Morbid - Dennis Nilsen: The Kindly Killer (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

On the morning of February 8, 1983, a plumber working in London’s Muswell Hill neighbor opened a drainage cover behind a Cranley Gardens apartment building and made a horrific discovery—the drain was blocked by pieces of bone and human tissue. Upon investigation, detectives traced the blockage back to one apartment in the building, where additional evidence suggested things were far worse than they’d initially thought.When the occupant of the apartment, Dennis Nilsen, was confronted with the human remains, he began telling investigators a shocking story and when he was finished, Nilsen had confessed to murdering and dismembering at fifteen men over the course of five years. In the annals of British crime, Dennis Nilsen ranks among the worst serial killers the country has ever seen, not only because of the number of people he killed, but also the method of disposal and the motive.  Want to help out the people of Minneapolis? Click here to help small business owners impacted by current events!ReferencesBarlass, Tim, and Robert Mendick. 2006. "Killer: This was my first victim." Evening Standard (London, UK), November 9: 1.Davies, Nick. 1983. "A nice person, says the man who escaped." The Guardian, October 26: 5.—. 1983. "Nilsen 'claimed to have no tears for victims, bereaved, or himself'." The Guardian, October 26: 5.—. 1983. "Nilsen 'enjoyed power of his victims'." The Guardian, November 1: 4.—. 1983. "Nilsen tells of horror and shame at killings." The Guardian, October 28: 2.Henry, Ian. 1983. "'My fury if visitors didn't listen to me'." Daily Telegraph (London, UK), October 27: 3.—. 1983. "Nilsen 'has admitted 15 or 16 killings'." Daily Telegraph (London, UK), October 25: 3.Liverpool Echo. 1983. "London body: Man in court." Liverpool Echo, February 12: 1.Masters, Brian. 1985. Killing for Company: The Case of Dennis Nilsen. London, UK: J. Cape.McMillan, Greg. 1980. "Family scours Britain for missing son." Hamilton Spectator (Hamilton, ON), January 31: 10.Murphy, Fin. 2021. "I struck up a friendship with serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Then I edited his memoirs." Vice, January 29.Nicholson-Lord, David. 1983. "Doctor tells jury of Nlsen's false-self." The Times, October 28: 1.—. 1983. "Nilsen given 25-year sentence." The Times, November 5: 1.Tatchell, Peter. 2022. Police failed Dennis Nilsen’s victims. Decades later, little has changed. January 24. Accessed September 15, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/24/police-dennis-nilsen-victims-homophobic-murders.The Guardian. 1983. "State of mind issue put to Nilsen jury." The Guardian, November 3: 3.The Times. 1983. "Nilsen strangled, cut up and burnt men he met in pubs, jury told." The Times, October 25: 1.—. 1984. "Prisoners live in fear of Nilsen." The Times, June 21: 3. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is morbid. This is morbid. This is morbid. This is morbid. And there's a lot going on. My goodness, doesn't it just feel like that every single day you wake up? Truly. More and more going on. Something very, it's, this is one of those things. It's very chilling. And it's like something that I can't stop thinking about. And like checking it on. So the Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie, her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, has been missing since Saturday night, I believe. The last time she was seen was Saturday night. And this story is just wild and heartbreaking and horrifying. I can't stop thinking about it.

No, I can't either. We, I mean, we, we haven't been so much recently just because life has gotten busy, but we used to be such a Today Show house. Oh my God. I used to come over like every single day and we would just watch hours of the Today Show. Love the Today Show. And like, so we've been watching Savannah forever. And it's

destroying my soul to think of how much pain she must be going through right now. My heart is with her and her family. And this story is just wild. I mean, Nancy is 84 years old. She's just described as sharp as attack. Has a little bit of mobility issues

so she wasn't going to be getting up and leaving on her own. Right. She lives in Arizona and there's not a lot coming out which leads to me to believe that they might have something that they're working on

or at least they're trying to chase something down that maybe they don't want, or something happened that they just don't want us to know. Yeah, because they've said they don't believe it's a home invasion. They don't believe it's a robbery gone wrong. But there is evidence of foul play. Yeah, it sounds like they're pretty much stating now that she was abducted from her bed. An 84-year-old woman abducted from her bed. Yeah, it's horrific. It's just horrifying. She needs medication every 24 hours to literally survive. It's life-threatening if she doesn't have it. And she, the medicine was left the home, which is very concerning.

And now her pacemaker's not connecting to her Apple Watch any longer. Yeah, that was the newest update. So it's all really horrifying. And I'm just thinking about how her family is feeling right now. And I can't even imagine. I can't even put my brain in that space. But I feel really bad. That like by some miracle.

Yeah, I'm really hoping. She's found alive and well. I hope they know more than they're saying. Yeah. And I hope that they find Nancy because it's really, it's, ugh. the world. Yeah. And Savannah has gone through a lot. Yeah, she just, I think she just came back from like a vocal cord surgery or something. Yeah. And just like their family in general. Like, it's just so, that's so sad. But yeah, we loved the, we always loved the Today Show and, you know, it's just,

I was like, oh, damn. You like, you have these people in your house on the daily. So you feel this, like strange connection to them. So I felt like super, when as soon as I heard, I was like, oh my God, it's like your friend is going through this. It feels like, yeah, it's awful. But just, let's let's hope they find Nancy. Yeah. And Savannah's asking for prayers. Yeah, like, damn. But yeah, just wanted to point that out.

Hopefully there's an update and a good one. A good one, I know. Let's manifest that for her. But yeah. In another level. I was going to say going into another, hopefully a little bit of positivity we can bring. Obviously, everybody knows how we feel about ice. Fuck ice.

