Casefile True Crime - Case 144: The Muswell Hill Murderer (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 9, 2020

[Part 1 of 3] When specialty plumbers arrived to inspect the drains at a property in the north London suburb of Muswell Hill in early February 1983, it seemed like any regular job. Upon closer inspection, they were baffled by the presence of the “porridge-like substance” that appeared to be clogging the drains underneath the house.  --- Episode narrated by the Anonymous Host Episode researched by Holly Boyd Episode written by Elsha McGill  Creative Director: Milly Raso For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-144-the-muswell-hill-murderer-part-1

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For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. On the morning of Saturday, February 5, 1983, plumber Mike Welch arrived at Cranley Gardens, a long, wide residential street in the north London suburb of Muswell Hill. The neighbourhood was defined by its Edwardian-era houses, most of which were stylish, semi-detached structures with pointed roofs and attractive, well-cared-for gardens. Twenty-three Cranley Gardens stood out against its neighbouring properties. Its pale blue and white facade was grimy, and the front yard was neglected and overgrown with weeds. Unlike most of the other houses on the street, number 23 had been divided into several separate flats and bedsits that were leased to multiple tenants.

For the past few days, its occupants had been complaining of blocked drains and toilets, necessitating the need for a plumber. Mike Welch inspected the drains outside the property and determined the blockage was severe enough to warrant a visit from a specialist. Jim Allcock, a builder who lived in one of the ground floor flats, called Dino Rod, an emergency plumbing company that used an innovative electromechanical technique to unblock stubborn drains. Dino Rod's earliest available appointment was on Monday, February 7, so Jim advised his fellow tenants that they would have to wait two more days for the problem to be fixed. The Dino Rod engineer failed to visit on Monday, but at 6.15pm on Tuesday, February 8, the company sent 30-year-old Mike Catron to conduct an inspection.

It was a cold and dreary winter evening and the ground was covered in slate. Jim Allcock guided Mike Catron along the side of the house and to the manhole that led to the 12-foot-deep drains beneath. Mike removed the manhole cover and climbed down the iron rungs to see what was causing the blockage. He was instantly hit with a revolting odor and yelled up through the manhole at Jim. I haven't been in this job for long, but I know this isn't shit. Upon closer inspection, Mike realized that the drain was blocked by an 8-inch thick, porridge-like substance that contained approximately 40 pieces of what appeared to be grayish white flesh of various sizes. As he moved around, more of the mysterious substance fell from the pipe that stemmed from the house.

By now, several of the tenants had gathered around the manhole to see what was causing the blockage. Mike suspected it could be animal remains and suggested it was a matter for the police. 37-year-old Dennis Nielsen, who lived in the upstairs flat, remarked that it looked like Kentucky Fried Chicken. Mike called his supervisor Gary Wheeler to discuss his concerns and the two men agreed to return to the property the following morning to carry out a more thorough inspection in the daylight. At 9.15 am on Wednesday, February 9, Mike and Gary arrived at 23 Cranley Gardens as planned. Mike re-entered the manhole and was surprised to see that a majority of the flesh-like substance was no longer there. He reached deeper into the drain and fished around until he made contact with something solid.

Upon pulling the object out, he realized he was holding what appeared to be a human knuckle. Dennis Andrew Nielsen was born on November 23, 1945 in Fraserborough, a mid-sized fishing village in the northeast of Scotland. He was one of three children to Betty and Olaf Nielsen, who met in 1942 when Olaf, who was serving in the Norwegian army, had been dispatched to Scotland in anticipation of a Nazi invasion. Olaf's military duties kept him away from his family for long stints at a time, so Betty and the three children lived with her parents in their two-bedroom flat. Olaf rarely visited or saw his children and the couple divorced in 1948. Betty's parents, Lily and Andrew Fudd, were actively involved in raising their grandchildren. Dennis Nielsen had a particularly strong bond with his fisherman grandfather and saw him as his hero and protector. He relished their long walks together across the nearby sand dunes and golf courses, where his grandfather would carry him on his shoulders.

In 1951, when Nielsen was six years old, Betty was assigned a council flat of her own, and she and her children moved out to live as a solo family unit for the first time. Shortly afterwards, on October 21, 1951, Andrew Fudd was out on a fishing job when he suffered a heart attack and died at sea. The three children were taken to view their grandfather's lifeless body and were told that he had gone to heaven, a concept that they didn't understand. Consequently, they thought he was merely sleeping and would soon recover, and Dennis Nielsen was left uncertain and troubled by the idea of death. When adults told him that his grandfather had gone to a better place, Nielsen believed that death was considered a positive thing. In 1954, Betty married a builder named Adam Scott, and the couple had four more children together. Nielsen had never been close with his mother, describing her as cold and unloving, but he grew to admire his stepfather. Despite this, he didn't feel that he belonged in the household and began to withdraw, spending most of his time alone.

By the age of 10, he was exhibiting some disturbing behavior. Although he was a self-described animal lover, he took a neighborhood cat into a disused bathroom, tied a wire around its neck, and strangled it to death. He was immediately disgusted by his own actions, later stating, I wanted to see the reality and process of killing and death. I was not excited by the act. Shortly after this incident, Nielsen and his family relocated to a larger and more comfortable flat in the village of Stricken, approximately eight miles inland from Fraserborough. Around the same time, Nielsen started to recognize that he was physically attracted to males. He explored his sexuality by groping his older brother's penis and wrestling with other children. On two occasions, he pinned younger boys to the ground and enjoyed feeling a sense of power over them.

