One of Britain’s most infamous serial killers has died in a prison near York.
The Prison Service confirmed that Dennis Nilsen, who became known as the Muswell Hill Murderer, had passed away at HMP Full Sutton on Saturday, 34 years into his life sentence.
It is believed he died from natural causes. He was 72.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nilsen carried out a murderous spree of near-unparalleled savagery.
He is believed to have killed as many as 15 young men at his north London home.
A spokesman for the Prison Service said: “Dennis Andrew Nilsen, date of birth November 23 1945, died in custody at HMP Full Sutton on Saturday, May 12 2018.
“As with all deaths in custody, there will be an independent investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.”
Warped crimes
Most of his victims were homeless gay men. After luring his victims to their death, Nilsen would often sit with their corpses for days before dismembering them.
His warped crimes were only detected by chance – when a drain outside his home on Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, became blocked by the human remains he had tried to flush away.
After a trial at the Old Bailey he was jailed for life with a recommendation he serve a minimum of 25 years in 1983, on six counts of murder and two of attempted murder.
Predator Nilsen would often befriend his victims in the pubs and bars of London, before offering to entertain them at his flat.
Once there, many were strangled to death.
Grim interview
A grim interview aired in 1993 saw the bespectacled Scottish murderer describe the macabre scenes that followed.
While some remains were inexpertly flushed away by Nilsen, others were stored under his floorboards and in cupboards for many months, meaning detectives were greeted with the foetid stench of decay when they first searched his flat.
He said: “The bodies are all gone. There is nothing left. But I still feel a spiritual communion with these people.”
It was only the most prosaic of observations from a neighbour that halted Nilsen’s murderous spree – that the drains had become blocked.
A further inspection found pipes packed with human flesh, a discovery which unlocked an entirely undetected tale of mass killing which shocked Britain.
His house of horrors in Muswell Hill has been on the market several times since and is still occupied today, with flowers visible in the attic window.
The sentence given to him in 1983 was later upgraded to a whole-life tariff.