Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Kindly Killer” - Dennis Nilsen

Episode Date: August 26, 2019

A hot meal, a stiff drink, or simple companionship. These are the tools Dennis Nilsen would use to lure victims back to his apartment in the late 70s and early 80s. Driven by loneliness, he keep the corpses of his victims, and even sit them down across the dinner table as he ate. Nilsen would claim at least a dozen victims this way, making him one of the most prolific killers in the UK. Parcasters - This week on The Dark Side Of, we take on the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley! Search for The Dark Side Of on Spotify today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. It was a freezing day in suburban Muswell Hill, a district of North London. In early February 1983, snowfall had covered the quiet street with a blanket of pure white. Despite the peaceful scene,

Scotland Yard director Peter Jay's heart was beating hard in his chest. Jay and his officers had been staking out number 23 Cranley Gardens since 4 p.m. in response to a disturbing call. A plumber who had come out to inspect a blocked drain had found something gruesome in the sewer below, and Jay had arrived to apprehend the man responsible. It was now nearly six, and the sky was beginning to dim with the fading sunset.

Jay and the officers moved to the building's lobby, While they waited, Jay tried to imagine what kind of man would walk through the door. He steeled himself for the moment, feeling both impatience and dread. Every cell in his body hummed in anticipation. Soon the detectives came face to face with their suspect. He was slim, with steel-rimmed spectacles and a practical suit, Mr. Ordinary. Despite what he had done, Dennis Nielsen appeared to be terribly-neutral. appeared to be terribly normal.

Detective Jay cut to the chase. He told Nielsen they had come to discuss the drains connected to his flat. Nielsen asked, Since when are the police interested in people's drains? Jay looked him straight in the eye and replied, Since the drains are blocked by human remains. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers, a podcast original.

Every Monday, we dive into the mines and madden. of serial killers. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other podcast originals for free on Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts. To stream serial killers for free on Spotify, just open the app, tap browse, and type serial killers in the search bar. Today, we're going to peel back the layers behind the terrible murders committed by British serial killer, Dennis Nielsen, also known as the kindly killer. This week will follow Dennis Nielsen from the trauma of his early childhood

to the isolation of his adulthood that led him to become one of England's most prolific serial murderers. Next week, we'll track Nielsen as he embarks on a killing spree that spirals out of control, leading to his eventual arrest and imprisonment. At Parcast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. You allow us to do what we love. Let us know how we're doing. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. And if you enjoy today's episode, the best way to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you're listening. It really does help. From 1978 to 1983, serial killer Dennis Nielsen stalk the streets of London, luring vulnerable young men into his home, and

murdering them through a combination of strangulation and drowning. But it's not Nielsen's methods of killing that earned him infany, rather what he did with the bodies afterward. Nielsen would keep the corpses of his victims, using them as props for companionship and in twisted sexual rituals. And when he was finished with them, he dismembered the bodies through a variety of gruesome practices. These methods turned Nielsen's maggot-infested flat into a literal house of horrors. Due to the similarities of their crimes, Nielsen is often referred to as the British Jeffrey Dahmer. Nielsen alluded authorities for five years until his arrest in 1983,

ultimately killing at least 12 and up to 16 boys and men, a body count that would make him the UK's second most prolific murderer. But how did Dennis Nielsen maintain such a grotesque secret life? And what drives someone to enact such sick fantasies? The answer lies deep in the past on the rugged, coastline of the North Sea. Dennis Andrew Nielsen was born on November 23rd, 1945, in the small fishing town of Fraser Borough, Scotland. His mother, Betty White, was a religious Scottish woman, and his father, Ulov Magnus Nielsen, was a former Norwegian soldier. Ulov was an alcoholic with little

interest in family life, and he spent the majority of his time drinking or away from home. By the time Neilson was four years old, Ulau've had abandoned his family completely. To Nielsen, his father was little more than a name on his birth certificate. After Ulaub left, Nielsen, his mother, and his older brother, Ullab Jr., began living with his maternal grandparents. Though Nielsen's mother, Betty, was cold and distant, Nielsen found affection in the home of his grandparents. He would later claim that those first years with his grandparents were the happiest in his life. Nielsen became extremely close to his grandfather, Andrew White. White was a proud man and a fisherman. He found real joy and contentment in his relationship with his young grandson, and Nielsen adored him in turn.