Yeah. We want them out of Minnesota. We want them out of everywhere. Yeah. But we were thinking of just like any. anything we can do to help. Yeah. And Mikey was nice enough to help us find this on

Minnesota.org, and we will link this in our show notes. They have a full list of small businesses that you can support. Yes. So we'll link those in the show notes. And we'll try to link them on... I don't think Instagram allows links. I don't think it drives me nuts. I'm like, can you allow links? I know it matter. Well, we'll link it in the show notes. Go find

those. It's just wherever you're listening to, if you hit more info, it should be right there. Yeah. I know sometimes people will struggle to find them. Yeah. So check those out, support some local businesses. Yeah. It's a great way to just, because they're going through a lot more than what we're seeing. Yeah, too. We're being like that's the thing. The news is being suppressed for sure. So just like they need all the support they can get. And anywhere else that you hear of ICE, a great way to fight back and spend your money in a good way is to shop local. Exactly. Any Etsy shops you can find in areas like that. Yeah. Support local businesses. Just in general. It's good to do anyway. Yeah, that's just good to do anyway. On a more, like, lighter note, and this is, we need it. We're really segueing. Yeah. I can't believe I'm segueing here.

I mean, we need a segue. We need a segue. That's just, you know, that's just, that's the way the show goes. Yeah, that was the business at the top and now we're at the banter. Do you know what a flow state is? Yeah. What is a flow state? I think like a flow state, isn't that when you like really lock in?

I don't, everybody says that, like, I keep seeing it on TikTok, people being like, I ate this ice cream or one thing that I keep seeing people saying is like they take a sip of like the most delicious latte and they enter a flow state. Yeah, I think it's like a really locked in state of just like ready to fucking go. I just looked and I just looked it up.

It says like being in the zone complete absorption, focus and enjoyment in whatever activity you are engaged. Okay, I've enjoyed a lot of things in my life. I don't know that I've ever been in a flow state. Oh, I've been in a flow state so many times. Tell me when you're in a flow state. state. I'm in a flow state. Give me examples. When I can sit down in front of a computer and a word

document and write more than three words. That's a flow state. I enter a full flow state. If I'm tap, tap, tap, tap and shit is rolling out and it's happening, flow state. Okay. If I make a perfect coffee in the morning, immediately enter a flow state. Okay. So I've probably been in a flow state. I'm sure you have. You're just not recognizing it as a flow state. I got to recognize my flow states. When I, um, when I like organize and feel like I've actually accomplished some kind of organization, okay. I will enter a flow state. Okay. When I organized my pantry, I was in a flow state. Yeah, you were in a flow state. All right. All right. All right. Yep. Like I decorate for, and Ash actually helped me this, this time. I decorate for every holiday, like the bathroom that like my kids generally use. And we,

decorate it for every holiday. Like I always put a bunch of shit in there. Just because it's fun, they get home from school or like they go to brush their teeth and they're like, oh my God. It's all these lights and stuff. And so for Valentine's Day this year, we went like all out and Ash helped me like use the markers that you can write on the glass to like make little candy hearts on the mirror. The little like conversation hearts.

And I think in those moments I enter a flow state. Okay. When I was doing those hearts, even though my knees were hurting really bad, I was in a flow state. Yeah. See? All right. Okay. Thank you. I thought of this last night because I saw a talk of a lady being like, oh my God, I just entered a flow state because this latte is so good. And I felt like that was very Gen Z. And I said, have I been in a flow state? What is? I said, I wonder if Alina knows what a flow state is. And I saved it for the pod. I was going to tell you about flow states, but you let it happen. I think I'm in a flow state when I shop. Oh, you definitely are in a flow state when you shop. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely am. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully we can all get into flow states with things we enjoy right now. I like that. There's another tip of the day. Make sure, make it your fucking mission.

Tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow right now. I mean, try it now. But it's okay if you're not like in that place right now and you need a minute to like really, you know, get it. Or figure out what your flow state thing might be. Okay. Tomorrow, wake up attempt flow state. Whatever you need to do, watch one of those. late 90s, early 2000s movies that you need to, that flow state,

make an awesome coffee, organize, decorate, just read a book, write down some shit, like do whatever you need to do and make sure you do not go to bed tomorrow night until you have entered your flow state

even for a second. Even if it's just a quick flow state. Oh, I think we all need that every day. This is like a glass shatter moment. I enter a flow state when I do, I almost had a scloafate. I enter a sclofe. I enter a flow state when I do my skincare.

Oh, yeah. In everything shower? That's a flow state. All right. I get it now. I get it. So see, there you go. Have a good shower or something.

Like tomorrow, make it your business to enter a flow state and then try to enter a flow state just for one second every day. Just to give yourself that one moment. Does a flow state need to be a little bit longer though? A flow state feels longer than one second. I don't think there's a, there's a. There's no timeline. on flow states. I think as long as you feel like you entered a flow state even for a second. If you drank every time we said flow state during this, you would die. Yeah, you just died. That's crazy.

But yeah, do that. I think that that's my advice for the day. I like that. My advice to get. I'm all about flow states right now. We ordered Jersey Mike's cookies and I'm going to eat one after this. Oh my God. I forgot we had that. Oh, baby. Not only did we order like one, not only did we order two. We got two mini boxes. And if they had more than many boxes, we would get two of those two. Hell yeah. Those put me in a film state. We're going to need that because we're starting a three-part series that is going to be a harrowing journey. I have to tell you something.

When you say we're starting a three-part series, I know it's about to get dark. Yeah. But you try to enter a fugue state at that point. That's what happens. But you know what? You're three-part. I got to say, let me just like, let me, let me, let me, let me, brown-state. you real quick.

I really love your three-parters because they feel cinematic to me when I sit and listen to them. Oh, thank you. You betcha. That's highest praise I can imagine. Let me wipe my nose off. I love that. Wipe your nose off. No, I appreciate that.

This one's going to be, it's about Dennis Nilsen, the kindly killer. I was referred to. I feel like I recognize the name. Yeah, we've definitely talked about him before. He's come up on crime countdown. Okay. He's a lot. He has many, many victims.

