nilsen informed his mother
that he intended to join the army and receive training as a chef. Nilsen passed
the entrance examinations and received official notification he was to enlist
for nine years' service in September 1961, commencing his training with the
Army Catering Corps at St. Omer Barracks in Aldershot, Hampshire. 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". He relished the travel opportunities afforded
him in his training, and recalled as a highlight his regiment taking part in a
ceremonial parade attended by both the Queen and Field Marshal Lord Montgomery
of Alamein.
While stationed at Aldershot, Nilsen's latent feelings began
to stir, but he kept his sexual orientation well hidden from his colleagues.
Nilsen never showered in the company of his fellow soldiers for fear of
developing an erection in their presence; instead opting to bathe alone in the
bathroom, which also afforded him the privacy to masturbate without discovery.
In mid-1964, Nilsen passed his initial catering exam and was
officially assigned to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers in Osnabrück,
West Germany, where he served as a private. In this deployment, Nilsen began to
increase his intake of alcohol. He described himself and his colleagues as a "hard-working, boozy lot"; his colleagues
recalled he often drank to excess in order to ease his shyness. On one
occasion, Nilsen and a German youth drank themselves into a stupor. When Nilsen
awoke, he found himself on the floor of the German youth's flat. No sexual
activity had occurred, but this incident fuelled Nilsen's sexual fantasies,
which initially involved his sexual partner — invariably a young, slender male
— being completely passive. These fantasies gradually evolved into his partner
being unconscious or dead. On several occasions, Nilsen also made tentative
efforts to have his own prone body sexually interfered with by one of his
colleagues. In these instances, whenever he and his colleagues drank to excess,
Nilsen would pretend he was inebriated in the hope one of his colleagues would
make sexual use of his supposedly unconscious body.
Following two years of service in Osnabrück, Nilsen returned
to Aldershot, where he passed his official catering exam before being deployed
to serve as a cook for the British Army in Norway. In 1967, he was deployed to
the State of Aden (formerly Aden Colony, now part of Yemen), where he again
served as a cook at the Al Mansoura Prison. This posting was more dangerous
than his previous postings in West Germany or Norway, and Nilsen later recalled
his regiment losing several men, often in ambushes en route to the army
barracks. Nilsen was kidnapped by an Arab taxi driver, who beat him unconscious
and placed him in the boot of his car. Upon being dragged out of the boot,
Nilsen grabbed a jack-handle and knocked the taxi driver to the ground before
beating him unconscious. He then locked the man in the boot of the taxi.
Unlike his previous postings, Nilsen had his own room while
stationed in Aden. This afforded him the privacy to masturbate without discovery.
His developed fantasies of sex with an unresistant or deceased partner
unfulfilled, Nilsen compensated by imagining sexual encounters with an
unconscious body as he masturbated while looking at his own prone, nude body in
a mirror. On one occasion, Nilsen discovered that, by using a free-standing
mirror, he could create an effect whereby if positioning the mirror so his head
was out of view, he could visualize himself engaged in a sexual act with
another man. 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. These fantasies
gradually evolved to incorporate his own near-death experience with the Arab
taxi driver; the dead bodies he had seen in Aden; and imagery within a
19th-century oil painting entitled The Raft of the Medusa, which depicts an old
man holding the limp, nude body of a dead youth as he sits aside the dismembered
body of another young male. In Nilsen's most vividly recalled fantasy, a
slender, attractive young blond soldier who had been recently killed in battle
is dominated by a faceless "dirty,
grey-haired old man" who washed this body before engaging in
intercourse with the spread-eagled corpse.
When Nilsen completed his deployment in Aden, he returned to
the UK and was assigned to serve with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at
Seaton Barracks in Plymouth, Devon. Throughout his service with this regiment,
he was required to cook for thirty soldiers and two officers on a daily basis.
