Dennis Nilsen - Victims

Victims

• Murder 1, Stephen Holmes: Nilsen's first murder occurred on 30 December 1978. The victim was described by Nilsen as being an Irish teenager he estimated to be around 17. Nilsen met the youth in the Cricklewood Arms on the evening of 29 December before inviting him to Melrose Avenue. The following morning, Nilsen strangled him with a necktie until he was unconscious before drowning him in a bucket of water. In January 2006, the victim was identified as Stephen Dean Holmes, a 14-year-old youth who was last seen on his way home from a rock concert. In November 2006, Nilsen confessed to the murder of Holmes in a letter sent from his prison cell to the Evening Standard. Nilsen was not charged for the murder as the Crown Prosecution Service decided that a prosecution would not be in the public interest. On 11 August 1979, Nilsen burned the body of Stephen Holmes in his garden.
• On 11 October 1979, Nilsen attempted to murder Andrew Ho, a student from Hong Kong he had met in The Salisbury public house in St. Martin's Lane. Although afterwards he confessed to the police about the incident no charges were brought and Nilsen was not arrested.
• Murder 2, Kenneth Ockendon: Nilsen's second victim was 23-year-old Canadian student Kenneth Ockendon. Nilsen met the tourist in a pub on 3 December 1979 and escorted him on a tour of Central London, after which they went back to Nilsen's flat for another drink. Nilsen strangled him with the cord of his headphones whilst Ockendon was listening to a record. Ockendon was one of the few murder victims who was widely reported as a missing person.
• Murder 3, Martyn Duffey: Martyn Duffey was a 16-year-old runaway from Birkenhead. On 17 May 1980, he accepted Nilsen's invitation to come over to his place. Nilsen strangled and subsequently drowned Duffey in the kitchen sink.
• Murder 4, Billy Sutherland: Billy Sutherland was a 26-year-old father-of-one from Scotland who worked as a prostitute. Sutherland met Nilsen in a pub in August 1980. Nilsen could not recall how he had murdered Sutherland; however, it was later revealed that Sutherland had been strangled by bare hands.
• Murder 5, Unidentified: The fifth victim was another individual who worked as a prostitute, whom Nilsen met in the Cricklewood Arms in October 1980. This man was never identified. All that is known is that he was probably from the Philippines or Thailand.
• Murder 6, Unidentified: Nilsen could recall very little about both this and the following two victims. All that Nilsen could remember about the sixth victim was that he was a young Irish labourer whom he had met in the Cricklewood Arms.
• Murder 7, Unidentified: Nilsen described the seventh victim as a starving "hippy-type" he had found sleeping in a doorway in Charing Cross. Nilsen and the youth took a taxi to Melrose Avenue where Nilsen strangled the youth before placing his body under the floorboards.

In the late autumn of 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. On 10 November 1980 Nilsen attacked a Scottish barman named Douglas Stewart, whom Nilsen met at the Golden Lion in Dean Street. Once Stewart was asleep in Nilsen's flat, Nilsen attempted to strangle him. However, Stewart awoke and was able to fend off his attacker. Although Stewart called the police almost immediately after the attack, the officers refused to take action; reportedly they considered the incident to be a domestic disagreement.

• Murder 8, Unidentified: Nilsen could recall little about his eighth victim, except that he had met him in the West End after the pubs had closed. This victim's body was retained beneath the floorboards of the flat until Nilsen removed the corpse, cut it into three pieces, then replaced the dissected remains beneath the floorboards. He burned the corpse one year later.
• Murder 9, Unidentified: The ninth victim was a young Scottish man whom Nilsen met in the Golden Lion pub in Soho in early January, 1981. He reported in to work as sick on 12 January in order that he could dissect both this victim and victim 8.
• Murder 10, Unidentified: The 10th victim was another young Scottish man Nilsen met in the West End in February, 1981. Nilsen strangled him with a tie and placed the body under the floorboards.
• Murder 11, Unidentified: Nilsen picked up his eleventh victim in Piccadilly Circus in April, 1981. The man was an English skinhead who had a tattoo around his neck reading "cut here". The man had boasted to Nilsen about how tough he was and how he liked to fight. Once he was drunk, he proved no match for Nilsen, who hung the man's naked torso in his bedroom for a day, before burying the body under the floorboards.