And he's got a lot going on. Just as a quick little trigger warning, he has necrophilic tendencies. So that's going to be part of this. He's not the vampire one, is he? No. Okay. No.

No, that's another guy. Isn't that wild that we're just like, no, that's a whole other guy? Yeah. Yep. So he's a guy. So we're going to talk about him. And this took place in the 80s.

So, so that usually that's a fun time for some other things like pop culture, but whenever anybody says anything is the 80s anymore, all I can hear is the 80s in my head saying, yeah, it was the 80s. It was the 80s. So we'll start just get by giving a little overview. It was on the morning of February 8th, 1983, which I did not even realize. Yeah. That by the time, when this comes out, it's going to be right before it. And then I think the second part will come out like the day after or something. Yeah. I didn't do that on purpose. That happened so. That happened so. frequently. I did not do that on purpose. That's so weird. That just, I forget which case, but that just happened to me too and I just didn't reference it. It happens so often. Like, that happened to me too. I want you to know we literally never do that on purpose. I've never chosen a case based on the date being the date it will come out. No, it's very strange. Yeah. So weird. So, one of those like anomalies. Yeah. So on that day, February 8th, 1983, a plumber working in London's Muswell Hill neighborhood opened a drainage cover behind a Cranley Gardens apartment building. and in that drainage cover, he made a horrific discovery.

The drain was completely blocked by pieces of bone and human tissue. Oh, fuck. So he called police. That's the best people to call it. Yeah, and detectives arrived on the scene, and they traced the blockage back to one apartment in the building. And when they went into this apartment, there were additional pieces of evidence in this apartment

that suggested that things were exponentially worse, and they had even originally thought they were. And they probably thought things were pretty bad originally. And that apartment building belonged to Dennis Nilsson. That's crazy. I didn't expect that. Yeah, I know. It's a twist. Wait.

The fact that they could trace, like, the drainage pipes back to him is that's, pipes are nuts. Pipes are crazy. I've been talking about pipes for all week. Pipes really go crazy. I had a pipe burst in my garage. And I said, why is there even a fucking pipe in my garage? True. And you said, I don't know.

I don't know. Don't talk to me about it. So let's talk about Dennis Nilsson, who he was before he became this Dennis Nass. What happened to him? So he was born November 23rd, 1945. Does that make him a Sagittarius? Yes. I think... Does it? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's literally like right. I think 21st starts Saj. There we go. He's very close to being a scorpl. Oh, okay. Hold on. Let me make sure, because sometimes I'm dumb. Sometimes I'm dumb. Sometimes I'm dumb. Sometimes I'm dumb when it comes to the Zodiac. I'm a new. You know, I've started, another thing I've started to do. I think I've said this before, but I started doing it again because I fell back into it.

Tell me. I've started when I, like, I'll do something or forget something in the house and I'll be like, oh, you're so stupid. Like, go get. Stop doing that. Okay. You're right. Stop doing that.

You're right. Because I did it yesterday. I was like, oh my God, I'm so dumb. And then I was like, and literally, if anyone heard me doing this, they'd probably be like, you're losing it. Like, wow, you're coo-eatheed. I said, no, you're not dumb. You just forgot that thing.

That doesn't make you dumb. Okay. Hold on. Ash, no, you're not dumb. You're still learning this and you're working on it actively. And actually, you were correct this time. Yeah. Because I saw, I saw an article, quote, unquote, that said, you watched an article.

I watched, I watched an article that did say our brains believe what we tell them. So if you keep telling your brain you're dumb or you're fat or you're ugly or this or you're not, it's going to believe it. It's going to be like, wow, I suck. Because your brain, who is it going to believe? You, like, you're the one that it wants to believe. You think you're going to sound goofy. I looked at myself in the mirror the other day and I said, you look beautiful today.

As you should. Yeah. So start doing that too. You absolutely should. I truly believe like we need to stop being so negative to ourselves because I think a lot of people who are complete bitch ass pieces of shit want us to do that. Well, and also, they're mean to themselves too. Yeah, absolutely. And they've taught themselves to be these like toxicly negative people. Yeah, they're like the meanest. And it makes them feel like shit. They've done it to themselves usually.

And then they put it out to everybody else. In the words of RuPaul, how the hell are you going to, how are you going to love yourself? How in the hell are you going to love yourself if you can't? I don't know. RuPaul said I've watched so much drag race How did I? I feel like I was just stripped of my LGBT cards I don't know How in the hell

Are you going to love somebody else You can't love yourself? Mikey, what does he say? Mikey Mikey! Mikey! Help, gay, help. What is you what else?

Rupal say? How in the hell are you going to love somebody else if you cannot love yourself? No. I'm saying it's so wrong. I'm looking at it. Are we straight right now? Mikey. Mikey.

If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else? Amen. That's exactly it. Okay. Can I get an amen? Can I get an amen? Yeah. Oh my God.

I don't deserve the amen. Don't give it to me. Oh, my Lord. Oh, my God. That was crazy. That was crazy. I just looked it up. I just did the Capricorn thing and I said, I'll look it up.

Don't worry. Guys, that was the opposite. That was scary. That was scary. That was the opposite. That was. Do you ever do something like that? And you say, do I have a cognitive issue?

Yes. All the time. I'm going to do a Sudoku later. Anyways, anyways. The whole point of that was stop saying you're dumb and being mean to yourself. Back to the program. That's another piece of advice. Do that.

Yeah. It's really hard right now. Do crosswords too. Do that. Holy fuck. So yeah. So Dennis Nielsen was a Sagittarius. And he was born.

That's where we. Fucking, that's the roundabout. That's where he started. And he was born in Scotland. Oh, fuck him for doing that. Right? Like, Scottish people don't do that. No.

Dick. That's not Scottish. So he was the second of three children born to Elizabeth and Olaf Mokshim. Sorry, but it's always the middle child. They later adopted the surname Nilsson. Got it. They had met several years earlier when Olaf saved Elizabeth from being attacked by another man. Wow, that's a great meet cute.