Nilsen served at these barracks for one year before being transferred with the
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to Cyprus in 1969. Months later, the regiment
was transferred to West Berlin, where, the same year, Nilsen had his first
sexual experience with a woman: a prostitute whose services he solicited. He
bragged of this sexual encounter to his colleagues, but later stated he found
intercourse with a female both "over-rated"
and "depressing".
Following a brief period with the Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders in Inverness, Nilsen was selected to cook for the Queen's Royal
Guard before, in January 1971, being reassigned to serve as a cook for a
different regiment in the Shetland Islands, where he ended his 11-year military
career at the rank of corporal in October 1972.
Between October and December 1972, Nilsen lived with his
family as he considered his next career move. On more than one occasion in the
three months Nilsen lived in Strichen, his mother voiced her opinion as to her
being more concerned with his lack of female companionship than his career
path, and of her desire to see him marry and start a family. On one occasion,
Nilsen joined his older brother Olav Jr., his sister-in-law, and another couple
to watch a documentary about gay men. All present viewed the topic with
derision, except Nilsen, who ardently spoke in defense of gay rights. A fight
ensued, after which Olav Jr. informed his mother that Nilsen was gay. Nilsen never
spoke to his older brother again, and maintained only sporadic written contact
with his mother, stepfather, and younger siblings. He decided to join the Metropolitan
Police, and moved to London in December to begin the training course.
Move to London
Employment
In April 1973, Nilsen completed his police training and was
posted to Willesden Green. Still a cadet and junior constable, he performed
several arrests but never had to physically subdue a member of the public.
Nilsen enjoyed the work, but missed the comradeship of the army. He began to
drink alone in the evenings. During the summer and autumn of 1973, Nilsen began
frequenting gay pubs and engaged in several casual liaisons with men. He viewed
these encounters as "soul-destroying"
liaisons in which he "would only
lend" his partner his body in a "vain
search for inner peace" as he sought a lasting relationship. In
August, following a failed relationship, Nilsen came to the conclusion that his
personal lifestyle was at odds with his job. His birth father died in Ghana the
same month, leaving each of his three children £1,000 (the equivalent of about
£10,600 as of 2025). In December, Nilsen resigned from the police.
Between December 1973 and May 1974, Nilsen worked as a
security guard. The work was intermittent, and he resolved to find more stable,
secure employment. He found work as a civil servant in May 1974. Nilsen was
initially posted to a Jobcentre in Denmark Street, where his primary role was
to find employment for unskilled laborers. At his workplace, Nilsen was known
to be a quiet, conscientious employee who was active in the trade union
movement. His attendance record was mediocre, although he frequently
volunteered to work overtime, leading several colleagues to suspect he was
something of a loner. In 1979, Nilsen was appointed acting executive officer.
He was officially promoted to the position of executive officer, with
additional supervisory responsibilities, in June 1982, and transferred to
another Jobcentre in Kentish Town, continuing in this job until his arrest.
Melrose Avenue
In November 1975, Nilsen encountered a 20-year-old man named
David Gallichan being threatened outside a pub by two other men. Nilsen
intervened in the altercation and took Gallichan to his room at 80 Teignmouth
Road in the Cricklewood district of north London. The two men spent the evening
drinking and talking; Nilsen learned that Gallichan had recently moved to
London from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, was gay, unemployed, and residing in a
hostel. The following morning, both men agreed to live together in a larger
residence and Nilsen — using part of the inheritance bequeathed to him by his
father — immediately resolved to find a larger property. Several days later,
the pair viewed a vacant ground floor flat at 195 Melrose Avenue, also in
Cricklewood, and they decided to move into the property. Prior to moving into
Melrose Avenue, Nilsen negotiated a deal with the landlord whereby he and
Gallichan had exclusive use of the garden at the rear of the property.
The Melrose Avenue flat was supposed to be furnished, but
upon moving in the pair found it to be largely threadbare. Over the following
months, the couple redecorated and furnished the entire flat. Much of this work
was performed by Gallichan, as Nilsen — having discovered Gallichan's lack of
employment ambitions — began to view himself as the breadwinner in their
relationship. Nilsen later recollected that he was sexually attracted to
Gallichan, but the pair seldom had intercourse.