The two would walk for hours along the beach, young Nielsen's spellbound by Andrew's tales of the sea. But Nielsen's bond with his grandfather wouldn't last. It would become a precedent for telling the doom of all of Nielsen's future relationships. On Halloween Day in 1951, the 62-year-old Andrew White was found dead of heart attack, drifting at sea in his fishing boat. Nielsen was just six years old and hadn't yet been introduced to the concept of death. No one told the young boy that the man he had loved so dearly, the only father figure in his life, was never coming back.

Instead, Nielsen was simply asked if he wanted to, see his grandfather and was taken by the hand to the kitchen. There on the table was his grandfather's open coffin. For the rest of his life, Nielsen claimed he recalled this moment in striking detail, more than any other part of his childhood. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Researchers of pediatric psychiatry have found that children as young as five or six often do not have a true understanding of mortality. In their 1977 article, psychological perspectives on death,

Robert Kastenbaum and Paul T. Costa Jr. reported that young children lack an understanding that death is final. Instead, children believe that the dead are simply less alive and may even have the potential to be revived. In Nielsen's young mind, his grandfather was not deceased as much as he was in a state of perfect dormancy. Nielsen's understanding of love had been defined by and concentrated on his grandfather for all of his young life, and now that love was turned into a corpse. The tableau of his grandfather lying in his casket

imprinted itself on Nielsen's memory, and death in his mind would soon take on a meaning that was both devastating and beautiful. At the tender age of six, Nielsen was hurled into a world of loneliness. He couldn't find another person he could love healthily after his grandfather's death. Nielsen's brother frequently bullied him, and his mother, Betty, rarely showed him affection. In 1954, the little family moved out of his grandparents' home, and Betty remarried a shy yet dependable laborer named Adam Scott.

In the next few years, his mother gave birth. to four more children and had little time for Nielsen. Nielsen withdrew from his new family and made few friends throughout his childhood. As an adolescent, he was gawky and awkward. He came off as a troubled loner and was frequently the target of school bullying for being effeminate and strange. Nielsen recalled being tackled to the ground by larger boys in the park and called a hen, a term in the local dialect which meant woman.

Perhaps his peers were picking up on Nielsen's insecurities at a time when his life was rife with sexual pressure and frustration. Though he had almost no sexual experience as a teenager, he was keenly aware that his preferences were different than most in his small village. Occasionally, he would find himself drawn to the opposite sex, but the focus of his most intense urges was almost always other boys. He was confused about his attractions, but mostly, He was worried. A religious household in small-town Scotland in the 1950s was no place for a young queer man. Nielsen was desperate to get out of Fraserboro,

and very soon he found his opportunity. In 1961, at age 15, Dennis Nielsen left high school and enlisted in the British military. For his first three years, he was sent to southern England to undergo training as a cook in the Army's catering corps. For perhaps the first three years, first time in his life, Nielsen felt as though he belonged. The boy who had never known what to do with himself flourished in the rigid structure of military life. The Army gave him an education,

a trade, and the opportunity to travel. Most notably, his culinary training taught him to butcher animals, a skill he would, unfortunately, later use on his victims. It also introduced him to heavy drinking. Soon Nielsen learned to rely on alcohol. to stave off the loneliness he felt as a result of living a double life. Nielsen hid his sexual orientation throughout his military career. The secret left him feeling isolated, and he often grappled with his attraction to his fellow soldiers. To deal with these desires, Nielsen turned to sex workers and local men that he met during his travels. But it wasn't until 1964, while he was stationed in the Middle East,

that his most disturbing fantasies emerged. Nielsen became fascinated with the idea of an unconscious body and would sometimes pretend to be unconscious himself. He would lay down naked in front of a mirror so that he couldn't see his own head and contemplate the image of what appeared to be an entirely different person. This other body would arouse Nielsen, and he would often masturbate to his own image in the mirror while lying nude and lifeless on the floor. Before long, this fantasy morphed from Nielsen. Nielsen imagining an unconscious body to a dead one.