What a meet cute. Yeah. They started dating and very soon after they were talking about marriage. And on May 2nd, 1942, they married. Love. O'Lov and Elizabeth's first child was O'Love Jr. He came a short time after they got married and he was followed quickly by two other children, Dennis and Sylvia. Despite their whirlwind romance and growing family, OLAV Sr.

never really took to the whole marriage and family life. So he was just frequently absent. Not good. Yeah. That was either due to his responsibilities in the military or his general uninterested being a father. Okay. We're not sure which or it was an amalgamation.

Kind of a little bit of both. Oh, okay. As a result, Elizabeth continued to live with her parents and the children were raised as much by them as by their mother. Oh, that's kind of nice. Yeah. I loved my grandparents. That can be great.

And I still do, in fact. Yeah. Years later, when he reflected about his parents' marriage, Dennis wrote because he did write a memoir. by the way. Oh no. Yeah. They always do.

They always do. He wrote, In the heat and uncertainty of war, my father married my mother primarily on lustful grounds and ignoring some irreconcilable cultural and personality differences, which doomed the match to failure. Oh, fuck. Which is like weirdly insightful.

Yeah. That is insightful. Although their father was hardly ever home and really only saw the children on rare occasions, his presence or maybe more his absentee, was pretty influential on the family. The detached nature of OLAV and Elizabeth's relationship appears to have filtered down to their children. And it kind of prevented them not just forming a bond with their parents, but with one another as well. Oh.

Yeah. This led to all the Nilsson children, but Dennis in particular, becoming very isolated and withdrawn. For Dennis, this meant spending hours alone every day, escaping into an increasingly intense fantasy. sea world. In fact, Nilsson even described himself as quote, an unhappy brooding child, secretive and stricken with inferiority. Oh, that's awful.

Horrifying. It's true that Dennis felt a very tenuous connection to his parents and siblings, but the family wasn't entirely like fractured. Because his grandparents were such a constant presence in his early life, he formed a very big, like very strong bond with his grandfather,

Andrew White. Unlike Dennis's mother, who is generally detached and permissive, Andrew was actually a harsh and deeply religious man with an incredibly rigid sense of morality. Well, I was relieved for like one second. Well, the thing is, when it came to his grandson, he was very warm and compassionate. Okay. And it was really maybe the only connection Dennis had to the world outside his fantasies. And because of this, Dennis was devastated when in the fall of 1951,

62-year-old Andrew died from a heart attack while he was on a fishing boat. That is so young. Yeah. In one of his earliest memories, Nilsen recalled being brought into the house during the funeral to view his grandfather's body. He said, Granddad was wearing glasses and expensive Long Johns.

He was barefooted and needed a shave. He looked as if he was sleeping. Oh, that's really sad. Yeah. Many years later, Dennis would trace his pathology back to this event. He wrote, My troubles started there. It blighted my personality permanently.

I've spent all my emotional life searching for my grandfather, and in my formative years, no one was there to take his place. Father and grandfather had walked out on me, probably for a better place, leaving me behind in this not-so-good place alone. Oh, man. Which if he wasn't such a complete piece of shit, you'd be like, oh my God, that's so sad. Yeah, you feel bad for the kid.

Exactly. In the wake of his grandfather's death, Dennis became much more isolated. He spent his free time by the water, watching the fishing boats come and go. And during one of these occasions, he claimed to have walked into the ocean to try to end his life.

Oh, fuck. But he was saved by an older boy who spotted him from the beach and pulled him back to shore. Now, in his memoirs, he claimed that this savior of his potentially sexually assaulted him. Oh.

But because he was unconscious at the time, he was unable to provide any details of the attack or his attacker. Okay. That said, Nilsen himself acknowledges his tendency to blend fantasy

with memory and reality with not reality when recounting events from his life. So it's kind of impossible to know which aspects of his early biography are true and which are pieces he made up.

Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah, that's tough. Because they never were able to identify this person. Right. They don't even know if he actually walked into the ocean.

Exactly. Right. It might have never happened. Okay. Now, not long after the death of his father, Elizabeth married a second time to a man named Adam Scott. Adam Scott is not the one that was on parks and recreation. Oh, I forgot that was Adam Scott. Not Ben Wyatt. I was like, I second guess myself immediately. Oh, that's why I was confused. I was like, is his name Adam? You were talking to his government name. Yeah, his government name. I see, not Ben Wyatt. Unlike her previous husband, Scott was a local man with strong connections to the air. area and a solid work history in the building trade. He was according to author Brian Masters, quote, a quiet, solid and reliable man who gave her four more children in four years. Okay, wow.

Yeah, a lot of kids. Getting busy. So if Elizabeth Nilsson had maintained a casual and detached relationship to her children before her second marriage, she definitely doubled that marrying Scott. And adding four more children. Yeah. Also, the additional kids in the house pushed Dennis further away from me. his mother and deeper into isolation. He wrote, in those days, I could hate Adam Scott very easily.

I sometimes felt that we, the Nilsson kids, were an impediment to my mother's fulfillment in her new life and family. It's a very common feeling. As he grew older, Dennis was able to make a few friends, but he still chose to spend a lot of his free time alone. When school ended every day, he would go home, put on his headphones, and just lose himself in music for hours at a time. Or he would go into the woods and just go on long walks. When he was, 14, he joined Army Cadet Force, a military prep organization for teenage boys. His participation in the group gave him a structure that he was definitely lacking at home. And he gave him kind of a sense of purpose in a life. That was like a little chaotic at times. He said, I felt proud and useful in my

battle dress. And he also tried to try to become like, he tried his hand at sports basically too, but that didn't really pan out for him. Okay. So it seemed like the military stuff like was the thing that really tickled his fancy? Yeah. For the most part, his early life was that kind of like most boys at the time, but an incident in his mid-teens would definitely disrupt that path of normalcy

and provide some pretty serious consequences in his later life, I think. One afternoon when Dennis was about 14, a local elderly man from the village went missing, and the whole town turned out to look for him. And Dennis and another boy, Gordon Barry, decided

to search down by the river Uji, where they eventually stumbled upon this old man's body. The local doctor later said that in his confusion, the man had probably wandered out of his house in the middle of the night and fallen into the river and drowned. Oh, that's so sad. Nilsen said, he reminded me of my grandfather, and the images were firmly fixed in my mind.