Initially, Nilsen experienced domestic contentment with
Gallichan, but within a year of their moving to Melrose Avenue, the superficial
relationship between the two men began to show signs of strain. They slept in
separate beds, and both began to bring home casual sexual partners. Gallichan
later insisted Nilsen had never been physically violent towards him, but that
he did engage in verbal abuse, and the pair had begun arguing with increasing
frequency by early 1976. Nilsen later stated that, following a heated argument
in May 1977, he demanded Gallichan leave the residence. (Gallichan later
informed investigators that he had chosen to end the relationship.)
Nilsen formed brief relationships with several other young
men over the following eighteen months; none of these relationships lasted more
than a few weeks, and none of the men expressed any intention of living with
him on a permanent basis. By late 1978, he was living a solitary existence; he
had experienced at least three failed relationships in the previous eighteen
months, and he later confessed to having developed an increasing conviction
that he was unfit to live with. Throughout 1978, he devoted an ever-increasing
amount of his time, effort, and assiduity to his work, and he spent most
evenings consuming spirits and/or lager as he listened to music.
Murders
Between 1978 and 1983, Nilsen is known to have killed a
minimum of twelve men and boys, and to have attempted to kill seven others (he
initially confessed in 1983 to having killed about sixteen victims). The
majority of Nilsen's victims were homeless or gay men; others were heterosexual
people he typically met in bars, on public transport or — on one occasion —
outside his own home. All of Nilsen's murders were committed inside the two
north London addresses where he resided in the years he is known to have
killed. His victims were lured to these addresses through guile — typically the
offer of alcohol and/or shelter.
Inside Nilsen's home, the victims were usually given food
and alcohol, then strangled — typically with a ligature — either to death or
until they had become unconscious. If the victim had been strangled into
unconsciousness, Nilsen then drowned him in his bathtub, his sink, or a bucket
of water before observing a ritual in which he bathed, clothed, and retained
the bodies inside his residences for several weeks or, occasionally, months
before he dismembered them. Each victim killed between 1978 and 1981 at his Cricklewood
residence was disposed of via burning upon a bonfire. Prior to their
dissection, Nilsen removed their internal organs, which he disposed of either
beside a fence behind his flat or close to Gladstone Park. The victims killed
in 1982 and 1983 at his Muswell Hill residence was retained at his flat, with
their flesh and smaller bones flushed down the lavatory.
Nilsen admitted to engaging in masturbation as he viewed the
nude bodies of several of his victims, and to have engaged in sexual acts with
six of his victims' bodies, but was adamant that he had never penetrated any of
his victims.
195 Melrose Avenue
Nilsen killed his first victim, 14-year-old Stephen Holmes,
on 30 December 1978. Holmes encountered Nilsen in the Cricklewood Arms pub,
where Holmes had unsuccessfully attempted to purchase alcohol. According to
Nilsen, he had been drinking heavily alone on the day he met Holmes before
deciding in the evening that he must "at all costs" leave his flat and
seek company. Nilsen invited Holmes to his house with the promise of the two
drinking alcohol and listening to music, believing him to be approximately 17
years old. At Nilsen's home, both he and Holmes drank heavily before they fell
asleep. The following morning, Nilsen awoke to find the sleeping Holmes beside
him on his bed. In his subsequent written confessions, Nilsen stated he was "afraid to wake him in case he left
me". After caressing the sleeping youth, Nilsen decided Holmes was to "stay with me over the New Year whether
he wanted to or not". Reaching for a necktie, Nilsen straddled Holmes
as he strangled him into unconsciousness, before drowning the teenager in a
bucket filled with water. Nilsen then washed the body in his bathtub before
placing Holmes on his bed and caressing his body. He twice masturbated over the
body, before awaiting the passing of rigor mortis to enable him to stow the corpse
beneath his floorboards. Holmes' bound corpse remained beneath the floorboards
for almost eight months, before Nilsen built a bonfire in the garden behind his
flat and burned the body on 11 August 1979.
