Nilsen, Dennis Andrew, 1945-2018

Dennis Andrew Nilsen (23 November 1945 – 12 May 2018) was a Scottish serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys between 1978 and 1983. Convicted at the Old Bailey of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years; this recommendation was later changed to a whole life tariff in December 1994. In his later years, Nilsen was imprisoned at HM Prison Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire. All of Nilsen's murders were committed at the two North London addresses where he lived between 1978 and 1983. His victims were lured to these addresses through deception and killed by strangulation, sometimes accompanied by drowning. Following each murder, Nilsen performed a ritual in which he bathed and dressed the victim's body, which he retained for extended periods, before dissecting and disposing of the remains by burning them in a bonfire or flushing them down a toilet. Nilsen became known as the Muswell Hill Murderer, as he committed his later murders in the Muswell Hill district of North London. He died at York Hospital on 12 May 2018 of a pulmonary embolism and a retroperitoneal haemorrhage, which occurred following surgery to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm.