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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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[cassette player opens and closes]

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[button clicks]

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[man on recording clears throat]

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One, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

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[slightly distorted]
I think this recording machine

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00:00:21,146 --> 00:00:23,523
might be under some kind of strain.

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Speech oscillates
from one speaker to the next.

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Anyway, let's begin the recording proper.

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My name is Dennis Nilsen.

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[birds chirping]

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[Nilsen on recording]
My companions, as you can hear,

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are a couple of mating budgies,
Hamish and Tweetles.

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[chirping continues]

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[Nilsen] He's a good boy, Hamish.

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I sit here,

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smoking a Scaferlati roll-up cigarette.

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[coughs] Oh dear.

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Yeah, we are ruining our healths-ssss.

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Well, we've all gotta die of something,
haven't we?

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[ominous music playing]

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[Nilsen] This morning, a friendly screw
kindly lent me his News of the World,

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an amusement sheet posing as a newspaper…

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and he brought to my attention page 21.

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[paper rustles]

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[Nilsen] "Dennis Nilsen
makes a sick joke of his crimes

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by having pinned up in his cell

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a poster of The Silence of the Lambs star
Hannibal Lecter."

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"And he believes that one day,

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his grisly exploits
will be immortalized in a film."

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[recording crackles]

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[Nilsen] End of story.

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What a load of rubbish!

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Good evening. Scotland Yard launched
its biggest murder investigation today…

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[reporter 1]
…after the discovery of bodies in London.

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[reporter 2] In the next few hours,

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the scale of this crime
will begin to unfold.

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[Nilsen] Well,
what is this article's accuracy?

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Oh yes,
I was definitely convicted for murder.

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Eh, but apart from that,
most of the stuff is just pure fiction.

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The prosecution
alleged a pattern of murder.

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[reporter 3] The public gallery
of No. 1 Court has been full every day.

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Those who'd expected to hear horrors
were not disappointed.

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[Nilsen] Great. "Des Nilsen, the monster."

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"Oh, Nilsen."
As soon as you mention the name,

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people have made their mind up about it.

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Dennis Nilsen,
the man who once called himself

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"the murderer of the century"…

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[Nilsen] They are still trying
to plug this image

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of the dangerous creature
so beloved of fiction,

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the movie monsters.

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[reporter 4] Now Nilsen wants
to publish his autobiography

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from behind prison bars.

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[menacing music playing]

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[Nilsen] It's a tale beyond comprehension.

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Right, let's go!

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London, 1983.

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Good afternoon to you.

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Well, it's decidedly parky
to say the least.

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And, in fact, it's not gonna get
any warmer, really, in the next few days

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because we're going to keep
these north to northeasterly…

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[McCusker] I certainly remember the day
because it was cold and miserable outside,

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and I was sitting in my office

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when a colleague of mine told me

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that he had been called
to Cranley Gardens,

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where suspected human remains
were pulled out of a manhole there.

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When we got there, the tenants
were standing around the manhole.

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The toilets had been blocked,

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and an engineer had been called
to clear the drains,

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and he discovered
huge amounts of flesh and bone.

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I have a limited knowledge,

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but very heavily suspected

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that it wasn't, um, animal, shall we say.

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[interviewer] Did anyone express
any particular interest in what you found?

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Yes. The guy, I believe,
was living in the top-floor flat.

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[McCusker] Then the tenants told me
that the previous evening,

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around about midnight,

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they had heard a scraping noise outside.

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When they went to the front door
and opened it,

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they saw the man from the upstairs flat.

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He was dressed in just a simple vest.

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And bearing in mind,
this was February, freezing cold.

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And they asked him if he was all right.

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And he said,
"I am. I've just been outside for a pee."

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I made further inquiries
at Cranley Gardens

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and found out he was
at the local Jobcentre where he worked.

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And he normally returned from his work

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at half past five every evening.

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We then found out
that the pieces of bones from the drains

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were indeed from a human body.

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And the pathologist said
that the piece of flesh

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appeared to have
strangulation marks on it.

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[tense suspenseful music playing]

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[McCusker] And lo and behold,

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we saw a man walking up the road.

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[Nilsen, singing]
♪ Oh, the time is coming ♪

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♪ The time is coming! ♪

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He was very calm indeed.

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[Nilsen] When I arrived
to Cranley Gardens,

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the police were unsure of their ground.

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They were fishing tentatively
in the hope of gaining information

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concerning the samples of human flesh
found down the house…

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…drains.