Nielsen next began making himself up to better create the illusion that the person in the mirror was a corpse. He patted his skin down with talcum powder and painted his lips and eerie blue. This, Nielsen thought, was a state of physical perfection. But he didn't just act on his fantasies in the privacy of his room. He often recruited his fellow soldiers to play dead in scenes of war. while he took photos or captured it on 16-millimeter film.

For many years, Nielsen always carried a camera. Photography was his way of encapsulating his subjects in perfect stillness. In this way, he could keep people like specimens, butterflies pinned to a board. His photos formed an alternate existence, in which his favorite subjects always stayed with him. In reality, they left all too often. Around 1971, when Nielsen was in his mid-20s, he was assigned a posting in the Shetland Islands, an archipelago off the coast of Scotland.

There he met an 18-year-old private. The young soldier on Nielsen made many short films together, almost always featuring the private in one of many poses of death. He became a sort of macabre muse for Nielsen, and Nielsen quickly fell in love with the younger man. But his tender feeling, feelings weren't returned. The private was straight, and Nielsen was devastated that his feelings would never be reciprocated. It was the last straw for Nielsen. He had grown tired of harboring

secret desires for his comrades in the Army and dealing with what would inevitably be unrequited feelings and weeks of guilt. After 11 years of service, Nielsen left his military life behind. After a career in the Army, police work seemed to be a logical transition for Nielsen. In 1972, he moved to London and began working for the Metropolitan Police. Now released from the constant monitoring of his fellow soldiers, Nielsen could dip his toes into London's burgeoning gay scene. For the next two years, he became a regular in local pubs frequented by gay patrons and fell into a life of casual hookups.

He was finally in a city where he could be. be himself, but only to an extent. One night, while patrolling the streets, Nielsen shined his flashlight into a suspicious parked car. Inside, he found a gay couple having sex. This was illegal, and as a police inspector, he was required to arrest the men, but Nielsen couldn't do it. His duties and his identity had once again come into conflict, but this time Nielsen chose his identity. In December of In 1973, shortly after finding the two men in the parked car, Nielsen resigned from the London police force. In 1974, Nielsen took a bureaucratic job working for the English Civil Service.

At this time, his social life revolved around cruising gay pubs in London, but he soon grew tired of the superficial one-night stance. He was ready to commit, if only someone would agree to stay. Nielsen was 30 when he met his first and only long-term boyfriend, David Galician. Their relationship would become the most intimate Nielsen would ever have. In 1975, Nielsen and David moved together to a respectable North London suburb, where they rented a ground floor flat at 195 Melrose Place. The two men were happy together, setting up a home and tending their garden.

Nielsen affectionately named David Twinkerville. and David called him Des. Soon they bought a puppy, a black and white border collie mix, they named Bleep. Nielsen loved Bleep dearly, and she would stay by his side for the rest of her years. However, Nielsen and David's relationship

only lasted until 1978. Nielsen's home movies from this time may suggest why. Most of these videos feature Nielsen or David gardening or playing with Bleep, but while the context of these films, is perfectly ordinary, they expose Nielsen's controlling behavior. In these clips, David usually holds the camera while Nielsen directs his camera work, becoming frustrated at David's slightest mistake.

In these home movies, we see the true Dennis Nielsen, arrogant and critical, domineering and fastidious, a persona so different from the role of a quiet and unassuming civil servant that he played in the outside world. David began to tire of Nielsen's constant criticisms and overbearing nature. He could only take so much. One day in 1978, David abandoned Nielsen, leaving him alone with the dog in the home they had built together. For years to come, David's absence loomed heavy in Nielsen's mind. Nielsen's shock and anger from their breakup gave way to a loneliness that he later described as an unbearable pain.