"I eased him into
his new bed [beneath the floorboards] ... A week later, I wondered whether his
body had changed at all or had started to decompose. I disinterred him and
pulled the dirt-stained youth up onto the floor. His skin was very dirty. I stripped
myself naked and carried him into the bathroom and washed the body. There was
practically no discoloration and his skin was pale white. His limbs were more
relaxed than when I had put him down there."
Reflecting on his killing spree in 1983, Nilsen stated that,
having killed Holmes, "I caused
dreams which caused death ... this is my crime", adding that he had "started down the avenue of death and
possession of a new kind of flatmate".
On 11 October 1979, Nilsen attempted to murder a student
from Hong Kong named Andrew Ho, whom he had met in a St Martin's Lane pub and
lured to his flat on the promise of sex. Nilsen attempted to strangle Ho, who managed
to flee from his flat and reported the incident to police. Nilsen was
questioned in relation to the incident, but Ho decided not to press charges.
Two months after the attempted murder of Ho, on 3 December
1979, Nilsen encountered a 23-year-old Canadian student named Kenneth Ockenden,
who had been on a tour of England visiting relatives. Nilsen encountered
Ockenden as they both drank in a West End pub. Upon learning the young man was
a tourist, Nilsen offered to show Ockenden several London landmarks, an offer
which Ockenden accepted. Nilsen then invited the student to his house on the
promise of a meal and further drinks. The pair stopped at an off licence en
route to Nilsen's residence and purchased whisky, rum, and beer, with Ockenden
insisting on sharing the bill. Nilsen was adamant he could not recall the
precise moment he strangled Ockenden, but recalled that he strangled the young
man with the cord of his (Nilsen's) headphones as Ockenden listened to music.
He also recalled dragging Ockenden across his floor with the wire wrapped
around his neck as he strangled him, before pouring himself half a glass of rum
and continuing to listen to music on the headphones with which he had strangled
Ockenden.
The following day, Nilsen purchased a Polaroid camera and
photographed Ockenden's body in various suggestive positions. He then laid
Ockenden's corpse spread-eagled above him on his bed as he watched television
for several hours before wrapping the body in plastic bags and stowing the
corpse beneath the floorboards. On approximately four occasions over the
following fortnight, Nilsen disinterred Ockenden's body from beneath his
floorboards and seated the body upon his armchair alongside him as he himself
watched television and drank alcohol.
Nilsen killed his third victim, 16-year-old Martyn Duffey,
on 17 May 1980. Duffey was a catering student from Birkenhead, Merseyside, who
had hitchhiked to London without his parents' knowledge on 13 May after being
questioned by the British Transport Police for evading his train fare. For four
days, Duffey had slept rough near Euston railway station before Nilsen
encountered the youth as he returned from a union conference in Southport.
Duffey, Nilsen recollected, was both exhausted and hungry, and happily accepted
Nilsen's offer of a meal and a bed for the evening. After the youth had fallen
asleep in Nilsen's bed, Nilsen fashioned a ligature around his neck, then
simultaneously sat on Duffey's chest and tightened the ligature with a "great force". Nilsen held
this grip until Duffey became unconscious; he then dragged the youth into his
kitchen and drowned him in his sink before bathing with the body — which he
recollected as being "the
youngest-looking I had ever seen."
Duffey's body was first placed upon a kitchen chair, then
upon the bed on which he had been strangled. The body was repeatedly kissed,
complimented, and caressed by Nilsen, both before and after he had masturbated
while sitting upon the stomach of the corpse. For two days, Duffey's body was
stowed in a cupboard, before Nilsen noted signs of bloating; therefore, "he went straight under the
floorboards".
