What happened to Dennis Nilsen?
THE horrors of serial killer Dennis Nilsen are coming into the spotlight again in a new BBC documentary, The Nilsen Files.
Here’s what happened to the twisted murderer who made headlines in 2021 in the shocking Netflix documentary, The Nilsen Tapes.
What happened to Dennis Nilsen?
Nilsen died aged 72 after an emergency stomach op on May 12, 2018.
Prior to his death, Nilsen suffered “excruciating pain” from internal bleeding in his cell, his inquest was told.
Hull’s Coroner’s Court also heard that he spent his last hours lying in his own filth.
The inquest was told by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman that Nilsen had rejected an offer to be seen for longer in the jail’s healthcare wing, so he was left “deteriorating for two-and-a-half hours”.
The killer – known as the Muswell Hill murderer – was taken from Full Sutton prison to York Hospital on May 10, 2018, after complaining of severe stomach pains.
Doctors later repaired a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.
MORE ON NILSEN
But he subsequently suffered a blood clot as a complication of the surgery and died two days later on May 12.
A post-mortem revealed Nilsen’s medical cause of death was a pulmonary embolism and retroperitoneal haemorrhage.
What crimes did he commit?
The warped killer, between the years 1978 and 1983, confessed to killing “15 or 16” men and boys.
He would lure vulnerable men back to his house with the promise of shelter and booze.
After strangling his victims, he would typically drown them in the bath if they were still alive but unconscious.
He had a disturbing fascination with death and would keep the bodies for weeks in his house, sleeping next to them and making them watch TV with him.
He would also dismember the bodies, which eventually led to his arrest when he blocked the drains of the building he lived in with rotting human flesh.
Was he ever convicted?
Nilsen stood trial for five counts of murder and two of attempted murder with a sixth murder charge later added.
He pleaded not guilty not on the basis that he didn’t intentionally kill his victims because he was not in the right state of mind.
The prosecuting counsel argued that Nilsen was sane, in full control of his actions, and had killed with premeditation.
But the defence said that he suffered from diminished responsibility and should therefore be convicted only of manslaughter.
He was convicted to whole life tariff in prison on October 24, 1983.
He was assigned his own cell and could mix freely with other inmates.
Nilsen did not lodge an appeal, accepting the Crown’s case, that he had the capacity to control his actions and that he had killed with premeditation, was essentially correct.
He further elaborated on the day of his conviction that he took an enormous thrill from the “social seduction, the getting the ‘friend’ back, the decision to kill, the body and its disposal”.
Nilsen also claimed drunkenness was the only reason some of his attempted murders were unsuccessful.