In November 1979, Nilsen tried to strangle Andrew Ho, a young Chinese man, but Ho escaped and summoned the police. Dennis later masturbated over the corpse, storing it beneath his floorboards until August 1979 when it was cremated on an outdoor bonfire. Nilsen’s first victim, in December 1978, was an anonymous Irish youth whom he brought home and strangled with a necktie. Nilsen was stricken by his roommate’s departure in May 1977, and the pressures of a solitary life gradually mounted to the detonation point. While they apparently never had sex, the younger man provided Nilsen with friendship and someone to talk to, sharing the daily grind of cooking, housework, and so forth. Nilsen’s loneliness was held at bay through 1976 and early 1977 by the presence of a live-in companion 10 Keeping remains of his victims on hand for months at a time, Nilsen was (in the words of biographer Brian Masters), literally “killing for company.” Rather, his crimes appear to be the product of sheer loneliness, coupled with a morbid fascination for death. A closet homosexual, Nilsen would not kill for sex as did DEAN CORLL and JOHN GACY in the United States. Upon discharge, he moved to London and became a policeman, moving on from there through a series of government jobs. Joining the army in 1961, Nilsen remained in uniform for 11 years.

Nilsen’s parents were divorced when he was four years old, and his mother soon remarried.

Ing his confessions, leaving prosecutors in a quandary.īorn in Scotland on November 23, 1945, Nilsen seldom saw his Norwegian father, who preferred strong drink and travel to the quiet life at home. Before his day in court, the suspect proved his sanity by suddenly recant-NILSEN, Dennis Andrew Trists examined the balding, bespectacled killer, each pronouncing him sane and fit for trial. Sure in the act itself-which led defense attorneys to more years’ preventive detention.

He Nesset offered a variety of MOTIVES for the mur-was given the maximum sentence allowed under Nor-ders-mercy killing, schizophrenia, simple morbid plea-wegian law: 21 years in prison, with a possibility of 10 Power of life and death over his elderly patients.

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