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Nilsen then said, "Very strange
that police officers should come

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and talk to me about my drains."

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[camera shutter clicks]

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[McCusker] But he let us into the house…

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[camera shutter clicks]

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[McCusker]
…and we went up to the attic flat.

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[camera shutter clicks]

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[McCusker] And as soon
as he opened the door,

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the smell just came at you.

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[camera shutter clicks]

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[camera shutter clicks]

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-[camera shutter clicks]
-[McCusker] I knew that awful smell.

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So we said to him…

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[Nilsen overlaps] "Stop messing about.
Where's the rest of the body?"

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And he looked at me,

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and he pointed

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to the wardrobe.

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And when I opened it,

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there were
two huge, black bin sacks, sagging.

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[camera shutter clicks]

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[McCusker] So I got him by the cuff,

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and he was told that he was being arrested
on suspicion of murder.

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[vehicle moving]

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[McCusker] On the way back
to the police station,

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I sat beside him,

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but something was bothering me.

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Those two bin sacks were huge.

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[Nilsen] In the car, on the journey
to the police station, I was asked…

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"Are we talking
about one body or two here?"

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[Nilsen] I immediately replied with…

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[overlaps with Nilsen] "15 or 16."

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[McCusker] It made the hair
on the back of my neck stand up.

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And I could see
the detective chief inspector

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looking into the mirror at me.

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And I had to tell him
to concentrate on the driving

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'cause he started to veer across the road.

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And it hit me.

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"We have a serial killer here."

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[menacing music plays]

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[indistinct chattering]

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[Nilsen] I glide
down a long corridor with my escort,

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and I'm lodged in the first cell
at the end of the line.

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I am deposited there,
in this antiquated room,

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with a small bench

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and rough, upright,
small stool of a table.

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I sit there,
light up a cigarette, and pause.

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[tense music playing]

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[McCusker] We didn't know for sure

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if what Nilsen was telling us
was actually truthful.

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You think, "15 or 16 people?"

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But we've only had the authority
to keep him in custody for 48 hours,

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and that's it.

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You've gotta get
everything out of this guy that you can.

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But you don't wanna put
that much pressure on him

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that he doesn't wanna talk to you.

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[Nilsen] Wary of the expected
long train of questioning,

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I surprised the CID trio

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by interjecting
that I would tell them everything.

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[McCusker] Nilsen wouldn't stop talking.

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He started telling us
exactly what had happened.

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He would go into a pub

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and speak to someone,

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take them back to his flat.

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They would be drinking.
They'd be listening to music.

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The following morning,
Nilsen would wake up,

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and there would be a dead body beside him.

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And when he was pressed on this,
he just said

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he couldn't remember what had happened.

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Normally, in a murder case,

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you'll have a victim,

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and then
you will go looking for the murderer.

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In this case, we had a murderer,

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but he didn't know who the victims were.

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So we had to go backwards, if you like,

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and trace all the victims.

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[Nilsen] There was no questions
I refused to answer.

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Going into minute detail.

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If anything…

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no other British murderer

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has ever been so forthright…

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in confronting his offending behavior
than I have been.

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He was giving very limited information,
but they were mainly young men.

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But I thought,

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if what Nilsen was telling us
was truthful,

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how on earth, in a place like London,

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could 15 people have been murdered
without anyone noticing?

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[Nilsen]
The police had all the ingredients

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to lay a charge against me.

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00:12:11,564 --> 00:12:15,735
This would have placed the whole matter
under the protection of sub judice

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00:12:15,818 --> 00:12:18,779
and out of reach
of the sensation-hungry media.

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00:12:21,073 --> 00:12:24,577
This was to be the biggest case
in all of their careers,

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00:12:24,660 --> 00:12:28,914
and in order to enhance their own place
in the professional public spotlight,

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00:12:28,998 --> 00:12:31,792
they made sure
that the entire nation knew about it

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00:12:32,418 --> 00:12:34,879
when they sat down
to their breakfast tables.

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00:12:42,636 --> 00:12:44,305
[man] I was up at the office,

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00:12:45,139 --> 00:12:48,642
and the news desk called me over
and gave me this sheet of paper

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00:12:48,726 --> 00:12:52,563
that said
that a plumber working for Dyno-Rod

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00:12:52,646 --> 00:12:57,067
had found pieces of human flesh
down a drain.

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00:12:58,819 --> 00:13:02,114
I phoned Scotland Yard,
but they knew nothing about it.