In August 1981, having already dissected the bodies of his 8th and 9th victims, Nilsen removed all the bodies and parts from beneath the floorboards and dissected the remaining two bodies. He dumped their internal organs on waste ground.

• Murder 12, Malcolm Barlow: The 12th victim was a 24-year-old named Malcolm Barlow, whom Nilsen murdered on 18 September 1981. Nilsen found Barlow in a doorway close to his own home; he took him to his home and called an ambulance. When Barlow was released the next day, he returned to Nilsen's home to thank him and was pleased to be invited in for a meal and a few drinks. Nilsen murdered Barlow that night. Barlow was the final victim to be murdered at Melrose Avenue.

On 4 October 1981, Nilsen removed the bodies of victims 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 and burned them on a bonfire at the rear of his house. As with the previous fire he had constructed, he crowned the bonfire with an old car tyre to disguise the smell. The following day, 5 October 1981, Nilsen moved to 23 Cranley Gardens in Muswell Hill.

• In November 1981, Nilsen targeted Paul Nobbs, a student, at the Golden Lion in Soho, and invited Nobbs back to his new home. The student awoke the next morning with little recollection of the previous evening's events, and later went to see his doctor because of some bruising that had appeared on his neck. The doctor revealed that it appeared as if the student had been strangled, and advised him to go to the police. However, Nobbs was concerned about what would happen if his sexual predilections were to be disclosed, and did not go to the police.
• Murder 13, John Howlett: Howlett had first met Nilsen in a West End pub in December 1981. In March 1982, John Howlett was the first victim to be murdered in Nilsen's Muswell Hill home. Howlett was one of the few who were able to fight back; however, Nilsen had taken a dislike to him and was determined that he should die. There was a tremendous struggle, in which at one point Howlett even tried to strangle Nilsen back. Eventually, Nilsen drowned Howlett, holding his head under water for five minutes. Nilsen dismembered Howlett's body, hid some of Howlett's body parts around the house and flushed others down the toilet.
• In May 1982, Nilsen targeted Carl Stottor, a drag queen known as Khara Le Fox at The Black Cap pub in Camden. After drinks, Stottor slept in a sleeping bag, then awoke to find himself being strangled, before losing consciousness. Stottor then awoke to find his head immersed in water as Nilsen attempted to drown him in his bath. Two days later, Stottor awoke in Nilsen's flat: Nilsen explained to Stottor he had almost strangled himself on the zip of the sleeping bag before he led the young man to a nearby railway station.
• Murder 14, Graham Allen: Allen was a 27-year-old father of one, originally from Motherwell, whom Nilsen met in Shaftesbury Avenue in September, 1982. Nilsen took Allen to Cranley Gardens and prepared an omelette for him. As Allen was eating the omelette, Nilsen crept behind him and strangled him to death. After murdering Allen, Nilsen left his body in the bath for a total of three days before dissecting his body in the same manner as he had with Howlett. Parts of Allen's remains subsequently blocked the drains at Cranley Gardens.
• Murder 15, Stephen Sinclair: Nilsen's final victim was a 20-year-old man named Stephen Sinclair who was addicted to drugs and alcohol. Nilsen targeted Sinclair in Oxford Street and bought the youth a hamburger. Nilsen then suggested that they go back to his place. After Sinclair drank alcohol and used heroin at Nilsen's flat, Nilsen strangled Sinclair and dismembered the body. Nilsen recalled that the youth's wrists were covered in slash marks from where Sinclair had recently tried to kill himself. This murder was committed on 26 January 1983, less than two weeks before Nilsen was arrested.