Killers - The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time by Cawthorne Nigel

Author:Cawthorne, Nigel [Cawthorne, Nigel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: True Crime
Publisher: Summersdale
Published: 2007-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Dennis Nilsen

Name: Dennis Nilsen

Nationality: Scottish

Born: 1945

Number of victims: 6 killed

Favoured method of killing: strangulation

Reign of terror: 1978–83

Motive: kept the bodies of his victims

Final note: feels no remorse for his victims or their families

Dennis Nilsen was born in Fraserburgh, a small town on the bleak north-east coast of Scotland, on 23 November 1945. His father was a Norwegian soldier who had escaped to Scotland after the German invasion of his homeland in 1940 and married Betty Whyte, a local girl, in 1942. The marriage did not work out and Betty continued to live with her parents. A few years later, the marriage ended in divorce.

Dennis grew up with his mother, elder brother and younger sister, but the strongest influence on his young life were his stern and pious grandparents. Their Christian faith was so strict that they banned alcohol from the house, and the radio and the cinema were considered instruments of the Devil. Nilsen’s grandmother would not even cook on the Lord’s day and their Sunday dinner had to be prepared the day before.

As a boy Dennis Nilsen was sullen and intensely withdrawn. The only person who could penetrate his private world was his grandfather, Andrew Whyte. A fisherman, he was Nilsen’s hero. He would regale the little boy with tales of the sea and his ancestors lost beneath its churning waves.

When Andrew Whyte died of a heart attack at sea in 1951, he was brought home and laid out on the dining room table. Dennis was invited to come and see his granddad’s body. At the age of six, he got his first glimpse of a corpse. From that moment, the images of death and love fused in his mind.

He left school at 15 and joined the army. After basic training he was sent to the catering corps. There he was taught how to sharpen knives – and how to dissect a carcass. During his life in the army, Nilsen only had one close friend, who he would persuade to pose for photographs, sprawled on the ground as if he had just been killed in battle.

One night in Aden, Nilsen was drunk and fell asleep in the back of a cab. When he awoke he found himself naked, locked in the boot. When the Arab cab driver returned, Nilsen played dead. Then as the driver man-handled him out of the boot, Nilsen grabbed a jack handle and beat him around the head. Nilsen never knew whether he had killed the man or not. But the incident had a profound effect on him. Afterwards he had nightmares of being raped, tortured and mutilated.

After 11 years in the army, Nilsen left and joined the police force. His training included a mortuary visit, where recently qualified constables were initiated in the gruesome habit of viewing the dead. But Nilsen was not repelled. He found the partially dissected corpses fascinating.

Nilsen did well in the police, but his private life was gradually disintegrating. Death became an obsession. He would pretend to be a

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