This realization about his sexuality left Nielsen with a feeling of shame, as homosexuality was illegal in Scotland during the 1950s, and gay people were severely ostracized. By the time Nielsen was 15, he was tired of feeling rejected by his family and the wider community, so he decided to join the army. On June 28, 1961, he passed his entrance test and enlisted to serve as an army chef for nine years. Two and a half months later, he set off for the Army Catering Corps training barracks in Aldershot, an English town 42 miles south-west of London. Dennis Nielsen arrived as a frail, introverted and self-conscious adolescent, but the harsh discipline and strict routines of army life saw him evolve into a confident young man. Determined to match the physical strength of his fellow recruits, he dedicated himself to cross-country training and quickly achieved a high level of fitness. In May 1964, he successfully completed his recruitment course at the age of 18. Three months later, he was sent to his first post to work as a catering court cook in the northwest German city of Osnabruck.

Nielsen's new comrades were hard workers, but also heavy drinkers, and they introduced him to alcohol. Despite having a low tolerance, Nielsen was soon drinking daily and gained a reputation for often being drunk. During this time, he also started developing a strong sexual imagination, finding himself drawn to smooth-skinned, boyish-looking men rather than those with larger or muscular physique. But as he was well aware of the deep homophobia that existed within the armed forces, including in his own regiment, he suppressed his sexual feelings as best as he could. Privately, he fantasized about one of his sex-starved colleagues finding him passed out drunk and fondling his unconscious body. Eventually, this desire became so strong that Nielsen sometimes pretended to pass out in the hope that someone would take advantage of him. On July 22, 1966, 20-year-old Nielsen was promoted to corporal, and six months later, in January 1967, he was posted to Al-Mensura Detention Center in Arden, a port city in the Republic of Yemen. Mensura was a military prison that held terrorist detainees, and it was frequently under attack from rioters.

Arden was a dangerous place, and soldiers were often ambushed and killed while out on patrol, with dead bodies often littering the countryside. Despite these threats, Nielsen claimed he engaged in risky behavior by going out drinking in town, then hitchhiking back to the barracks. On July 21, 1967, Nielsen was deployed to the Trusul-Lomand Scouts mess in Sharjah, a city in the Persian Gulf. During his time there, he witnessed several horrific events, including a plane crash victim being brought back to the base in pieces, and the death of a drinking companion who accidentally broke his neck after falling from a land rover. Despite these incidents, Nielsen's time in Sharjah was generally positive. He had the advantage of a private room and began to further explore his sexuality. He placed a large horizontal mirror beside his bed and imagined that his reflection belonged to someone else, enjoying the fantasy most when he lay still and appeared to be asleep or unconscious. On January 15, 1968, Nielsen returned to the United Kingdom and was posted to the Seton Barracks in Plymouth, a port city on England's south coast. One night, he was watching television in his room when he heard whimpering noises and went to investigate.

He discovered that several young privates had brought a local barmaid back to the barracks and watched as they took turns raping her. To his own shame, Nielsen went back to his room without intervening. In a separate incident, Nielsen and a young private were drinking heavily on a long train journey when the private passed out. Nielsen carried him to the bathroom and intentionally propped him in such a way that the jerking motion of the train caused his unconscious head to knock against the toilet bowl. He then sexually assaulted the private and considered raping him, but stopped when other passengers started banging on the door. Afterwards, when the private regained consciousness, Nielsen pretended nothing had ever happened. In 1969, Nielsen was sent to Berlin, Germany and joined his comrades in a visit to a brothel. Under peer pressure, he engaged in sexual activity with a female sex worker, and although he was aroused during the encounter, the experience left him depressed.

He spent the next few years serving at various posts throughout Germany and Scotland, though he never returned to visit his family. In Berlin, he bought an 8mm movie camera on a whim and developed an interest in film, eventually completing a two-day projectionist course. In May 1972, while posted in Scotland's Shetland Isles, Nielsen met an 18-year-old private identified only as Terry, who was naive, homesick and easily dominated by the older men with more forceful personalities. Terry shared Nielsen's interest in film, so Nielsen taught him how to use the camera and the two recorded short scenes together, some of which involved Terry playing dead. At night, Nielsen watched the tapes and masturbated to the shots of Terry lying still. He developed an unrequited infatuation with the younger man, and was possessive of him, at one point, accusing a sergeant of trying to steal Terry away. The allegation humiliated and enraged Terry, and he attempted to strangle Nielsen in retaliation. Nielsen was approaching 12 years of service with the Army, but by his own account, he decided to leave because of the inherent homophobia.

In contrast to his claim, others asserted that his application for extension of service was denied due to his poor personal hygiene and lack of discipline. Either way, on November 22, 1972, Dennis Nielsen was officially discharged after serving 11 years and 84 days, and awarded with a general service medal for time served. Devastated by his separation from Terry, Nielsen returned to Stricken to live with his family. One night, he joined his brother, sister-in-law, and another couple in watching a film that featured a gay protagonist. The group reacted to the storyline with Derision, and Nielsen took their comments personally. A fight broke out between him and his brother, and the two never spoke again. Just five weeks after returning to Stricken, Nielsen decided to move to London. In early 1973, the now 27-year-old Nielsen used his Army experience to join London's Metropolitan Police Force.