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00:13:03,115 --> 00:13:04,742
So I carried on and wrote the story.

205
00:13:06,660 --> 00:13:09,413
But there was resistance
to the story being used,

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00:13:09,497 --> 00:13:10,498
because in those days,

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00:13:10,581 --> 00:13:13,501
you never really wanted
to upset people over the breakfast table.

208
00:13:13,584 --> 00:13:14,835
And there's no doubt

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00:13:14,919 --> 00:13:18,339
that the reality of Cattran's discoveries

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00:13:18,422 --> 00:13:22,051
would make people dry heave
over their cornflakes.

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00:13:25,554 --> 00:13:29,099
So I had no idea
if the story was gonna be used.

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00:13:33,979 --> 00:13:37,316
[man 2] Well, I was told
there had been a… a murder inquiry

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00:13:37,399 --> 00:13:38,567
at Cranley Gardens,

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00:13:39,193 --> 00:13:42,029
and could I get up there
as quickly as possible?

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00:13:42,112 --> 00:13:43,781
Well, I wasn't too excited about it.

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00:13:43,864 --> 00:13:46,992
I thought,
"This is a… a fairly mundane story."

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00:13:47,076 --> 00:13:50,579
"If I'm lucky, I might get a lead that'll
get me a piece on the Six O'Clock News,

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00:13:50,663 --> 00:13:52,331
and it'll be forgotten."

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00:13:55,876 --> 00:13:58,796
Well, normally,
when you get to a scene like that,

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00:13:58,879 --> 00:14:01,966
the road's already been cordoned off.
Never mind the house, the road.

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00:14:02,049 --> 00:14:04,969
No sign of that here.
We were right up on the doorstep.

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00:14:06,887 --> 00:14:11,517
But we did interview one or two people
who had noted him, you know.

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00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:14,687
They had seen him. They thought
he was a bit strange, a bit quiet.

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00:14:14,770 --> 00:14:17,356
[interviewer] Is he a man
whom you'd seen in this area before?

225
00:14:17,439 --> 00:14:21,151
Oh yes, I've seen him out walking his dog
and just nodded hello to him.

226
00:14:21,235 --> 00:14:24,113
And then, half an hour later, uh,

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00:14:24,196 --> 00:14:27,783
we hear that this, uh… [chuckles]

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00:14:27,867 --> 00:14:30,953
…this killer
hasn't just killed one person.

229
00:14:31,662 --> 00:14:33,831
He's killed 15 or 16.

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00:14:33,914 --> 00:14:34,874
What?

231
00:14:39,336 --> 00:14:41,463
In some ways… This sounds awful,

232
00:14:41,547 --> 00:14:45,217
but I had this great flow
of adrenaline at the time.

233
00:14:45,301 --> 00:14:47,344
[chuckles] I have to admit, you know,

234
00:14:47,428 --> 00:14:49,471
I was totally transfixed on this.

235
00:14:49,555 --> 00:14:53,142
As yet, few in Cranley Gardens
have been able to gather

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00:14:53,225 --> 00:14:55,311
the enormity of what's happened.

237
00:14:55,394 --> 00:14:58,689
For, within hours,
what seemed just another inquiry

238
00:14:58,772 --> 00:15:02,318
developed into
one of the biggest mass murder inquiries

239
00:15:02,401 --> 00:15:03,986
ever conducted in Britain.

240
00:15:04,069 --> 00:15:05,613
The news editors are asking,

241
00:15:05,696 --> 00:15:08,490
"What more do you know?
What more can you give us now?"

242
00:15:10,576 --> 00:15:12,411
[Nilsen]
Nobody else knew the published details

243
00:15:12,494 --> 00:15:14,914
but for the officers on the case and me.

244
00:15:14,997 --> 00:15:19,668
As I was incommunicado,
there was no leaks from me to the press.

245
00:15:20,794 --> 00:15:23,672
It was the police
who gave the press all the information

246
00:15:23,756 --> 00:15:26,675
that hit the headlines
in the next couple of days.

247
00:15:28,552 --> 00:15:33,849
Then we hear that this man has a job
as an executive officer

248
00:15:34,725 --> 00:15:37,603
at a Jobcentre interviewing people!

249
00:15:37,686 --> 00:15:41,398
For the past six months, he's been working
here at the Manpower Services Commission,

250
00:15:41,482 --> 00:15:44,068
known to his colleagues at work as Des.

251
00:15:44,777 --> 00:15:47,363
Well, I thought, you know… [chuckles]

252
00:15:47,446 --> 00:15:49,531
"This guy's a psychopath, all right."

