Dennis Nilsen - History of a Drowning Boy

HISTORY
OF A
DROWNING
BOY

DENNIS NILSEN

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

FOREWORD BY DR MARK PETTIGREW

Published by RedDoor

www.reddoorpress.co.uk

2021 Mark Austin

The right of Mark Austin to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover design: Rawshock Design

Typesetting: Jen Parker, Fuzzy Flamingo

www.fuzzyflamingo.co.uk

There are no monsters in this world;
theyre just people.
There are strong people and there are weak people.
I think Im an amalgam of the two.
Judge for yourself.

Dennis Nilsen

Contents

Foreword

In the UK, there are thought to be at least two serial killers active at any one time; in the USA the figure is estimated to be as high as fifty. Although a relatively rare phenomenon, there is a great deal of public interest in the life and crimes of serial killers. Yet, despite the inordinate amount of interest, the serial killer remains one of the least understood types of criminal; even in the academic world the simple definition of a serial killer has still not been settled.

In a saturated market of true crime novels, a large majority of which are devoted to serial killing, there are very few that include the voice of the actual killer. As such, amongst a literary sea of accounts devoted to the serial killer and his crimes, this book stands out as unique. Of course, any subjective retelling by the killer must be approached with caution; the prevalence of personality disorders, psychopathy, paranoid schizophrenia and other psychiatric and mental disorders can distort the personal account just as an attempt at self-aggrandising can misrepresent the true narrative of the crimes. Yet, the simple facts of a case can be gleaned from police records, trial testimony and crime scene evidence, whereas personal introspection offers much more of an insight into the motivation of the killer. It is such self-scrutiny that helps researchers, historians and clinicians to understand the rationale of the killer, to understand the why behind the killings, the value of which outweighs any possible flaws in the killers retelling of his crimes.

Perhaps the greatest utility of an account such as this is the insight it gives us into the normal life of a serial killer; how he is able to navigate the world without detection. Despite popular belief, serial killers are conformist most of the time. They work, they socialise, they go about daily life as the rest of us do; but how can they keep such extreme behaviour hidden from view? Harold Shipman was at large for over 20 years, able to kill approximately 250 people while still maintaining the persona of respectable local doctor. Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, attacked at least twenty women over five years without arousing the suspicions of his wife or co-workers, while Fred and Rose West murdered at least ten women and girls, including their own children, for more than fifteen years before being discovered. In this book we can learn how Dennis Nilsen murdered at least a dozen young men over five years before a chance inspection by drainage engineers led to the discovery of three dismembered corpses in his London flat. Until then, the police had no idea that a serial killer was at large in the nations capital. Yet, it is not just a matter of maintaining a public faade, to hide from view murderous inclinations, but how the serial killer is able to maintain the duality of personas: serial killer and law-abiding citizen. For the majority of us, it is difficult to understand how a person can murder somebody in the evening then go to work the following day only to return home to dismember a corpse on the kitchen floor. Within these pages, Dennis Nilsen explains, as he understands his situation, how he is able to commit these murders without such damage to his self-perception as to render himself incapable of maintaining a semblance of normal life. In that regard, the reader may be particularly interested in two specific points: how he describes his relationship with alcohol and how he describes his victims.

Alcohol was a key feature in the life, and in the offending, of Dennis Nilsen, although he was adamant that he was not an alcoholic. Indeed, he vehemently disagreed with any suggestion that his rehabilitation plan in prison should feature any kind of work related to alcohol management. Yet, it was with the aid of music and alcohol most often Bacardi rum that he would slip into a fantasy world, frequently playing out in his mind the details of his interactions with dead bodies both in rehearsal and recall. Alcohol also served to embolden him in reality, in approaching men and in the moments before their murder. It was, at once, a coping mechanism and a key component in his crimes; as the reader will learn, it was only with the numbing effect of Bacardi that he could begin the grisly business of his first dismemberment. When we remember that serial killers are largely conformist outside their offending, alcohol was a means by which he was able to loosen himself from the bonds of conventionality and cross the boundary into necrophilic and murderous fantasy and behaviour.

While categorised, rudimentarily, as a necrophile, the descriptions he gives of his interactions with the bodies of the men he murdered reveal that to be a rather simplistic moniker. In fact, these memoirs reveal Dennis Nilsen not as a necrophile but a necrofetishist, someone who is aroused by contact with corpses. More than sexual contact, his words reveal the post-mortem interactions with his victims. They watched television together, bathed together and ate meals together, behaviours that mimicked what he had so much missed out on in his adult life; a fulfilling relationship, albeit on his own terms. It is in that vein that the method of victim disposal should be considered. So often in accounts of serial killers, the more lurid aspects are fixated upon with no purpose other than voyeurism of behaviour which fascinates but repulses in equal measure. Dennis Nilsen himself noted that he would have quite liked to have kept certain parts of his victims not so much as trophies but as mementoes of the relationship he shared with that person. While victims were treated with relative affection and warmth, after death, when they were used as props in a relationship fantasy until being dismembered for disposal, in retrospect, he would try to believe that he had performed an act of charity in their murder, relieving them from the suffering and misery of their lives. More broadly, when quizzed by detectives, he would note, either consciously or subconsciously, what he perceived to be the negative characteristics of his victims: those who had been in social care; those with mental health issues; self-harmed; homeless; prostitutes; those who had been in trouble with the police; drug addicts, in short, whether intentionally or not, he was denying the worth of his victims. Over sixty years ago such internalised thoughts, particularly when verbalised, were labelled as a technique of neutralisation, a part of a group of linguistic means by which an offender is able to maintain a positive self-conception and protect themselves from self-blame, or blame of others, by rationalising their actions and their crimes. Although subtle, it is such commentary, that only he could provide, which gives us an insight into how Dennis Nilsen was able to commit such crimes without arousing suspicion and without breaking under the weight of guilt for having murdered a dozen men.