As part of the training, he and a fellow recruit were taken to a morgue to gain exposure to the darker side of police work. Upon seeing the deceased and dissected bodies, the other trainee vomited, but Nielsen showed no reaction. Instead, when he saw the hand of a young cadaver flop out in front of the mortuary assistant, he started fantasizing about the assistant molesting the corpse. In a separate incident, he had to undertake life-saving classes that involved pulling a pseudo-unconscious colleague from the water. This caused him to become so aroused that he stayed in the water to hide his excitement. Nielsen quickly discovered that, much like the Army, the police force was a homophobic environment. Around this time, Nielsen started exploring London's gay nightlife scene. Homosexuality was decriminalized in England in 1967, and the subsequent political and social movements led to increased visibility for gay people in the country's capital.

Although English society remained predominantly heteronormative and homophobia was widespread, a thriving subculture had developed. Nielsen began frequenting the gay bars of London's Earl's Court District and meeting other gay men. During a visit to a gay drop-in centre, he met a teenage boy, and the two spent the evening drinking heavily before retreating to a cheap hotel. When the boy passed out, Nielsen raped him, marking this as the first penetrative sex act he performed with another male. The boy remained unconscious throughout the rape, and was seemingly unaware of the abuse that had occurred when he awoke the next morning. Nielsen's sexual desires were fueled by this encounter, and by mid-1973, he frequently fantasized about molesting men who were drunk, drugged, asleep, comatose, or dead. Meanwhile, Nielsen's dismay over the homophobia that existed in the police force escalated. While on the job, he refused to arrest any men he found engaging in public sex acts together.

Eventually, in an act of rebellion, he kissed a man he was dating in front of onlookers while wearing his police hat. Nielsen grew increasingly distant from his colleagues, and in late 1973, he resigned from the police force and found a job as a security guard for the Department of Environment. During one of his security patrols, Nielsen found a book on toxicology that contained a colour photograph of a boy with rigor mortis. The boy looked slightly alive, and Nielsen realised he was aroused by the idea of someone being on the cusp of life and death. While later patrolling the warehouse of the Natural History Museum, he attempted to act out a sexual fantasy with a stuffed gorilla by placing the animal's hands on his naked body, but was unable to sustain arousal. By mid-February 1974, Nielsen was living in a share house in North London, having been evicted from his previous residence after the other tenants complained about the number of men he was bringing home. A few months later, in May 1974, he quit his security guard job and went to the local job centre to look for a new position. There was an entry-level role available within the job centre itself for someone to place low-paid, unskilled workers in restaurant jobs in the nearby Soho district.

Given Nielsen's catering experience with the army, he was offered the position and happily accepted. Although the job mostly involved answering phone calls, it gave Nielsen a sense of achievement and satisfaction. He was a diligent worker, and after six months in the job, he became involved in trade union politics and volunteered as branch organiser for the Job Centre Workers Union. He immersed himself in the role and soon also took on the volunteer role of branch secretary for the Workers Union. On August 19, 1975, a 17-year-old boy named David Painter attended the job centre looking for work. He was particularly vulnerable, as he was suffering from mental health issues. Nielsen later bumped into David on the street and invited him back to his room, where he plied him with alcohol. The two climbed into bed together naked, and Nielsen placed an arm around David's body.

David screamed and jumped from the bed, running out of the room and into a glass partition, injuring himself in front of some of the other tenants. He was taken to a hospital where he told the medical staff that Nielsen had tried to sexually assault him. Nielsen was taken to his former police station at Willsden Green for questioning and held overnight, but David and his parents declined to press charges, and he was released without charge the following morning. Nielsen continued to retreat further into his fantasies. His sexual ritual involving his mirrored reflection soon took a more disturbing turn. He was no longer fantasising about exploring an unconscious body, but rather a dead one. In mid-1975, Nielsen received a letter from Norway advising that his father Ulav had died of a heart attack and left him 1,400 pounds. The letter also informed him that since divorcing his mother, Ulav had married three more times and fathered several other children. Furthermore, Ulav's surname wasn't really Nielsen at all, but Mokshim, and he had only used the Nielsen name as an alias.

This news had a profound effect on Nielsen and his already fragile sense of identity. In November 1975, Nielsen celebrated his 30th birthday. By this point, he was tall and slim, with crooked teeth that were slightly browning. He wore his dark hair short and swept to one side and was clean shaven. A typical outfit for Nielsen consisted of dark trousers, a pale grey tweed jacket, blue shirt, navy tie and rimless eye glasses. Around this time, he was outside a pub in London's Hyde Park when he saw a skinny, blond young man who appeared to be aged between 18 and 20, being bothered by two older men. Upon intervening, Nielsen learned the young man's name was David Galician, and he was unemployed and living in a hostel. David was vulnerable, immature and easily led.

He agreed to accompany Nielsen back to his flat, and the following day, the two commenced what would become a long-term relationship. Using the money from his father's inheritance, Nielsen rented a spacious, self-contained flat in the North London District of Cricklewood for himself and David to move into. 195 Melrose Avenue was a substantial Victorian-era home that had been subdivided into multiple residences, and Nielsen secured the ground floor flat at the back of the property. It was a modest but comfortable abode, with a living room, bedroom, small kitchen and an unkempt, rubbish-filled garden that backed onto an area of wasteland. Nielsen spent the remainder of his inheritance on new furnishings and improvements to the home. He convinced the landlord to give him and David exclusive use of the shared garden, and blocked off the site path to ensure no other tenants could access it. The two then removed all of the yard's debris, established a stone path and fish pond, and planted various trees, shrubs and vegetables. Nielsen already had one pet, a budgerigar named Hamish, who had been taught to say, piss off, and David suggested they add a puppy to their household.