But soon his old fantasies would reemerge to comfort him. Only this time, he would make them real. When we return, Dennis Nielsen finds solace and a new companion who can never leave him. A corpse. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. If you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird.

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He had felt like an outsider in his hometown and an imposter, masquerading as a straight man in the military. Moving to London had provided his first chance of true intimacy in his relationship with David Galician. But even David had left Nielsen behind. In 1978, 33-year-old Nielsen found himself completely isolated and in the depths of a profound depression. He attempted to fill the void with work, one-night stands, and heavy drinking.

But as the year drew to a close, He spent Christmas alone in an empty flat and foresaw himself spending New Year's doing the same. On December 30th, he was desperate and determined not to ring in the new year with only his dog bleep for company. He made his usual rounds of the local bars, drinking himself numb and chatting up several young men. He ended his night at a discreet corner pub called the Cricklewood Arms. Down the bar, Nielsen saw a teenager. drinking a pint alone. He no doubt had lied to the bartender about his age, but Nielsen was too far gone to care. He sat down on the stool beside him and introduced himself. The teenager then

told him his name was Stephen Holmes. Stephen Dean Holmes was an Irish lad, and only 14 at the time he met Nielsen. He was rebellious and popular at school and liked soccer and loud music. In fact, music is what had brought him to London that night. He'd come to see a rock concert and had stopped at the Cricklewood Arms on his way home, hoping he could fool the bartender into serving him. When Nielsen sidled up to Stephen at the bar, the young boy was flattered. He felt very grown up drinking his pint and talking with a grown man as if they were peers. But perhaps if he hadn't been a couple of drinks in,

he would have been able to read Nielsen's true intentions. After a long conversation in which the teenager became increasingly more intoxicated, Nielsen invited Stephen back to his flat. There they could drink a bottle for free. Giddy with booze and adult attention, Stephen agreed. When they got to Nielsen's now neglected flat on Melrose, Stephen and Nielsen drank themselves into a stupor. After just a few hours, they climbed into bed together and passed out.

At dawn, Nielsen awoke to find the teenagers sleeping beside him. He marveled at his youth, running a light hand. over his body. He then realized as soon as Stephen woke up to find himself in a strange man's bed, he would leave. Nielsen's heart pounded against his ribcage. He had to keep Stephen. Nielsen looked frantically around the room, his mind racing. Then he spotted a tie in a pile of clothing beside the bed. He reached for the tie and carefully slipped it under and around Stephen's young neck. In one swift movement, Nielsen straddled Stephen

and yanked the tie tight around his throat, pulling with all his strength. Instantly, Stephen's body came alive. He jerked and kicked until they both fell off the bed and onto the floor. But Nielsen wasn't giving in, and soon Stephen went limp. Nielsen slumped against the wall beside Stephen, gasping for breath, his heart pounding loud in his ears. But when he looked over, he realized the teenager was still lightly breathing. Stephen wasn't dead, just unconscious.

Nielsen thought quickly. He ran into the kitchen and filled a plastic bucket with water. The teenager didn't struggle as Nielsen pushed his head in the bucket and drowned him. Afterward, Nielsen carefully lifted Stephen's lifeless body and gazed at what he had done. Stephen didn't look anguished or in pain. His face was relaxed, almost peaceful. Water delicately dripped from his short brown curls. It was the most beautiful thing Nielsen had ever seen.

He sat shaking as he stared at Stephen's lifeless body. But soon, Bleep interrupted his rapture. She sniffed the body curiously, then began barking. Nielsen shooed her away and turned back to the body. Now that Stephen was his new companion, he needed to be taken care of. He spent the rest of the day tending to Stephen's corpse, gently bathing him in the tub and dressing him. Then Nielsen laid the body carefully on the bed.

He said of this moment that he knew that it was the beginning of the end of his life as he had known it. He wrote, I had started down the avenue of death and possession of a new kind of flatmate. Nielsen gazed at Stephen's young body. He was so aroused that he knelt down and masturbated onto the corpse's stomach. Dennis Nielsen was finally fulfilling his greatest fantasy, and whether or not he realized it at the time, that fantasy was necrophilia.