253
00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:52,910
[Nilsen] A clearly prejudiced picture

254
00:15:52,993 --> 00:15:55,329
had been allowed to form
in the public's mind,

255
00:15:55,412 --> 00:15:57,915
even before I was charged
with any offense,

256
00:15:57,998 --> 00:16:01,168
giving the media
full latitude to milk their property.

257
00:16:01,251 --> 00:16:03,629
This allowed the images of monstrosity

258
00:16:03,712 --> 00:16:05,005
to take full flight

259
00:16:05,089 --> 00:16:08,801
to whet the profitable public imagination.

260
00:16:11,971 --> 00:16:15,683
[Bence] As a newspaper reporter,
nothing really shocks or surprises you.

261
00:16:16,266 --> 00:16:19,228
As a human being,
things do shock and surprise you.

262
00:16:20,062 --> 00:16:23,899
When I heard that he'd killed
15 or 16 people over four years,

263
00:16:23,983 --> 00:16:26,068
I thought,
"How can that happen for four years,

264
00:16:26,151 --> 00:16:28,070
in this so-called civilized country,

265
00:16:28,988 --> 00:16:30,572
and we had no knowledge of it?"

266
00:16:34,159 --> 00:16:37,913
We were all talking about
how the big problem for any killer

267
00:16:38,664 --> 00:16:40,249
is getting rid of the body.

268
00:16:41,250 --> 00:16:43,585
But how did he get rid of 15 or 16?

269
00:16:43,669 --> 00:16:44,837
[camera shutter clicks]

270
00:16:46,463 --> 00:16:49,925
[McCusker] We only found the remains
of three bodies at Cranley Gardens.

271
00:16:51,635 --> 00:16:52,803
So I asked him,

272
00:16:52,886 --> 00:16:56,015
where did he kill the other people at?

273
00:16:59,393 --> 00:17:03,981
[Nilsen] My memory rolled back the fact
that I killed three at Cranley Gardens

274
00:17:05,482 --> 00:17:06,442
and the others

275
00:17:07,568 --> 00:17:09,987
[overlapping with Nilsen]
at 195 Melrose Avenue.

276
00:17:14,867 --> 00:17:17,995
[McCusker] Which is only
a few miles from Cranley Gardens.

277
00:17:25,085 --> 00:17:27,212
[woman] It was absolutely freezing,

278
00:17:27,755 --> 00:17:28,756
icy cold.

279
00:17:30,716 --> 00:17:33,010
But we got the call
from the detective chief inspector,

280
00:17:33,093 --> 00:17:35,804
who said,
"Right, everybody in. Everybody in."

281
00:17:36,513 --> 00:17:38,432
"We will go down to Melrose Avenue."

282
00:17:40,851 --> 00:17:42,352
"We'll be briefed there."

283
00:17:42,436 --> 00:17:45,647
Bear in mind we didn't know
what we were gonna walk into there.

284
00:17:45,731 --> 00:17:47,941
There was no prep. We were the first wave.

285
00:17:48,025 --> 00:17:49,443
So off we went.

286
00:17:52,321 --> 00:17:54,615
But when we got to Melrose Avenue,

287
00:17:54,698 --> 00:17:57,242
the officers
who were investigating the crime said,

288
00:17:57,326 --> 00:17:59,578
"Right. We've had information

289
00:17:59,661 --> 00:18:03,123
Dennis Nilsen
used to live in Melrose Avenue,

290
00:18:04,500 --> 00:18:09,254
and that he has admitted
to killing quite a few people,

291
00:18:09,338 --> 00:18:11,090
and that they're buried in the garden."

292
00:18:14,468 --> 00:18:16,678
So there was this stunned silence.

293
00:18:17,471 --> 00:18:19,598
And then we were given green overalls.

294
00:18:19,681 --> 00:18:21,934
"There you go, Karen.
Put your overalls on."

295
00:18:22,017 --> 00:18:23,727
"There's a pitchfork. Start digging."

296
00:18:23,811 --> 00:18:25,020
[reporter] A few minutes ago,

297
00:18:25,104 --> 00:18:27,648
a police van
suddenly drew up outside the house,

298
00:18:27,731 --> 00:18:29,608
and a squad of half a dozen officers,

299
00:18:29,691 --> 00:18:32,861
equipped with spades,
sieves, and other digging implements,

300
00:18:32,945 --> 00:18:35,531
hurried down the side passage
to the back garden.