I could never comprehend the reality of death. It's very stand by me. Yeah. When he was 15, he decided to leave school and join the military. And in September of 1961, he reported to London for duty. It was, he hoped, an opportunity for a fresh start to, like, get away from this tiny village and all the limitations he felt were there and to learn a new trade that hopefully was just going to carry him to adulthood. But if he was looking for, like, a whole new experience, which he definitely was, he was definitely disappointed with the reality of army life, especially for someone so young. Yeah.

Rather than being sent off to some exotic location like he thought he would be, Dennis and his peers spent the next four years stationed in Aldershot, a military town in Haleigh. Hampshire, New England. Okay. Their life was pretty much the same as it had been when he, before he left home with military responsibilities, just replacing schoolwork. Oh, yeah. And his fellow soldiers replacing his classmates. In 1964, he passed his exams and was promoted to the rank of private, which was an

important step in what he thought was going to be a lifelong career in the military. And while this was a momentous occasion for him, his entire experience in the military had been undermined by his growing awareness of his own sexuality and his interest in men. Sure. Especially at the time period, this was tough. Yeah, not accepted. And especially in the military back then. He was repressing everything, though, and the repression of those urges was always

accompanied by, like, deep guilt and shame. Yeah. And he would carry that with him for a long time. He later said, I was always afraid that I must somehow look different and that my innermost thoughts would be exposed. Oh, that's so. Which is so sad. It is very sad.

But he's such an asshole. Like it's like you see, you hear these things. And again, this was, he's still a kid when this is all happening. Right. So you feel bad for it. That's sad. Like we said, feel bad for the kid. And as is often the case, Dennis was only able to conceal this for so long. And in his mid-20s, he was engaging in a lot of like, you know, one-night stands with men, just like quick anonymous sexual encounters. I mean, you're living your life and you have to, people have needs. Exactly.

You can't just deny yourself forever. And he made sure they were devoid of a lot of emotion or attachment because that was kind of his life up until that moment. That is so common too. And this is, this works for some people, of course. But for Dennis, it was different. He was looking for more. He'd always been a loner. And he had created this rich fantasy life in which the needs and wants of others were relevant.

His were the important ones. Okay. Now, as an adult, it was as though he was blurring fantasy and reality, treating the real people he came in contact with who came and went in his life. as though they were dolls that he could just act out life on. And that's frankly disturbing. And then he could just put them away when he was done. And life does not work like that. Nope.

In the fall of 1972, his career in the military came to an end when he was discharged after 11 years. Wow. The following day, he turned 27 years old and found himself right back where he started. That's crazy. Like almost all in your 20s just gone and then you're asked to start a new life or expected to. Yeah. now he was living in his mother's house,

unemployed, and alone again. His decision to leave the military was pretty simple. He just wanted to try a career outside the army. Yeah. But now that he was out, he kind of felt like unmoored. Like, where do I go? That happens so often. Yeah, for five weeks, he sat in his mother's house

wondering what the fuck to do with his life. And his mother, on the other hand, was more concerned with his lack of interest in finding a wife. A short time later, Dennis's brother, Olaf, Jr., told their mother that he suspected Dennis was gay. And this speculation, no.

And this speculation, Dennis would never forgive him for. Yeah, I'd be pretty fucking pissed too. You don't out other people. But if she believed it was true, Dennis's mother never said anything to him about it, preferring instead to just ignore it and let Dennis have his private thoughts. And that was it.

Also not healthy. No, Olaf's speculation about his brother's sexuality ruined their relationship. Yeah, I'm sure. It just wasn't something that was able to be recovered. That's really sad. It is sad. In December 1972, he moved to London and enrolled at the Metropolitan Police Training School.

He was determined to parlay his pretty exemplary military service into a career in law enforcement now, which is a pretty, like, you know. Lateral move. Yeah. Dennis completed his training in April 1973 and entered the Metropolitan Police Force as a junior cadet, which is an entry-level position that, while technically a member of the police force was more like admin shit. and required the supervision of a parent officer. You got to work your way up the ladder. And when he enrolled in the training program, he envisioned finding the same level of camaraderie

that he loved in the service. Like his military brothers and sisters were like BFFs. Yeah. But he learned that the police force wasn't built around friendships. And he found himself lonely and isolated again. Throughout his youth, he had dealt with frequent isolation and loneliness by retreating into his fantasy worlds.

And in his efforts to avoid loneliness, he started exploring, you know, the countless pubs and nightclubs around London, where he eventually discovered that, you know, that the culture that he could exist in as he was, like the gay culture. Right. And in the small number of gay bars around the city, he kind of felt like he had found somewhere. For the first time in his life,

he didn't have to hide who he really was from the world. But his unrealistic expectations made his early experiences with this community deeply disappointing. Right. He wasn't finding a lot of long-term relationship prospects here. Because he wasn't really looking for that or treating people that way. Well, he's like he wanted it, but he wasn't treating people that way. So it's like he wanted that.

He just wasn't doing that. He didn't seem to know how to go about it. Yeah. And for a man with such a deep and powerful fear of abandonment, the casual, like, culture of, like, hookups in one night stands that he was involving himself in now, especially in the early 70s. That was, like, the thing. It proved very destabilized. and demoralizing for him. Yeah.

He wrote in his memoir, I was left with an endless search through the soul-destroying pub scene and it's resulting one-night stands. A house is not a home and sex is not a relationship. We would only lend each other our bodies in a vein search for inner peace.