Following Duffey's murder, Nilsen began to kill with
increasing frequency. Before the end of 1980, he killed a further five victims
and attempted to murder one other; only one of these victims whom Nilsen
murdered, 26-year-old William Sutherland, has ever been identified. Nilsen's
recollections of the unidentified victims were vague, but he graphically recalled
how each victim had been murdered and just how long the body had been retained
before dissection. One unidentified victim killed in November had moved his
legs in a cycling motion as he was strangled (Nilsen is known to have absented
himself from work between 11 and 18 November, likely due to this particular
murder); another unidentified victim Nilsen had unsuccessfully attempted to
resuscitate, before sinking to his knees and sobbing, then spitting at his own
image as he looked at himself in the mirror. On another occasion, he had lain
in bed alongside the body of an unidentified victim as he listened to the
classical theme Fanfare for the Common Man before bursting into tears.
Inevitably, the accumulated bodies beneath Nilsen's
floorboards attracted insects and created a foul odour — particularly
throughout summer months. On occasions when Nilsen disinterred victims from
beneath the floorboards, he noted that the bodies were covered with pupae and
infested with maggots; some victims' heads had maggots crawling out of eye
sockets and mouths. He placed deodorants beneath the floorboards and sprayed
insecticide about the flat twice daily, but the odor of decay and the presence
of flies remained.
In late 1980, Nilsen removed and dissected the bodies of
each victim killed since December 1979 and burned them upon a communal bonfire
he had constructed on waste ground behind his flat. To disguise the smell of
the burning flesh of the six dissected bodies placed upon this pyre, Nilsen
crowned the bonfire with an old car tire. Three neighborhood children stood to
watch this particular bonfire, and Nilsen later wrote in his memoirs that he
felt it would have seemed "in
order" if he had seen these three children "dancing around a mass funeral pyre". When the bonfire
had been reduced to ashes and cinders, Nilsen used a rake to search the debris
for any recognizable bones. Noting a skull was still intact, he smashed it to
pieces with his rake.
"I could only
relate to a dead image of the person I could love. The image of my dead
grandfather would be the model of him at his most striking in my mind. It seems
necessary for them to have been dead in order that I could express those
feelings which were the feelings I held sacred for my grandfather ... it was a
pseudo-sexual, infantile love which had not yet developed and matured. The
sight of them [my victims] brought me a bitter sweetness and a temporary peace
and fulfilment."
On or about 4 January 1981, Nilsen encountered an
unidentified man whom he described to investigators as an "18-year-old, blue-eyed" young Scot at the Golden Lion
pub in Soho; he was lured to Melrose Avenue upon the promise of partaking in a
drinking contest. After Nilsen and this victim had consumed several beverages,
Nilsen strangled him with a tie and subsequently placed the body beneath the
floorboards. Nilsen is known to have informed his employers he was ill and
unable to attend work on 12 January in order that he could dissect both this
victim and another unidentified victim he had killed approximately one month
earlier. By April, Nilsen had killed two further unidentified victims: one of
whom he described as an English skinhead whom he had met in Leicester Square;
the other he described as "Belfast
boy"; a man in his early 20s, approximately 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) height,
whom he had murdered sometime in February. In relation to the first of these
three unidentified victims, he later casually reflected: "End of the day, end of the drink, end of a person ... floorboards
back, carpet replaced, and back to work at Denmark Street". The
following month, Nilsen removed the internal organs of several victims stowed
beneath his floorboards. He discarded these innards both upon the waste ground
behind his flat, and in his household rubbish.
The final victim to be murdered at Melrose Avenue was
23-year-old Malcolm Barlow, whom Nilsen discovered slumped against a wall
outside his home on 17 September 1981. When Nilsen enquired as to Barlow's
welfare, he was informed the medication Barlow was prescribed for his epilepsy
had caused his legs to weaken. Nilsen suggested that Barlow should be in
hospital and, supporting him, walked him into his residence before phoning for
an ambulance. The following day, Barlow was released from hospital and returned
to Nilsen's home, apparently to thank him. He was invited in and, after eating
a meal, began drinking rum and coke before falling asleep on the sofa. Nilsen
manually strangled Barlow as he slept, before stowing his body beneath his
kitchen sink the following morning.
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