301
00:18:36,073 --> 00:18:40,119
"Find what you can. Is this guy lying,
or is he telling us the truth?"

302
00:18:40,202 --> 00:18:42,037
He could have been a fantasist.

303
00:18:45,874 --> 00:18:48,627
[McCusker] Nilsen told us
about his system of disposal

304
00:18:48,710 --> 00:18:51,088
of the bodies at Melrose Avenue.

305
00:18:53,882 --> 00:18:55,092
[Nilsen clearing throat]

306
00:18:55,968 --> 00:19:00,055
I was putting the corpses
under the floorboards…

307
00:19:02,432 --> 00:19:05,102
but eventually, there was the smell,

308
00:19:05,686 --> 00:19:08,522
and the rot, and the maggots.

309
00:19:09,857 --> 00:19:13,402
And at one stage,
there was no room under the floorboards.

310
00:19:13,485 --> 00:19:15,195
There were so many bodies there.

311
00:19:17,531 --> 00:19:19,533
He had to come up with an idea.

312
00:19:22,786 --> 00:19:26,248
[Bence] I spoke to a neighbor
who said she remembers

313
00:19:26,331 --> 00:19:28,417
that he had a series of bonfires.

314
00:19:29,293 --> 00:19:31,044
Er, mostly in the evening time

315
00:19:31,795 --> 00:19:33,380
'cause I used to work evenings.

316
00:19:34,047 --> 00:19:35,299
Um, that's all.

317
00:19:35,883 --> 00:19:37,843
[interviewer 1]
Did you think rubbish was being burned?

318
00:19:37,926 --> 00:19:38,760
Yes. Yes.

319
00:19:38,844 --> 00:19:41,263
[interviewer 2] Does it appear
that the bodies have been burnt

320
00:19:41,346 --> 00:19:42,890
in the back garden before burial?

321
00:19:42,973 --> 00:19:44,308
Uh, it's a possibility.

322
00:19:44,391 --> 00:19:45,559
[camera shutter clicks]

323
00:19:46,393 --> 00:19:48,770
[Hunt] What he'd done
filters through to us.

324
00:19:50,647 --> 00:19:52,566
He burned them in the back garden,

325
00:19:54,401 --> 00:19:56,278
and when they were down to ash,

326
00:19:57,070 --> 00:20:00,657
he would spread them out over the garden
and dig them in.

327
00:20:01,617 --> 00:20:05,037
But there would have been
regular bonfires in that garden.

328
00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:08,498
I am unaware
of anybody making a complaint.

329
00:20:09,499 --> 00:20:12,336
[reporter] The whole area
has now been completely cordoned off,

330
00:20:12,419 --> 00:20:14,838
and newsmen ordered away from the scene.

331
00:20:14,922 --> 00:20:15,964
Come on, move back!

332
00:20:16,048 --> 00:20:17,257
[dog whimpers]

333
00:20:17,883 --> 00:20:20,719
It was numbing work
because the ground was frozen.

334
00:20:21,303 --> 00:20:23,430
I said,
"We're never gonna get through this."

335
00:20:23,513 --> 00:20:26,225
We felt we were gonna be there a year
digging that place up.

336
00:20:27,309 --> 00:20:28,435
[reporter] By late afternoon,

337
00:20:28,518 --> 00:20:31,605
a grim and somewhat dispirited squad
packed up and left,

338
00:20:31,688 --> 00:20:35,192
shaking their heads when asked
if the day's work had yielded anything.

339
00:20:36,944 --> 00:20:38,654
[Hunt] Then you start asking,

340
00:20:38,737 --> 00:20:42,157
why hasn't there been this huge outcry of,

341
00:20:42,241 --> 00:20:45,285
"Yeah, my son… My father's missing"?

342
00:20:45,369 --> 00:20:46,411
It wasn't happening.

343
00:20:48,914 --> 00:20:50,874
It was as if they didn't matter.

344
00:20:57,422 --> 00:20:59,091
[McCusker] Who were these people?

345
00:20:59,841 --> 00:21:01,843
It's almost an impossible task.

346
00:21:04,263 --> 00:21:07,641
But Nilsen had told us
we needed to search Cranley Gardens

347
00:21:08,308 --> 00:21:09,476
for a tea chest.