Nielsen was reluctant, given the level of responsibility required to care for a dog, but David insisted. They purchased a black and white female mixed breed, naming her Bleep after the sounds she made during the journey home. David also found and adopted a stray kitten, whom he named DD. Content with his new domesticated life, Nielsen stopped frequenting pubs in favour of spending his spare time at home with David. He was thrilled to finally have the life he had always wanted, but there were several issues within the relationship. David was emotionally passive, while Nielsen was domineering and belittling, and often complained that David was too hairy or too thin. They were rarely intimate, as David viewed Nielsen as relatively inept and disinterested in sex. Consequently, David was frequently unfaithful, and by March 1976, just four months into their relationship, the pair barely spoke to one another.

In April, Nielsen developed a gallstones and suffered through two months of severe abdominal pain while waiting to have an operation. During this time, he grew increasingly irritable with David, and the pair fought often, drifting even further apart. David only visited Nielsen once during his 10-day hospital stay, and by the time he recovered, both men started bringing other men home to their flat. Over the next year, Nielsen used alcohol and music to escape the growing turmoil in his domestic life, but the final straw came in May 1977, after their dog, Bleep, had a litter of puppies. Nielsen went out to purchase a bottle of rum and asked David to look after the dogs, but by the time he returned, two of the pups had drowned in the garden pond. Nielsen was furious and started wondering how he could get David to leave, but two weeks later, David met another man and moved out of his own accord. Without David to keep him company, Nielsen permitted various strangers to stay at his home, many of whom he met at the pub. Some of the men became short-term lovers, while others were simply drinking buddies who needed a place to crash.

On one occasion, he invited three men back to his place for a drink. Once they were all asleep, Nielsen lit the oil stove, placed a jacket over it, and watched as the room filled with smoke. He took a bleep outside and then rushed back into the room, assuming the role of hero by putting out the fire and flinging all the windows open. Another friend of Nielsen's recalled waking up at the Melrose Avenue flat one night to find the room full of smoke and Nielsen hovering above him with a small knife. Nielsen claimed the gas heater had fallen off the wall and he was using the knife to detach it completely in case of an explosion, but the friend was convinced Nielsen had intentionally started the fire himself. By the end of 1978, Nielsen had been working at the job centre for three and a half years, but still hadn't earned a promotion. Although his employers couldn't fault his work at the core general abilities, they felt his personality was volatile and his colleagues found him irritating. Nielsen felt demoralised and overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy and self-pity.

His sexual fantasies escalated and he retreated further into his mirror fetish, using talcum powder on his skin and charcoal under his eyes to further enhance the lifeless appearance of his reflection. When later looking back on this period, he told author Brian Masters, quote, Loneliness is a long unbearable pain. I felt that I had achieved nothing of importance or of help to anyone in my entire life. I would think that if I drank myself to death, my body would not be discovered until at least a week after. There was no one I felt I could call upon for real help. I was in daily contact with so many people, but quite alone in myself. I was becoming depressed and conditioned to a belief that I was impossible to live with.

Nielsen's desolation reached its peak when he spent Christmas of 1978 alone with a bleep. As the New Year approached, he was drinking heavily and in a state of despair. So on December 30, he left his flat in search of company. Instead of going to one of his usual horns, Nielsen chose the Cricklewood Arms Hotel, a rough Irish pub, approximately a 15 minute walk from his flat. He consumed multiple points of Guinness and engaged in conversations with several people, including a 14 year old named Stephen Dean Holmes. The miner had just attended a pop concert and had decided to stop at the bar on his way back to his home in the Kilburn District,

where he lived with his parents and sister. Stephen was refused service on account of his age and soon started chatting to Nielsen, who invited him back to his house for a drink. The two walked back to Nielsen's flat and drank heavily late into the night, eventually falling asleep in Nielsen's bed. A few hours later, as dawn was breaking, Nielsen woke up and watched Stephen sleep. He caressed the teenager's body, which led to him becoming aroused. In a letter to author Brian Masters, Nielsen later recalled,

I could feel my heart pounding and I began to sweat. He was still sound asleep. I looked down on the floor where our clothes lay and my eyes fixed on my tire. I remember thinking that I wanted him to stay with me over the new year, whether he wanted to or not. Nielsen picked up the tire and slipped it over Stephen's head, straddling his body while pulling the tire. A struggle ensued and the two tumbled from the bed onto the floor,

knocking over the coffee table as they fell. Stephen eventually lost consciousness, but continued to breathe raspily. Nielsen went to the kitchen and filled a plastic bucket with water, bringing it back to the bedroom. He lifted Stephen's head and dropped it into the bucket, holding him down until it was clear he was dead. He then washed Stephen's body in the bathtub and carried him back to bed. Tucking the sheets up under his chin.

Nielsen noted that Stephen's skin was still warm but slightly discoloured. His eyes were half open and his lips were slightly parted and had turned blue. Nielsen started considering ways to get rid of the body and decided to take a walk to clear his mind. He strolled down Wilson High Road approximately 15 minutes from his flat and purchased a cooking pot and an electric knife. Upon returning to the flat, Nielsen dressed Stephen's corpse in brand new underwear, socks and a tank top. He climbed into bed and molested the body, but lost his erection when he realised the body's temperature had started to drop.