Wow. I don't know. It's like he comes up so like deep. Yeah. Now, during his first year with the police force, he was developing like an identity and a philosophy that was very much at odds

with his professional life. Throughout his time in the military, he had developed a pretty progressive leftist worldview that made it pretty impossible to ignore the imperialistic nature of the British military. Oh, okay. That was at least partially

what motivated him to not seek a second term in the army. He was like, I just don't think it... It doesn't align with my beliefs. Now as a young police officer, he was kind of in the same position, enforcing laws that seemed outdated and targeting groups that he himself was a part of.

Right. To make matters, worse, in August 1974, he received word that his father, Olaf, Sr. had died at the UK military base in Ghana.

He had left his children a bit of money, but that was it. Given how disillusioned he was with his circumstances, he waited until the end of the year, and in December, he quit his position

with the police force. Now, leaving the police force at the end of the year was intended to be a big life change that would set him on the right path. Unfortunately, it turned out to be just another exercise and disappointment.

When the money his father left him started to run out, he was forced to go out and find whatever job he could, which at the time was not really easy. He ended up working a series of pretty unfulfilling jobs. You know, he worked at a job center. He just did things that were not his passion at all. Yeah. It was there that Nilsson would have another powerful experience

that in retrospect would have sinister undertones. Oh. While working at the job center in 1975, Dennis met a young man named David Painter, who came in looking for work. During his visit, Painter mentioned he was currently at work and without a place to stay. At the time, there were no jobs for the young man, so he left without anything. A few days later, however, Dennis ran into Painter on the street by chance. And knowing his circumstances, he invited David Painter back to his apartment. What Dennis didn't know at the time was that David was only 17 years old.

and had run away from home and was reported missing by his parents. Oh, fuck. When they got to Nilsen's apartment, the two watched a movie, had several drinks, and then Pater became tired and went to Nilsson's bed to lay down. Misreading that situation, Dennis followed and tried to engage in sex with David Pater. So David immediately rejected him and was like, nope, that's not what I was doing. And eventually, Nilsen gave up. And a few hours later.

eventually. Yeah, exactly. Very telling. A few hours later, painter awoke to find Dennis standing over him with a video camera filming him while he slept. What the fuck? The details of what happened next are pretty murky, but kind of confusing. But when he woke to the camera in his face, he was clearly naturally very frightened and upset and tried to leave the apartment. And Nilsen tried to stop him, but David, apparently, according to Nilsson became aggressive and began trashing the apartment, which I think he was probably fighting to get out of the apartment. He cut himself on a glass partition in the process. Oh, wow.

It was only then that Dennis finally called the police in an ambulance. Okay. When he was interviewed by police at the same station, by the way, that he'd worked as an officer. Later that afternoon, he feigned ignorance, claiming that the young man, quote, went berserk for no clear reason. That usually happens.

Although it seems highly unlikely that nothing happened in Dennis's apartment, David Painter's parents were reluctant to press charges, and the police were satisfied that if nothing else, Painter hadn't been sexually assaulted, so the whole thing ended that afternoon with Dennis being let off with a warning. You have to wonder if he was sexually assaulted. And I wonder if his parents didn't want to press charges because they just didn't want him involved in what they assumed was something untoward.

Yeah. You know. Now, obviously most people don't end up going home with someone who ends up being a prolific serial killer. No. Luckily. Thankfully. And in the context of Dennis Nilsen's life and later murderous activities, that incident, even though it wasn't viewed as bad enough, quote unquote, to press charges at the time, it can be viewed as a like pre-contemplative phase. Yeah, for sure.

Where he's beginning to explore these darker fantasies and considering whether or not to act on them. Yeah, definitely. This was clearly an escalation, a slight one. Now, while there's evidence to indicate Nilsson was at least considering his predatory impulses at the time, the period between 1975 and 1977 was a lot of personal growth and contentment for him. Which is interesting. Yeah. After a few years of, you know, one-night stands and hookups and casual sex, Dennis met David Gallichan in November 1975. and by the end of their first night drinking together at the bar, he and David agreed to move in together.

Wow. Very quick. Using what remained of the money left him by his father, Dennis and David found a small apartment on Melrose Avenue in London, and Dennis even worked it out so they would have exclusive use of the garden and patio in the back of the house. Nice. Oh, no. Hate that, actually.

Yeah, it's not great. Dennis had finally found someone with who he could spend his nights. Not long after moving in together, they got a dog, a black and white mutt they named bleep bleep Stop! That's actually hilarious I don't want them to have a dog

And they spent their days working on the garden And their nights watching films And listening to music Oh I hate how lovely this is Yeah it seemed at least to Dennis As though he finally lucked into a stable relationship Okay Things though

They might have only been in his head That it was like that What? According to author Brian Masters Quote The relationship was nonetheless fragile because it was relentlessly artificial. Oh.

As he'd done with several other men before, for much shorter period of times, Dennis had built up this relationship with David into something it almost certainly was not. Although it was true, they did share an apartment and occasionally they slept together. According to Masters, quote, there was no deep bond of affection between them,

and David was remote and uninterested. Did they get a dog named Bleep? They did. Oh? In truth, David and Dennis' relationship was one of convenience. Dennis paid most of the bills and made all the decisions and David continued carrying on other relationship of other people. Oh no. That the relationship lasted two years. It was due in large part to the fact that David had such a passive personality that he was

willing to go along with whatever Dennis wanted most of the time. It was just kind of like whatever. Yikes. It was more like roommates with benefits a little bit. E! That's rough. But Dennis saw it as like a relationship. This beautiful domestic life. Despite this, not a lot of relationships can last without 100% effort and commitment. And it wasn't just that David contributed far less to the household than Dennis or that he continued to see other men. There was also the fact that the two shared very little in common. And according to Dennis, David was, quote,

according to Dennis, David was, quote, inferior intellectually and dependent socially. That's rude. Yeah. By the summer of 1977, both men had begun seeing other people and barely spoke to each other when they were at home. Oh, wow. Finally, in late summer, it would become clear that this was coming to an end.

