Dennis Nilsen - Conversations with Britain's Most Evil Serial Killer

T
he above lines were written to me in 2003 from HMP Full Sutton, Yorkshire, by Dennis Nilsen, one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers. I had found myself exchanging letters with Nilsen while researching a magazine article about a half-written autobiography he wanted to have published. During our lengthy correspondence, prisoner B62006 would try to persuade me of new insights he had into his former behaviour. He wrote fluently and logically, interspersing his answers with personable comments. Sometimes, in fact, he presented himself so reasonably I had to remind myself what he had done.

Between 1978 and 1983, Dennis Andrew Nilsen murdered up to 15 young men. He met them in West End bars and then invited them back to his suburban London flat for further
drinking and, possibly, sex. As they slept, he strangled them. The next morning, he would talk to the bodies. Once out of the flat, however, he would revert to his ‘ordinary’ self – quiet, neat and devoted to his pet dog.

It was this ability to act perfectly normally between the killings that enabled Nilsen to carry on killing for so long. During just over four years of murder, his colleagues at the Job Centre never noticed anything particularly alarming. They simply considered him to be shy and dull. There were some occasions, however, when his demeanour became a little unsettling. He could lose his temper quickly or become overbearing if the conversation turned to politics. On those occasions, even those who had tried to befriend him were struck by his intensity.

Nilsen was arrested on 9 February 1983, when fragments of human flesh blocking the drains of number 23 Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, were traced back to his flat. Inside, the police found the remains of three young men. The small, attic flat stank of death and neglect. The windows were flung open to disperse the smell. One detective had to hang back by the door to avoid being sick.

Nilsen’s manner was as surreal as the state of his flat. Quite nonchalantly, he confessed to being Britain’s most prolific serial killer. He spoke calmly and continuously, explaining that many of his victims had been runaways whom he now wanted to help identify. The police interrogations were as bizarre as they were disturbing.

When the press reported the contents of Nilsen’s confessions, these revelations sent a communal shiver up the nation’s spine. But for some of the psychiatrists who worked on the case,
Nilsen’s behaviour in interviews made words like ‘mad’ and ‘bad’ seem utterly inadequate. They believed that his actions stemmed from extremely complex personality problems.

Many years later, academics and other writers would also attempt explanations of what had gone on. In March 2012, one psychologist who knows Nilsen well, Matthew Malekos, published a controversial 300-page thesis that invited readers to consider whether, in prison, the killer may have actually psychologically ‘recovered’.

But, even if that were so, recovered from what? He hadn’t been deemed to be insane, so what was he? What were his drives and motives? Did he really have an emotional disorder or was he simply a psychopath? The title of one successful book on the case,
Killing for Company
, suggested Nilsen seemed, in part, to want companionship from his victims. Newer theories appear in TV documentaries every couple of years.

Part of this interest is just macabre fascination. But there is also the fact that so many of the details derive from the killer himself. Even before his trial, Nilsen wrote hundreds of essays in which he attempted to comprehend his psychology. During 30 subsequent years in prison, Nilsen has continued to attempt a dialogue with the outside world.

Part of his motivation is undoubtedly self-publicity. But might there also be more to it? Nilsen’s autobiography, after all,
seems
to show some real desire to understand his killing urges. It is now several thousand pages long and has been seen by only four people, including me. For years, Nilsen dreamed of having it published.

His ambitions were quashed in the late nineties when the
prison authorities realised what he was up to. The working draft,
History of a Drowning Boy
, was confiscated. In the years that followed, Nilsen used legal aid to take the prison service to court to get his book back so that he could finish it. In 2011, the
Daily Record
estimated that his trips to the courts had probably cost the tax payer £65,000.

I first contacted Nilsen after reading a newspaper article about his manuscript. Like many journalists who have written to him, I was on a routine search for stories. He responded quickly and, soon, his letters became a regular fixture in my life. I had, initially, expected to find corresponding with him disturbing in an immediate way. But Nilsen’s written persona was, on the surface, amusing and charming.

He wanted me to inform the nation that he was ready to tell all. Through a friend of his, he gave me full access to his writing. As a result of what I was shown, in 2003 the
Sunday Times
magazine commissioned a cover feature called
Memoirs of a Serial Killer.
While writing it, I discovered to my surprise that, while most people found the idea of the autobiography revolting, there were some who believed he was worth listening to. The authorities, however, were consistent in their line that his manuscript was pornographic and outrageous.