Instead, Nielsen placed Stephen's body on the floor, covered him with an old curtain and then went to sleep. Later that day, Nielsen woke up, made something to eat and watched TV while the corpse lay on the floor. He eventually decided to conceal it beneath the floor of his flat. The carpet wasn't fixed to the floor so he pulled it back, prized up the floorboards and attempted to push Stephen's body into the crawl space below. However, rigor mortis had set in and the now stiffening body became stark. Nielsen propped the body up against the wall and waited until the following day to try again. This time, he wrapped Stephen in a curtain and was able to work his limbs loose enough to ease him into the crawl space.

He then covered the space with the floorboards and carpet and disposed of Stephen's clothing and boots in the rubbish bin. One week later, Nielsen was curious as to what stage of decomposition the body had reached and exhumed Stephen from underneath the floorboards. He bathed the corpse before washing himself in the same bathwater and proceeded to masturbate over the naked body. Nielsen then suspended Stephen by his ankles from the ceiling overnight, masturbating over him again the following day. He intended to dismember the corpse but instead returned Stephen to the crawl space, later explaining to Brian Masters, I just couldn't do anything to spoil that marvellous body. It was the beginning of the end of my life as I had known it. I had started down the avenue of death and possession of a new kind of flatmate.

After the murder of Stephen Holmes, Dennis Nielsen attempted to reduce his alcohol intake to avoid committing another crime. He stopped frequenting gay bars and inviting men to his home, instead focusing on his work at the job centre. Rather than turn himself in, he reasoned it would be better to live a more productive and settled life. On Friday, August 10, 1979, just over seven months after Stephen's murder, Nielsen decided it was time to properly dispose of the teenagers' remains. In preparation, he constructed a bonfire in the rear garden of his flat. The fence around the yard was seven feet tall and the house next door was derelict, so Nielsen was confident he wouldn't raise any suspicions. The following day, he retrieved Stephen's body from under the floorboards and wrapped his remains in plastic bags. He then set the bonfire alight and placed the bags on the burning pyre, throwing a tyre into the flames so that the odour of burning rubber would mask the smell of burning flesh.

After the fire had burnt out, Nielsen pounded the ashes into a fine powder and raped them into the ground. When Stephen's body was gone, Nielsen regained a feeling of control and resumed his heavy drinking and bar hopping. Two months later, on October 11, 1979, he was at an arcade in Leicester Square when he met a young Chinese student named Andrew Ho and invited him back to his flat. Andrew agreed, and the pair headed to Melrose Avenue, where Andrew suggested they participate in bondage. Nielsen said he wasn't interested in any form of intimacy and instead offered Andrew money in exchange for his company. Andrew protested as he was more interested in a sexual encounter. To appease his request, Nielsen agreed to tie Andrew's feet together. He then wrapped a tie around Andrew's neck, pulled it tight and warned what could happen if he continued to live such a risky lifestyle.

Andrew panicked and started to scream, prompting Nielsen to release his grip on the tie. Andrew threw a candle stick at Nielsen and ran from the flat. Roughly half an hour later, the police contacted Nielsen wanting to discuss the incident, but he denied that an attempted strangulation had taken place. Andrew declined to make a written statement or attend a future court date, and therefore no charges were placed. Almost two months later, on Monday, December 3, 1979, Nielsen left work early and went to the Princess Louise pub in London's Hoban District. He struck up a conversation with 23-year-old Kenneth Ockenden, who was originally from the United Kingdom, but had immigrated to Canada with his family as a young teenager. Kenneth was training to be a welder, and had saved enough money for a three-month trip to England to catch up with relatives and old friends, while also indulging his passion for photography. He had been in the country since September, and was due to fly home in just a few days.

Nielsen and Kenneth chatted and bought each other a round of drinks. At 3pm, Kenneth placed a phone call to his uncle Gordon, who lived in London, to say he would be stopping by in two days' time to pick up some cash that Gordon was keeping safe for him. After Kenneth ended the call, he and Nielsen left the pub together to visit some of London's famous landmarks, including Trafalgar Square and Westminster Abbey, so that Kenneth could take some photographs with his prized Canon, single-lens reflex camera, and telephoto lens. As their excursion drew to an end, Nielsen suggested they go back to his flat for something to eat before heading out for another drink later in the night. Kenneth accepted the invitation, and the two went back to Melrose Avenue, where they ate a meal of ham, eggs, and chips. They then decided to stay in instead of going to another pub, and walked to a nearby liquor store to buy rum, whiskey, and beer. They spent the rest of the evening drinking, watching TV, and listening to Nielsen's extensive record collection. At some point between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning, Kenneth was listening to music through Nielsen's headphones.

Suddenly, Nielsen wrapped the headphones around Kenneth's neck and dragged him across the floor. Bleep barked frantically from the kitchen while Kenneth struggled, until he eventually succumbed to the strangulation. Nielsen put bleep outside before returning to untangle the headphones from Kenneth's neck. He then poured himself a drink, put the headphones on, and sat down to listen to the record that Kenneth had been enjoying. After a while, he stripped and bathed Kenneth's body, laid him in bed, and slept by his side. In the morning, Nielsen stashed Kenneth's body in a cupboard, disposed of his belongings, and went to work. During the day, he purchased a cheap Polaroid camera for the purpose of taking photographs of the body. When he returned home, he removed Kenneth from the cupboard, dressed him in socks, briefs, and a tank top, and then sat him on a chair.