348
00:21:14,147 --> 00:21:15,315
[camera shutter clicks]

349
00:21:16,191 --> 00:21:17,359
[camera shutter clicks]

350
00:21:18,277 --> 00:21:19,444
[camera shutter clicks]

351
00:21:20,112 --> 00:21:21,280
[camera shutter clicks]

352
00:21:23,115 --> 00:21:26,118
[McCusker] And there,
we discovered more body parts…

353
00:21:26,702 --> 00:21:28,954
-[camera shutter clicks]
-…which we took to the mortuary.

354
00:21:29,037 --> 00:21:31,748
One of the pieces
that were removed from the flat

355
00:21:31,832 --> 00:21:32,916
was an arm,

356
00:21:33,667 --> 00:21:34,668
with a hand.

357
00:21:38,213 --> 00:21:41,133
We took the fingerprints of this hand,

358
00:21:42,217 --> 00:21:43,844
and we were absolutely amazed

359
00:21:45,012 --> 00:21:46,221
when we got a match.

360
00:21:50,017 --> 00:21:53,312
It was a young man
by the name of, uh, Stephen Sinclair.

361
00:21:56,064 --> 00:21:58,025
He was on police records

362
00:21:58,108 --> 00:22:02,195
because he had been in trouble
for various minor criminal matters,

363
00:22:02,988 --> 00:22:04,740
but he was never reported missing.

364
00:22:05,449 --> 00:22:09,161
So we made every effort
to contact any family that he had.

365
00:22:16,376 --> 00:22:18,754
[woman] One night,
we were talking about things,

366
00:22:18,837 --> 00:22:21,173
and he said
that he would love to go to London,

367
00:22:21,256 --> 00:22:23,175
that he was going to London.

368
00:22:23,258 --> 00:22:25,886
And my husband said,
"Well, Stephen, you're silly

369
00:22:25,969 --> 00:22:28,930
because it's no' a place
for a… a boy like you."

370
00:22:29,806 --> 00:22:31,141
He says, "Oh, but I'm going."

371
00:22:36,688 --> 00:22:38,899
[McCusker] Sinclair was a drifter

372
00:22:38,982 --> 00:22:43,487
who'd come down from Scotland,
and he was swallowed up by London.

373
00:23:01,004 --> 00:23:05,384
It was beginning to look
like most of these victims were

374
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:08,136
homeless youths,

375
00:23:08,887 --> 00:23:10,222
down-and-outs.

376
00:23:13,100 --> 00:23:15,477
It was that kind of class of people.

377
00:23:19,106 --> 00:23:21,650
[Bence] You have to look
at Britain at that time.

378
00:23:23,360 --> 00:23:25,862
There was high unemployment
all over the country.

379
00:23:26,696 --> 00:23:28,407
The consequence of high unemployment is

380
00:23:28,490 --> 00:23:31,368
you get people drawn like a magnet
to London.

381
00:23:32,077 --> 00:23:34,287
They think
the streets are paved with gold.

382
00:23:35,205 --> 00:23:36,706
In fact, they're not paved with gold.

383
00:23:38,333 --> 00:23:39,960
And you get down on your luck.

384
00:23:42,587 --> 00:23:45,215
Nilsen went round with his vacuum cleaner,

385
00:23:45,715 --> 00:23:47,759
swooping up these victims,

386
00:23:47,843 --> 00:23:50,095
these vulnerable young men.

387
00:23:53,515 --> 00:23:55,600
[reporter] Efforts to identify the victims
are centered

388
00:23:55,684 --> 00:23:58,228
among London's growing population
of young dropouts.

389
00:23:58,311 --> 00:24:02,357
Police theorize the victims
were male runaways under age 21,

390
00:24:02,441 --> 00:24:05,735
lured to the house with a promise
of food and a place to spend the night.

391
00:24:11,283 --> 00:24:13,410
[Nilsen]
Leave the old autobiography alone.

392
00:24:14,202 --> 00:24:17,122
Now I think
it's time to go and pick up lunch.

393
00:24:17,789 --> 00:24:18,790
Excusez-moi.

394
00:24:26,256 --> 00:24:29,217
All right, welcome back.
I've just collected my lunch.

395
00:24:30,302 --> 00:24:31,928
It's a kind of a curry.

396
00:24:32,012 --> 00:24:34,431
I don't think these cooks down there
have got much of a clue.

397
00:24:34,514 --> 00:24:36,349
The curry seems to have been supplemented

398
00:24:36,433 --> 00:24:42,063
by soya, texturized protein,
simulated meat.

399
00:24:42,147 --> 00:24:45,484
I'll bang some
of this West Indian sauce on top,

400
00:24:45,567 --> 00:24:47,944
and that might give it some taste.