The word necrophilia literally means love of the dead and is generally defined in contemporary psychology as an individual's desire to have any sexual relation with a corpse. But the disorder itself is considered relatively rare. According to Michelle L. Stein and others in her 2010 article for the Journal for Forensic Science, entitled Necrophilia and Sexual Homicide, Necrophilia in cases of serial sexual murder is often ritualistic. The act becomes part of a behavior in the offender's perverse arousal patterns

that usually originate as fantasy. And in Nielsen's case, his necrophilic fantasies stemmed from a desire for the ultimate passive sexual partner. Nielsen harbored these fantasies for decades and retreated to them in times of stress as a source of comfort. But he had found himself in a time of such extreme isolation and personal crisis after David left that the old scenarios he played out in his head

no longer provided the fulfillment he longed for. When speaking to psychologists about this time, Nielsen later said, the whole fantasy menagerie would have continued if it were not for a crisis of explosive proportions building from accumulating and impossible stresses. The ritual traversed my private boundary

and dragged into a real person. I was at my lowest ebb ever. Something had to give. After his struggle with Stephen, Nielsen was exhausted. He went back to bed to sleep off his hangover. But when he woke up the next morning with a clear head, he panicked. He was sure the police would turn up.

He frantically wrapped Stephen's body in a curtain and pried up the floorboards of his flat. There he laid Stephen Holmes to unholy rest. Nielsen was shocked by what he'd done. What had come over him? He tried to forget about the murder, continuing to live his life. Stephen's body lying just below his feet. It would never happen again, Nielsen thought, but he was wrong. Months after the death of Stephen Holmes, the police still hadn't appeared at Nielsen's doorstep.

It seemed that he had, miraculously, gotten away with murder. Though he was lucky this time, he swore he'd never let himself slip up again. Nielsen theorized that being blind drunk that night was what had led him to, lose control and murder Stephen. So from that night on, he refrained from drinking, hoping that it would keep him from killing once more. He kept his head down, convincing himself that surely it would be better to live a productive life than to turn himself in and rot away in a cell. After nearly a year, Nielsen felt that he was once again in control. His 34th birthday came and went, and he was as lonely as ever.

He started going back to his neighborhood pubs, getting drunk and chatting up men. And on December 3rd, 1979, Nielsen met Kenneth, Ken Ackenden. Ken was a 23-year-old college student and tourist from Canada, visiting relatives in England. He met Nielsen while at lunch at a pub,

and the two men quickly hit it off, talking about photography and music. Ken was a huge fan of rock. Nielsen offered to take Ken on a walking tour of the city's landmarks so he could get some photographs, and Ken happily agreed. He had a feeling that he would look back fondly on his time seeing London with his new friend. The two men toured the city for the rest of the day. As it began to get dark, Nielsen suggested they go back to his flat.

He had a killer record collection. While Ken listened to their records in the living room, Nielsen cooked them a meal of ham and eggs. They talked and drank, listening to the Who play on the turntable. Nielsen was thrilled by Ken's company. Ken laughed at his jokes and found his stories from the British Army fascinating. For the first time since David left, he felt seen. The young man not only accepted him, but seemed to understand him.

The more time Nielsen spent with Ken, the more desperate he was for him to stay. But Ken couldn't stay long. The next day he would fly home to Canada for the holidays, leaving Nielsen alone for yet another Christmas. A familiar feeling crept into Nielsen's head, and instantly his heart began to pound. The feeling nagged at him, calling his thoughts back with a seductive whisper every time he tried to push it away, until finally he made a decision. Nielsen abruptly suggested that Ken listened to him. one of his favorite records. Without waiting for a reply, Nielsen leaped to his feet and put the record

on. He had to listen with headphones, Nielsen insisted. He wouldn't want him to miss a thing. Ken settled down in an armchair next to the record player, and Nielsen offered him another drink. Then, Ken slipped on the headphones. As Ken listened, Nielsen stood just a few steps behind him, shaking. In the next moment, Nielsen grabbed the headphones. cable and wrapped it around Ken's neck, strangling him while music still played in his ears. As the men struggled, Nielsen unplugged the headphones from the record player. Now he was killing Ken to the tune of his favorite album. When it was over, Ken's body laid limp on the beige carpet as Nielsen stood over him, panting.