He posed Kenneth in various positions and took several Polaroids while speaking to him as though he was still alive. That night, Nielsen laid Kenneth's body on top of his own while he watched television and later molested him. Eventually, he wrapped Kenneth in curtain fabric and placed him under the floorboards. Over the next two weeks, Nielsen retrieved Kenneth's corpse on four separate occasions and sat him on an armchair while he watched television. He smashed the records the pair had been listening to before the murder into pieces and threw them away. Nielsen later told Brian Masters, I thought that his body and skin were very beautiful, a sight that almost brought me to tears after a couple of drinks. He was my friend. I liked him a lot. His music still haunted me.

When Kenneth failed to show at his uncle Gordon's house on Wednesday, December 5, Gordon notified the Ockenden family in Canada. Kenneth was close with his family and had maintained regular contact with them throughout his trip to England, so it was out of character for him not to be in touch. The Ockendons held out hope that Kenneth would return for Christmas, but after several weeks passed with no word from him, they reported him missing. The London Metropolitan Police visited Kenneth's last known place of accommodation, the Central Hotel on Argyle Street, and discovered all of his belongings were still there, except for his London Street Directory and prized camera and lands. Among his possessions was a diary that detailed Kenneth's movements up until Monday, December 3, the day of his encounter with Nielsen. Police suspected he had been missing since then, and that foul play was involved. In February 1980, Kenneth's parents Audrey and Ken flew to London to aid the search, telling the press they would stay as long as it took to find their son. Missing persons posters were distributed throughout the city, and police asked for assistance in locating Kenneth or his camera equipment, but no leads emerged. During the 1970s and 80s, London saw an increase in the number of young people experiencing homelessness. Unemployment rates were high, and the unskilled workers who did manage to find casual employment were poorly paid.

To secure a job, an individual needed to provide proof of address, but without enough income to make the down payment required to rent a room or flat, many young people were caught in a vicious cycle. Moreover, council housing was scarce, and available beds in charitable shelters were rapidly declining, leaving those who were unable to afford accommodation with no choice but to sleep rough. Many of these young people were raised in foster care or estranged from their families and had no one to turn to for help. To support themselves, they often turned to drugs and sex work, effectively growing what was known as the rent boy trade, in which teenagers and young men sold sexual services to older men. In the days before the internet, mobile phones and social media, it was easy for Londoners experiencing homelessness to disappear and become nearly impossible to track down. The Department of Health and Social Security didn't follow up on the whereabouts of an individual if they failed to claim their welfare benefits. Nielsen's years of working for the Job Centre meant he was well aware of this growing problem and the predicament faced by many young men. On May 17, 1980, just over five months since the murder of Kenneth Ockenden, Nielsen was returning from a work conference when he disembarked a train at Euston Station in central London.

There, he met 16-year-old Martin Duffy, a catering student from the town of Birkenhead in northwest England, who had just arrived in London. Martin had left high school at the age of 15, and after struggling to find work, he started stealing and getting into trouble with the authorities. After one incident, his parents sent him to a special school for maladjusted children, where he received psychological treatment. His parents divorced around the same time Martin was discharged from the school, and he started frequenting gay clubs and developed an addiction to valium. One of Martin's psychologists helped him complete a catering course, and he graduated with his very own set of chef's knives engraved with his name. Martin's circumstances had recently been improving, until he was questioned by police with regard to evading a train fare. On May 13, 1980, he packed a suitcase with his new knife set and other belongings and told his family he was going to live in New Brighton, a town four and a half miles from Birkenhead. Instead, he travelled 215 miles southeast to London, where he struck up a conversation with Dennis Nielsen and agreed to accompany him back to his Melrose Avenue flat.

After drinking a beer, Martin became tired and went to sleep in Nielsen's bed. Nielsen then straddled the teenager and strangled him while he slept. Once Martin lost consciousness, Nielsen carried him to the kitchen sink, filled it with water, and held Martin's head under until he drowned. He then ran himself a bath, climbed in, and washed the naked body while it laid on top of his own. Once he was finished, Nielsen carried Martin's corpse to the bed where he molested him further. Afterwards, he stored Martin in a cupboard for two days before burying him beneath the floorboards alongside Kenneth Ockenden. Nielsen found a luggage tag in Martin's pocket and went to Euston Station to retrieve his belongings. The locker contained an old suitcase which Nielsen threw away, but he kept several knives from the chef's knife set inside. Three months later, in August 1980, 26-year-old William Billy Sutherland visited the job centre where Nielsen worked.

Billy had been raised in a slumber state near the city of Edinburgh in Scotland and had moved to London with his girlfriend Donna and their young son in the late 1970s. Donna disliked London and missed home, so she and their child returned to Scotland while Billy stayed in England. Since then, he had been living a somewhat transient lifestyle, moving around London often and struggling to find steady employment. Billy's attempts to find work were hindered by the fact that he had lots of tattoos, which many people at the time associated with criminals. Billy had previously been employed as a chef, so he visited the job centre hoping to be placed in a similar role. Nielsen and Billy struck up a conversation and decided to go on a pub crawl through the Soho area. After several hours of drinking, Nielsen got tired of walking around and decided to go home. He walked down the stairs to the Leicester Square underground station and bought himself a train ticket.

Billy followed and indicated he had nowhere else to go, so Nielsen invited him to stay at his flat. Once they arrived at Melrose Avenue, Nielsen strangled Billy with his bare hands and disposed of his body underneath the floorboards. Despite Billy's transient lifestyle, he regularly contacted his girlfriend Donna and his mother back home in Scotland and the two grew concerned when he stopped calling. His mother contacted both the London Metropolitan Police and the Salvation Army to report him missing, but there were already 40 other men named Billy Sutherland on the missing person's register. Nielsen now had three bodies hidden underneath his floorboards that he needed to get rid of, those of Kenneth Ockenden, Martin Duffy and Billy Sutherland. One Sunday afternoon in August, he retrieved all three corpses and laid them out on his kitchen floor. They were in an advanced state of decomposition covered in maggots and emitting a foul odor. Nielsen drank several glasses of rum and then masturbated next to his victims in what he interpreted as his way of saying goodbye.