401
00:24:49,446 --> 00:24:50,780
Right. Let's taste this.

402
00:24:52,282 --> 00:24:56,786
[chewing]

403
00:24:57,370 --> 00:25:00,582
Mmm! That's quite pleasant.
I'm surprised myself.

404
00:25:01,166 --> 00:25:04,544
Must have been the West Indian sauce
I put in it has given it some taste.

405
00:25:06,421 --> 00:25:08,089
Anyway, where was I? Yes.

406
00:25:13,970 --> 00:25:15,388
1983.

407
00:25:16,848 --> 00:25:18,308
[ominous music playing]

408
00:25:22,979 --> 00:25:26,233
Good evening. A 37-year-old civil servant

409
00:25:26,316 --> 00:25:29,402
has been charged
with the murder of a 20-year-old man

410
00:25:29,486 --> 00:25:32,113
whose remains were found
at a house in North London

411
00:25:32,197 --> 00:25:33,281
earlier this week.

412
00:25:34,115 --> 00:25:37,452
Dennis Andrew Nilsen
will appear in court tomorrow.

413
00:25:38,161 --> 00:25:40,288
[Nilsen] I'm crushed
inside a security van,

414
00:25:40,372 --> 00:25:41,957
en route from prison.

415
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:43,166
It is the first day

416
00:25:43,250 --> 00:25:46,253
whereon I shall stand exposed
before my peers.

417
00:25:51,007 --> 00:25:52,592
[Bence] We knew the man's name,

418
00:25:53,093 --> 00:25:54,761
but we'd never seen him.

419
00:25:54,844 --> 00:25:56,638
We had no idea what he looked like.

420
00:26:01,351 --> 00:26:03,562
You expect a big, beefy fellow.

421
00:26:03,645 --> 00:26:05,272
Uh, strong.

422
00:26:05,355 --> 00:26:07,774
You're expecting
a heavyweight boxer almost.

423
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,115
[Bence] There was press everywhere,

424
00:26:15,198 --> 00:26:18,451
waiting for the first picture
of this monster.

425
00:26:21,162 --> 00:26:22,497
I said to the photographer,

426
00:26:22,581 --> 00:26:24,583
"He's gonna come out
with a sheet over his head."

427
00:26:24,666 --> 00:26:26,001
"We're not gonna see him."

428
00:26:35,343 --> 00:26:37,762
But, of course,
he didn't have a sheet over his head.

429
00:26:41,975 --> 00:26:43,268
[Nilsen] I am a man,

430
00:26:44,185 --> 00:26:45,395
not a monster.

431
00:26:47,689 --> 00:26:48,982
Awkward, isn't it?

432
00:26:52,485 --> 00:26:53,903
It was almost a feeling of…

433
00:26:54,654 --> 00:26:56,281
It's a horrible way to put it.

434
00:26:56,364 --> 00:26:57,657
…sort of disappointment.

435
00:26:57,741 --> 00:26:59,367
Could this possibly be the man?

436
00:27:00,952 --> 00:27:05,040
He just didn't seem to fit
the picture of a mass killer.

437
00:27:05,123 --> 00:27:06,458
[camera shutter clicks]

438
00:27:06,541 --> 00:27:09,127
[Bence] How could
a man like that do what he's done,

439
00:27:09,210 --> 00:27:11,296
-this ordinary-looking bloke…
-[camera shutter clicks]

440
00:27:11,379 --> 00:27:14,841
…that you'd walk past in the street
without a second look?

441
00:27:16,051 --> 00:27:18,261
[reporter] The van made its way
to Hornsey Police Station

442
00:27:18,345 --> 00:27:20,513
where investigations are continuing.

443
00:27:21,556 --> 00:27:23,558
[Hamilton] Obviously, now,
we want to know something

444
00:27:23,642 --> 00:27:25,101
about Nilsen's upbringing.

445
00:27:26,144 --> 00:27:29,814
Well, the only people
who can tell you that are his own family.

446
00:27:32,817 --> 00:27:35,737
We knew that he came from Aberdeenshire.

447
00:27:36,613 --> 00:27:38,782
So I looked up
the Aberdeenshire phone book,

448
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,744
and there's only one entry "Nilsen."

449
00:27:44,829 --> 00:27:49,042
And I make a telephone call
to his mother and said,

450
00:27:49,125 --> 00:27:53,296
"Obviously, you know
that we've got to do a program on this."