Then he went to pour himself a drink. He put the headphones on himself, listening to his own. the record as Kenneth Ockenden lay dead at his feet. Up next, Nielsen develops a twisted ritual that drives him to kill again and again. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade.

Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak. And get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Now back to the story. In December of 1979, 34-year-old Dennis Nielsen had murdered his second victim. Despite his efforts to restrain himself for almost an entire year after murdering 14-year-old Stephen Holmes in 1978, he couldn't resist his temptations. Nielsen sat sipping his glass of rum, staring blankly at Kenneth Ackenden, lying dead on the floor of his flat.

Once he finished his drink, he undressed Ken and took him to the bathtub. There he gently washed his body before placing the corpse in bed and sleeping beside it the rest of the night, caressing it frequently. Over the next two weeks, Nielsen tended to his new companion, bathing him first. frequently, and dressing him in fresh underwear and socks. Nielsen even altered Ken's body in small ways, shaping him to conform to his physical ideal. Preferring a smooth, youthful appearance, Nielsen shaved Ken's corpse and applied makeup to any obvious blemishes.

He used talcum powder to keep his body smelling fresh and to disguise blood hemorrhages on his face and the dark bruises around his neck from strangulation. Sometimes he wished he had lipstick. After the grooming, Nielsen photographed Ken's dead body, preserving his beauty in a collection of Polaroids. He posed the body in various suggestive positions throughout the flat, and eventually he sexually abused Ken's corpse. Nielsen would engage in sexual acts with the bodies of his victims, but almost never penetrated intercourse. He said that this was because the corpse of his corpse would be able to be able to be.

were too perfect and beautiful for the pathetic ritual of commonplace sex. But that didn't rule out masturbation, oral sex, or sex between the corpse's thighs. This way he could keep his companions for longer without ruining their perfectly manicured bodies. When he wasn't fondling or grooming the body, Nielsen was talking to it. After work, he would come home and tell Ken's corpse how his day went, placing him across the kitchen table as he ate dinner. And before falling asleep, he would tuck it into bed with him and wish it good night. But soon, Kenneth Ackenden's disappearance became a high-profile missing person's case

with coverage airing on television channels throughout England. Nielsen watched stories of his disappearance on the nightly news with a drink in hand and Ken's groomed and posed body by his side. But to Nielsen, Ken was no longer Ken. He was a character in Nielsen's fantasies that he would project his most twisted desires onto. Kenneth Ockenden's corpse was now his plaything. Nielsen went through the deliberate process of erasing Ken's identity. After he killed him, Nielsen destroyed Ken's clothing and possessions

to hide any trace of his life before he had entered Nielsen's world. Rewriting Ken's identity absolved Nielsen. of his guilt and allowed him to mimic relationship behaviors with Ken's corpse. Bathing him, talking with him, and even having sex with Ken's body was all part of an elaborate ritual that Nielsen enacted in order to create a bond with his corpse. According to his 2019 article in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology entitled The Sexually Sadistic Properties of Necrophilia in the context of serial killing, Author Mark Pettigrew writes that the notion of a necrophile establishing a relationship with corpses is not uncommon.

Many necrophiles seek to create an intimate dynamic with their victims that they crave, but haven't yet been able to satisfy with a living person. Having a corpse as a partner shields the necrophile from rejection and allows them to exercise complete control over the relationship, as well as control over the corpse itself. The body is stripped of its persona, but the necrophile imbues it with a new one that fits inside their needs and desires for a partner. In death, a corpse becomes the person they want it to be, an unrejecting, intimate partner whom they can project tender feelings onto. And for several weeks, Kenneth Ackenden was Nielsen's perfect companion.