Using his sharpest kitchen knives, Nielsen employed the butchery skills he had learned in the army to dissect each of the bodies into several parts. It was a difficult and physically demanding process, during which Nielsen vomited several times. In order to remove the flesh from the skulls, he boiled the heads of his victims in a large cooking pot on the stove. He put the internal organs into plastic bags and stuffed them between the double fencing in his backyard to be eaten by insects and animals. He placed the remaining body parts in plastic bags and stuffed them inside some old suitcases that had been left at the flat by a previous tenant. Not all of the body parts would fit, so Nielsen hid a bag containing the arms and hands of one victim underneath the bush in his backyard. He then took the suitcases to his garden shed and constructed a low brick wall around them. To conceal the stench, he placed a few sticks of deodorant over the suitcases and covered them with bricks and stacked newspapers.

As Nielsen had sole use of the garden, he didn't bother to lock the shed. Over the following months, Nielsen continued to frequent London's pubs, where he met several unsuspecting men whom he brought back to his Melrose Avenue flat. While his memory of this period was hazy, his victims included an Irish labourer aged between 27 and 30 years old, a slim man of either Filipino or Mexican descent, an emaciated homeless man whom he met on Charing Cross Road, and a long-haired hippie he encountered in London's West End. As he'd done with his earlier victims, he strangled each of them and then hid their bodies under his floorboards. On November 10, 1980, Nielsen was drinking with some people at the Golden Lion pub in Soho when the group struck up a conversation with Douglas Stewart, a 26-year-old from the town of Thurso on Scotland's north coast. Although the Golden Lion had a reputation as a gay bar, Douglas was there because it served his favourite Scottish beer. He drank and chatted with the group until closing time, at which point Nielsen suggested they continue the party at his flat. Once Douglas was out on the street, he realised he was the only person who had taken Nielsen up on his offer.

Although he was now hesitant, he thought it would be rude if he didn't continue on, so the two headed to Nielsen's flat alone. Once there, they each drank two pints of beer and Nielsen invited Douglas to join him in bed. The Scotsman declined and instead went to sleep in an armchair. Two hours later, Douglas awoke to find that his feet had been tied to the legs of the chair and that the necktie he'd taken off earlier was now fastened around his throat. Suddenly, Nielsen was on top of him, pushing his knee down hard into Douglas's chest. Douglas fought back, scratching Nielsen hard enough under one eye to draw blood and eventually pinned him to the ground. Nielsen loudly shouted, take my money, take my money, before quietly and calmly telling Douglas, I could kill you. The struggle dissipated and Douglas placated Nielsen by apologising and helping to wipe the blood from his face.

He stayed for another drink, then fled to the nearest telephone box to call the police. Shortly after, an officer arrived at Nielsen's flat, but Nielsen provided a starkly different version of advance. The police didn't notice the scratch below his eye and promptly left, concluding the fight had likely been nothing more than, quote, a lover's tiff. The next day, they tried to contact Douglas to obtain a further statement, but were unable to locate him. No further action was taken. By December of 1980, Nielsen now had the remains of seven victims on his property. The bodies of Kenneth Ockenden, Martin Duffy and Billy Sutherland were in the suitcases in the shed. Three of the unnamed victims were stored underneath the floorboards and one was in the cupboard.

Realising he was running out of room and needed to dispose of his victims permanently, Nielsen retrieved the four unidentified bodies and dismembered them using a kitchen knife. He placed the limbs, heads and torsos into large plastic garbage bags, put them back under the floorboards and then disposed of the organs and entrails in his backyard for animals to devour. That evening, he prepared a large bonfire in the area of Wasteland just beyond his back garden. He used sections of a recently felled poplar tree as the base and stacked pieces of wooden furniture that had been discarded by his neighbours on top. When he was finished, the structure was five feet tall and had a large hole in the centre. Nielsen retired to bed and resumed his plan at 6.45 the following morning while it was still dark. He retrieved the garbage bags from beneath the floorboards, wrapped them inside two large carpets and dragged them out to the bonfire. Next, he fetched the suitcases from the garden shed.

Those that had been stacked on top were still intact and easy to drag into the centre of the bonfire, but the ones at the bottom had been crushed and fell to pieces when he tried to lift them. Bits of rotting flesh scattered onto the ground, which he had to pick up by hand to add to the pyre. When all of the garbage bags, suitcases and stray pieces had been thrown into the centre, Nielsen loaded the fire with newspaper and threw an old car tyre on top to disguise the inevitable smell of burning flesh. He squirted the base with lighter fuel and set the pile alight. The fire burned throughout the day, with Nielsen monitoring it closely at all times and adding extra wood as required. A few children from the neighbourhood stopped by to watch it burn, but Nielsen warned them away. By the time the fire eventually died down, one of his victim's skulls was still recognisable, so Nielsen used the garden rake to crush it into a fine powder. He then covered the ashy remains of the fire with bricks, disinfected the floor of the garden shed, took a bath and headed out to the Salisbury pub in London's West End.