According to David, he simply packed up his bags one night and left in search of somewhere new. It's a piece out. In his version of events, Dennis says that he insisted that David move out. It's unclear which one of these is accurate, but because of Dennis's really deep fears of abandonment and his propensity for fantasy and embellishment, it's entirely possible that he created his complete own narrative just to protect himself from the psychological. pain of this whole thing. Yeah. Damn, this is fucking tragic. In the months that followed this, Dennis filled most of his time with work,

working his regular job at the employment center and picking up shifts with a catering company. And when he wasn't working, he could be found at one of the local pubs. But if he hoped either of these things were going to improve his life, he quickly learned otherwise. The bars were still full of people who seemed pretty uninterested in having a relationship with him. And at both jobs, his employers frowned upon his politics and, you know, life in general.

And as a result, he was just let down by everything. Feeling aimless, he applied to the branch chairman's school in the fall of 1978. And he felt very at home there in the intellectual and political circles of academia. At 33 years old, he was somewhat older than the other students. But his passion for intellectual subjects and politics made him fit right in. The new environment of school was exciting, but it did little to curb his loneliness. He was still cripplingly lonely. Yeah.

During this time, Dennis had many one-night stands, but every time he met someone that he even had a little bit of interest in, like, a long-term relationship with, they just rebuffed him. Oh, that's awful. He just wasn't working out. Yeah. He was clearly off-putting. I was going to say. Like, clearly. You got to, there's got to be something up there.

Something's up. These disappointments caused Dennis to retreat deeper into his fantasies each time. Yeah. Which by then had grown very dark. Well, you have to wonder, and this is obviously just speculative, but he becomes a necrophiliac and serial killer. I do wonder if some of these one-night stands, there had to have been some off-putting sexual tendencies or something like that. For sure. For there to not be repeat nights.

Exactly. Yeah. And of course, that's speculative, but it kind of makes sense. And Dennis had a, like, fetish for deaths. Yeah. Like he was very interested in it. That could make sex weird. It could for sure.

But by this time, he had stopped resisting this and he started indulging it. Okay. He said later, I put talc on my face to erase the living color. I smeared charcoal under my eyes to accentuate a hollow dark look. I lie, staring eyed on the bed in front of the mirror and let my saliva foam and drip from my mouse. I step outside myself in detached imagination. That might be the darkest shit you've ever said to me. Yeah.

What the actual fuck? That's like some shit out of a horror movie. And he would just do this. A lot? Yeah. That wasn't just a one-time thing. No. Even a one-time thing I cannot get past.

And fantasy wasn't the only place that he was starting to experiment with like risky and like interesting behavior. He'd also started creating dangerous situations where he could, could rescue his sexual partners from danger. Oh, which is very interesting because that's how his father and mother got together. Right? Yeah. One night in late fall, 1978, after inviting three men back to his house for a drink. Damn. I know. Fucking sharp shooter there. Yeah, he's hedging his bet, I guess. Dennis waited until all three had passed out before placing his winter jacket on the stove and setting it on fire. After he gathered up his dog and went out into the garden, the apartment filled up with smoke. When the men woke up, Dennis burst back into the apartment, putting out

the small fire and opening all the windows appearing to have saved their lives. What the fuck? Yeah. Almost like, damn, you're going to risk your apartment just to be a hero? Just to be a hero for a minute? That's a complex and a half. And in retrospect, these dark fantasies and risky behaviors would be seen as clear indicators that Nelson was spiraling deeper into something bad. Big time. He later said, I was becoming depressed and conditioned to a belief that I was impossible to live with. But rather than seek any kind of medical or psychological help, he found a new way to cope with his stress and anxiety while also indulging his fantasies. I feel like it's probably not good. By the end of December, his isolation and loneliness had become unbearable. And on the night of December 30th,

he mustered the energy to get dressed and headed out to a local pub. After spending weeks alone in his apartment feeling sorry for himself, he was very vulnerable and precarious emotionally. And just in general. And he was also desperate to find someone to just stop the negative thoughts that were running through his head. And on top of that, he was certain that anyone that he met that night was just going to leave him.

Yeah. Like he just didn't want people to leave him. That's all. It's very Jeffrey Dahmerc voted. And he later said that night, things began to go terribly and horribly wrong. I think they had already started to. They certainly did.

Rather than visit one of his usual bars, he went to a different one. He went to Crinklewood, the Cricklewood Arms, which was an Irish bar near his apartment. He sat there and he drank pint after pint of Guinness. And he spent the first hour, I know,

I love Guinness. Dennis spent the first hour or so of the night, watching people in the bar, just kind of like chatting with whoever sat down next to him, but not really making any attempt for big conversation. Eventually, he found himself talking with a young Irish man who introduced himself as Stephen. Years later, Nilsson would tell police he had, quote, no idea who this youth was. This really is very Jeffrey Dahmer.

Yeah. As Stephen had no identification on him at the time or anything to indicate who he was or where he'd come from. That said, he wouldn't have needed a driver's license or some other ID to tell that who he was talking to was still very much a teenager. He looked at. Ew. He was Stephen Holmes, a 14-year-old runaway from Kilburn. Oh, God, a baby. Yeah.

Stephen had been out at a rockabilly concert that night and was waiting for a bus outside the Cricklewood Arms when he decided to go inside to get warm. Nilsen convinced Stephen to come back to his apartment where they spent a few hours drinking and listening to music until the boy passed out on Nilsson's bed. Though Dennis swore there was no sexual contact between them, he said, quote,

I snuggled up to him and put my arms. around him. Then he pulled the blanket down and looked at the boy who was undressed. That's sexual contact. He said, I remember thinking that because it was morning, he would wake and leave me. Oh, no. Dennis looked down at the pile of clothes on the floor beside the bed and spotted his necktie. He said, I remember thinking that I wanted him to stay with me over the new year, whether he wanted to or not. Oh, fuck. Dennis reached down and picked up the tie, and then he slowly and carefully ran it underneath Stephen's neck. He said I quickly straddled him and pulled tight for all I was worse. At that moment, Stephen awoke with a jolt, obviously struggling, and they fell to the floor,

but Nilsson ended up on top of him again, and unfortunately Holmes was no match for his very much adult attacker, and with a minute or two, he lost consciousness again. Aware that he could wake up at any moment now, Nilsson went to the kitchen and filled a bucket with water. He returned to the other room, dragged Stephen. over to the bucket on the floor and held him by his hair, pushing his head under the water and held it there until he couldn't see bubbles anymore. Oh my God. Once Stephen...