Still, Nilsen remained adamant he had worthwhile things to say. Just before one court hearing, he wrote to me: ‘I am not contained, mute and immobile in a glass jar as some kind of eternal official specimen of popular “evil”. As I am alive, I must live as a man.’

‘Living as a man’, for Nilsen, meant being able to read and write. Being able to fulfil himself was a lot more than his
victims could ever do. And therein lies the crux of the moral problem presented by Nilsen’s writing. Clearly, to be in the public interest, Nilsen’s book would need to be more than just amateur self-analysis. At the very least, it would need to provide a very rare insight into the workings of a killer’s mind. It would need to explain convincingly why he did what he did.

After his trial, Nilsen confessed to his biographer, Brian Masters, that he simply enjoyed killing. Now he wants to retract that and offer a more psychologically complete answer. He wrote to me: ‘I was under constant pressure from almost everyone I spoke to, to admit that I had enjoyed killing. After my trial, in order to give Brian Masters a “happy” ending to his book on me, I wrote to him saying I probably did enjoy it. I was grasping for an explanation, a certainty, instead of leaving the whole sorry conundrum hanging diffused in the air.’

When I read those lines they simply struck me as evasive. Yet, when I read his full manuscript it seemed
History of a Drowning Boy
offered something of greater interest; at least for those with the stomach to read it. It was not just
what
he said that seemed revealing, but also the way in which he said it.

Nilsen’s overall story is predictable – a self-pitying tale of growing up like ‘a dog that had never been patted’, and then turning into a dysfunctional ‘lone wolf’. The details,
however
, are more telling. In the passages where he explores his sexual imagination, the prose is thick with fantasy and detail. Still, these words need very careful interpretation. Nilsen focuses just on what interests him and often changes his
story. Without points of comparison, his writing is often frighteningly misleading.

The book you are reading explains both what Nilsen has to say, and also tries to put it in context. To do so, I have drawn on many years of research. These include interviews with victims, police and others who knew him.

The archives of Nilsen’s writing run into several boxes’ worth. When I was first loaned
History of a Drowning Boy
back in 2003 – at the time of the
Sunday Times
magazine project – it comprised four volumes: ‘Orientation in Me’; ‘After the Feast’; ‘A Long Way Down and Rising’ (about his time in Wakefield and Albany Prisons); and ‘Whitemoor: A Volume of Extremes’. Since these, Nilsen has written more volumes, copious essays, and has continued to write letters to me on the clear understanding that I might one day use these, and his unpublished manuscript, to write more about his work. Such professional interest in his autobiography has formed the basis of our correspondence. In the following chapters, material from these letters, and the manuscript, has been interwoven with my own words and with information from other sources to give a sense of what I believe Nilsen’s finished autobiography would look like. Naturally, emphasis has been put on the most psychologically significant aspects.

There can surely never be any definitive answers as to why Dennis Nilsen did what he did. So why write another book about the man and the case? Many may feel that people like Nilsen are best forgotten about; they are evil-doers whose stories are macabre and possibly corrupting. A more liberal and rationalist approach, however, might be to say that Nilsen
and others like him represent a problem that society has to confront. He himself says, ‘I lived with and among you all.’ That much is true. And if his evil-doing stemmed from psychological disorders that went unnoticed, we surely need to know as much as we can about their origin and nature. Despite all the interest in serial killers over the past 30 years, little is understood about how their internal world drives their exterior behaviour. We need to know more.

In addition to looking at Nilsen’s explanations for his crimes, this book is also concerned with the way in which he has tried to tell his story. How has he managed to get people to listen? What does this say about us? And what exactly is it that people find so interesting about the case? Finally, it is essential that Nilsen’s story be seen constantly in conjunction with the perspective of his victims. Where possible, I have spoken to those who have been directly affected by his horrific crimes.

Ultimately, it is up to the reader to make up his or her own mind about Nilsen’s writing. To that end, I have been careful to present the material clearly – both Nilsen’s own accounts and also the testimony of those who have known him. In particular, it would have been impossible to present a clear and balanced account without the help of DCI Peter Jay, victim Carl Stottor, victim’s son Shane Levene, Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum, and authors Brian Masters and Gordon Honeycombe.

Russ Coffey, May 2013