That was the case, at least until the unavoidable happened. Ken's body began to rot. For Nielsen, this was an unfortunate and bitter side effect of keeping his beautiful companion. As soon as Ken's corpse showed signs of decay, the dream was over. All of the love and personality Nielsen had projected onto the body was lost. Now it was nothing more than a very large inconvenience. Just as Stephen Holmes had gone before him, Kenneth Ackenden was relegated to a space beneath the floorboards and forgotten.

Without Ken's body for company, Nielsen was forced to reenter the cold reality of his isolation. As his depression deepened, he found himself increasingly unable to cope with the loneliness. It was an all-too familiar feeling, but this time he had a cure. Five months after Kenneth Ackenden's murder in May of 1980, Nielsen was taking a train back to London from a work conference when he met 16-year-old Martin Duffy. Martin was a gay teenager and a runaway who had hitchhiked to London from his hometown near Liverpool

four days earlier. When Martin met Nielsen, he was sleeping near London's Houston train station. Nielsen had found Martin exhausted and starving and offered him a hot meal at his flat. Martin thanked Nielsen profusely. For days, the homeless teen had been without shelter or proper food, and he was grateful that the kind man had taken an interest in him.

Martin Duffy is a perfect example of Nielsen's victim profile. Though Nielsen preyed on straight and gay men alike, all of his victims were found in a local pub or on the street. Nielsen had expanded his stalking grounds. In order to target victims, he believed, wouldn't be easily missed. Young runaways, homeless men, and male sex workers were ideal. Not to mention, they were easy to lure

under the guise of a benevolent stranger offering alcohol or food. It was this practice that earned him his nickname, the kindly killer. Once they arrived at the flat, Nielsen cooked Martin dinner and plied him with beer. But just after a couple of drinks,

the teenager was extremely exhausted. He told Nielsen that he was nodding off and asked him if it would be all right, right if he slept in his bed. Nielsen, of course, was accommodating. Just a few hours after Martin retreated to Nielsen's bedroom, Nielsen followed. The room was pitch black, but Nielsen stood silhouetted in the light of the open doorway. He approached the bed silently, careful not to wake Martin with his footsteps.

Nielsen watched the rise and fall of his chest and then gazed at Martin's face. It was almost angelic in the half-light of the dim room, serene even, and oddly, Nielsen felt a sense of peace himself. In the next moment, Nielsen climbed on top of Martin's sleeping form, straddling him and pinning Martin's arms beneath his legs. In seconds, he had a piece of twine under and around his neck. Nielsen pulled tight. It was a familiar feeling now.

Soon Martin Duffy was dead, and like Stephen Holmes and Ken Akinden, he was bathed, groomed, and recast in the role of Nielsen's silent companion. In the months following Martin's murder, his father looked desperately for traces of his runaway son, but it would be years until he learned that Martin had become just one more corpse in Nielsen's growing body count. In the meantime, there would be many, many. anymore. The year 1980 marked a transition for Nielsen from a reluctant murderer killing for company to a cold and calculated serial killer.

With the death of Martin Duffy, Nielsen's conscience was smothered by his insatiable desire for a dead companion. And it was only a matter of time before he would need another corpse to play the part. Dennis Nielsen was just getting started. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back Monday with a new episode. We'll track Dennis Nielsen as he continues on a killing spree more prolific and gruesome than any serial murderer England had ever seen.

For more information on Dennis Nielsen, among the many sources we consulted, we found Killing for Company, the story of a man addicted to murder by Brian Masters, helpful to our research. You can find episodes of serial killers, and all other Parcast originals for free on Spotify. Not only does Spotify already have all of your favorite music, but now Spotify is making it easy for you to enjoy all of your favorite Parcast originals like Serial Killers for free from your phone, desktop, or smart speaker.

To stream serial killers on Spotify, just open the app, tap browse, and type Serial Killers in the search bar. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network.

It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Dick Schroeder, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Paul Mahler. Additional production assistance by Freddie Beckley and Maggie Admeyer. This episode of serial killers was written by Alex Garland and stars Greg Polson and Vanessa Richardson. Want to hear something spooky. Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snake-like lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide, Derek Hayes.

Somehow I lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm global news crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.