This is brutal. Once Stephen was dead, Nilsson dragged his body over to a chair and propped him up in a seat. And then he said, I just sat there shaking, trying to think clearly about what I had just done. It was still early in the morning, so everything's quiet. But he knew everybody was going to wake up in a matter of hours. hours, what am I going to do? So he spent the next hour or so cleaning up the room where the murder had occurred. Then he moved Stephen's body to the bathtub where he carefully washed the entire body before putting it back in bed. All the while, he was fully expecting a knock

at the door, certain that someone had traced Stephen back to his apartment, when a few days passed and he's kept Stephen's body and that no one ever came, Nilsen's anxiety ease. and he said there appeared to be no reports in the paper of the missing boy or the usual public anxiety that followed the disappearance of a child. It was only then that it occurred to Dennis that he'd gotten away with it. Yeah, that's not good. With the act of murder now behind him in the natural process of decomposition having set in, Dennis grew disinterested in the body of his former guests and concluded that he needed to get rid of it. His former guest.

At first, he thought it would be easiest to disarticulate the limbs and break down the body by boiling it. Oh my God. So he went so far as to buy a large electric carving knife and a stock pot for this purpose. But when he got home, it occurred to him that that was going to be pretty arduous that task. This is so gnarly. And he felt like it would be beyond his capabilities. And he said it was also unlikely to produce the desired results that he's looking for. Instead, he pulled up several floorboards in the kitchen of his apartment

and found the space beneath to be pretty big and actually pretty cool in temperature. perfect place to put a body oh so after dressing stephen in the clothes that he had come to the apartment in dennis lowered his body into the space under the floor and put the boards back and now he's got to make shift tomb for stephen under his kitchen what the fuck a week passed and dennis's curiosity finally got the better of him no no don't you say that to me he said i wondered if his body had changed at all or if he had continued to decompose so he pulled up the boards and removed stephen's body from beneath the floor to find that to his great surprise, very little decomposition had occurred. It seemed that the conditions under the floor were such that the natural processes of decomp had been stalled. Seeing the body in that state, and this is a trigger warning, Dennis was excited by this

and he violated Stevens' body multiple times before returning it to the space beneath the floor where it would stay being periodically taken out for eight months. Eight months? Eight months. How fucking cold was it? I don't think it stayed in great condition. Oh my God. Yeah.

Now in the months after this, or the month after this. Eight months. What the fuck, brother. So in the month after this, Dennis kept a pretty low profile. He went to work. Occasionally went to the bars, but mostly he stayed at home and avoided inviting anyone back to his. apartment. Gee, I wonder why. At times, he said he considered turning himself in and confessing. I doubt it.

But the thought of spending the rest of his life in jail was enough to deter him from doing that. Besides, he had no intention of doing anything like that ever again. So he said, you know what? I fucked up. I don't think you can just live the rest of your life. Yeah, he was like, you know what? I'm not going to do it again. Like, once you do that once, I don't think you necessarily stop doing that.

So he continued to live his low-key life for several months. until the secret under his four boards became a little too much to bear, at least in his own mind. One night in October 1979, he pulled up the floorboards in the kitchen and removed the desicated body of Stephen from the hiding space

and carried it out to the back garden under the cover of darkness. There he had built a small bonfire and he placed Stephen Holmes' body into the bonfire and stood and watched the flames engulf every part that it would. Oh my God.

Once the fire had burned away all it was capable of destroying, he put the fire out and removed the remaining bone fragments and he buried that in the backyard. Maybe it was because he'd rid himself of his terrible secret under the floorboards of the kitchen, or maybe he'd just lost his ability to control his clear impulses here. Whatever the case, within a month of destroying Stephen Holmes' remains, Dennis seemed to have forgotten his promise to himself about not committing another violent. Out of feeling.

And we're going to end there for part one. That's probably good. Part two is going to be rough. All right. This was rough, obviously, but it's going to be rough. Why is he called the kindly killer? Do we get into that? We will get into that, yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. Because nothing about this so far is kind. It's kindly now. All right. What's your fun fact for me, Boyd? One in 18 people have a third nipple. Wow.

It's called polythelia, and it's caused by a mutiny. and inactive genes. How many? One in 18? That's a lot of people. Yeah. What's you guys doing out here with your third nipple? Right? What you doing out here? Damn. Is it easy to have a nipple removed? I wonder. I don't know. Like I wonder if you have a third nipple if you can just get it removed. I don't know. Do you have a third nipple everybody? Let us know. Let us know. I don't.

That's crazy. Think about like dinner parties or like at a wedding. Probably like two people have a third nipple. I didn't know where you were going with that. And for a second, I thought you were being like, imagine at a dinner party, you just like have a third nipple. Like I was like, what? No, I meant my, what was that matter? I was saying like large gatherings of people. Yeah, like a couple of these people have a third nipple. Potentially. Yeah. One in 18 seems nuts. That is crazy. I don't know about that. I'm saying. But you say it's a fact. So get crazy out here with your third nipple. We get crazy. We hope you do. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you. Keep it. Wee.

Keep it so weird that you tell us if you have a third nipple. Yeah, I'd like to know, if you're willing to share. It's weird in a cool way. Yeah, rock on with your third nipple. With your bad self. With your bad. With your third nipple.