There, he met a young man with whom he had a one night stand. Christmas and the new year passed without incident, but during the first few months of 1981, Nielsen was the victim of a series of robberies. His camera and projector were stolen from his flat, and he was also mugged one night while staggering home drunk from the pub. The assailant stole £300, the equivalent of one month's wages. To make ends meet, Nielsen had to apply to the Department of Employment Benevolent Fund for an advance on his wages, which he was mortified about. Meanwhile, his landlords were encouraging him to vacate the Melrose Avenue property, as they considered him a difficult, uncooperative and obstructive tenant. They told Nielsen he would have to leave temporarily while renovations were underway, but he refused, saying that he wouldn't be intimidated into giving up his rights as a tenant. One day, in June 1981, he returned home from work to discover that his entire flat had been vandalised.

His television, record player and mirror were smashed to pieces, and his furniture, linen and clothing had all been smeared in a tar-like substance, destroying everything except the suit he was wearing. Nielsen reported the incident to the police, who took a statement, but the person responsible was never identified. When Nielsen's colleagues at the job centre found out, they pulled their money together and presented him with a cheque for £85, the equivalent of about $600 in today's currency. That same month, Nielsen made several attempts to further his career. First, he submitted a request to attend management committee meetings as part of his role as a union official, but the request was denied without explanation. He then applied for a transfer to the overseas workers section of the job centre, a department which helped place foreign workers in employment. Nielsen's manager denied this request, writing in a rejection letter. Your manner in relationships with your colleagues is usually outspoken and often overbearing.

I am concerned that despite your undoubted desire to provide an effective service to our customers, your manner with the public on overseas workers section might cause offence. Nielsen was furious, but continued in his current role. Throughout the first half of 1981, he also claimed three more victims. One was an 18-year-old blue-eyed Scottish man who he met at the Golden Lion in Soho and challenged to a drinking competition. Another was a man in his early 20s from Belfast, who he met in the West End, and the other was a 20-year-old skinhead who was covered in tattoos, one of which was a dotted line across his neck accompanied by the words, cut here. Like the other attacks, the men were killed by strangulation and kept for several days to fulfill Nielsen's sexual desires, before being dismembered and buried under the floorboards. At 7.30 am on Thursday, September 17, 1981, Nielsen was walking to work when he saw a young man slumped against a garden wall a few houses down from his flat. The man was 24-year-old Malcolm Barlow, an orphan from the Yorkshire town of Rotherham, who had spent the majority of his youth in foster homes and hospitals for the mentally ill.

He was of low intelligence, epileptic, and also a compulsive liar, who often induced seizures in order to gain sympathy. Malcolm relied on welfare benefits and sometimes turned to sex work to earn an income. He typically slept in hostels or with people who picked him up off the street. Malcolm told Nielsen that the pills he was taking to treat his epilepsy had caused his legs to give way and he was unable to walk. Nielsen picked Malcolm up and helped support him as they walked back to his flat. There, he made Malcolm a cup of coffee before going to the nearest payphone to call an ambulance. Ten minutes later, the paramedics arrived and took Malcolm to the Park Royal Hospital, where he received treatment and was released the next day. On Friday, September 18, Nielsen returned home from work to find Malcolm sitting on his doorstep.

He invited him inside, cooked him a meal, and the two sat down to watch television together. Nielsen started drinking, but refused to give Malcolm any alcohol in case it interfered with his medication. Malcolm insisted one or two drinks would be fine, and Nielsen reluctantly agreed. After drinking two rum and coax, Malcolm then fell asleep on the sofa. An hour later, Nielsen tried to wake Malcolm by slapping him in the face, but there was no response. He contemplated whether or not to call the paramedics again, but was worried that if he did, the police might become involved. After 20 minutes of consideration, he wrapped his hands around Malcolm's neck and strangled him to death. He then finished his drink and went to bed.

The next morning, Nielsen dragged Malcolm's body into the kitchen, placed him under the sink, and left for work. When later reflecting on the murder toward the Brian Masters, Nielsen said, I'm sorry that he managed to find me again. In late September 1981, a real estate agent acting for Nielsen's landlords offered to rent him a self-contained flat roughly five miles northeast of the Melrose Avenue property. As an added incentive, the landlords offered to pay him £1,000 compensation for the difficulties he had endured over the preceding months. Nielsen was driven to see the flat at 23 Cranley Gardens in Muswell Hill and accepted the offer on the spot. The move was scheduled for Monday, October 5. Nielsen spent the weekend prior packing up his few belongings and disposing of the remaining bodies. On Saturday, October 3, he built one final bonfire in the wasteland behind his garden, using unwanted furniture and rubbish to again create a large construction with a hollow centre.

In the early morning hours of Sunday, October 4, while it was still dark outside, he dragged Malcolm Barlow's body to the wasteland and into the centre of the fire. He then retrieved the body parts of the three unidentified victims from underneath the floorboards and added them to the pile. After setting the fire alight, he watched as it burned. When one of his neighbours came out to ask what was going on, Nielsen responded that he was burning his rubbish before the big move. On Monday morning, Nielsen checked the remnants of the fire and noticed a large pile of ashes and small bone fragments remained. Using a garden roller, he flattened the pile and crushed the bones into unrecognisable pieces. He then remembered he had hidden the hands and arms of one victim under a bush in his backyard and retrieved the bag that contained the body parts. After using a shovel to break the bones into smaller fragments, he threw them over the fence into the wasteland.

When the removalist arrived soon after, Nielsen loaded up his belongings and his beloved dog, Bleep. As he later explained to Brian Masters, quote, Driving away from 195 Melrose Avenue was a great relief. To be continued next week. .