451
00:27:53,380 --> 00:27:56,883
And she said, "Well, not today.
I don't really feel up to it."

452
00:27:56,966 --> 00:28:00,053
I said, "Well, I just happen to be
in Aberdeenshire today."

453
00:28:01,054 --> 00:28:03,515
"Would be a bit of a shame
if we had to come back again."

454
00:28:03,598 --> 00:28:05,517
She said, "All right, then."

455
00:28:09,270 --> 00:28:12,315
Outside her house was a little notice

456
00:28:12,399 --> 00:28:17,320
to say that her garden had been
the best garden in the whole area.

457
00:28:17,404 --> 00:28:18,738
[clock ticking]

458
00:28:19,406 --> 00:28:21,908
[Hamilton] The house inside was pristine.

459
00:28:22,784 --> 00:28:25,620
Not a speck of dust anywhere.

460
00:28:25,704 --> 00:28:27,622
[kettle whistling]

461
00:28:27,706 --> 00:28:30,667
She went into the kitchen.
She brought in a silver salver.

462
00:28:30,750 --> 00:28:32,585
Homemade shortbread.

463
00:28:39,467 --> 00:28:41,803
And I said to her,

464
00:28:41,886 --> 00:28:43,513
"Well, you know, how did you…"

465
00:28:43,596 --> 00:28:46,266
"How did you feel
when you heard this news about him?"

466
00:28:47,559 --> 00:28:48,852
And she said…

467
00:28:48,935 --> 00:28:52,355
I've tried to think
what could have gone wrong.

468
00:28:52,439 --> 00:28:56,943
And, I mean, why the people
in London who worked with him,

469
00:28:57,026 --> 00:28:59,362
why would they not see something there…

470
00:29:01,281 --> 00:29:03,283
before this? It's gone on all this time.

471
00:29:03,366 --> 00:29:07,203
I believe if he'd been at home,
I would have seen something was wrong.

472
00:29:08,121 --> 00:29:10,957
Because normally,
you couldn't live with a person

473
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,294
unless you could see
that there was something bothering him.

474
00:29:15,044 --> 00:29:19,466
Because it's not the Dennis I knew
that's doing this, somehow or other.

475
00:29:21,885 --> 00:29:24,679
[Nilsen] Oh dear! Deary, deary me!

476
00:29:27,807 --> 00:29:29,142
[Scott] He was really a quiet boy.

477
00:29:29,225 --> 00:29:32,562
Nothing extraordinary about him, really,
when he was young.

478
00:29:32,645 --> 00:29:34,564
Just a normal, quiet boy.

479
00:29:37,066 --> 00:29:39,527
[Nilsen] I was an inwardly troubled boy,

480
00:29:40,111 --> 00:29:41,780
and nobody seemed to notice.

481
00:29:43,740 --> 00:29:45,742
[gulls squawking]

482
00:29:49,704 --> 00:29:52,499
[Nilsen] I remember… I remember

483
00:29:53,792 --> 00:29:57,378
as if there was a Moviola
running in my mind.

484
00:30:02,425 --> 00:30:04,511
I see a small, frail boy.

485
00:30:05,512 --> 00:30:10,141
He is new against a background
of powerful forces acting on him.

486
00:30:14,604 --> 00:30:15,480
[clock ticking]

487
00:30:15,563 --> 00:30:18,775
[Nilsen] I had the feeling
of being somehow different.

488
00:30:21,486 --> 00:30:24,405
Perhaps being poor,
thin, and shabbily dressed

489
00:30:24,948 --> 00:30:29,327
was that first definable assault
on my awakening self-esteem.

490
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:34,874
Not having a father to boast about
might well have been another.

491
00:30:35,500 --> 00:30:37,669
[menacing music playing]

492
00:30:58,273 --> 00:31:00,650
[Scott] His father,
he never was really a person

493
00:31:00,733 --> 00:31:03,444
that was close to the family and that.

494
00:31:03,528 --> 00:31:05,488
I had to bring them up myself.

495
00:31:06,531 --> 00:31:09,742
[Nilsen] Then there was this great gulf
between me and my mother.

496
00:31:12,203 --> 00:31:15,790
[Scott] I was a caring person,
and I just did my best.

497
00:31:15,874 --> 00:31:18,751
He was brought up
just the same way as the others.

498
00:31:19,836 --> 00:31:20,962
[Nilsen] Well… [sighs]

499
00:31:22,046 --> 00:31:23,882
Damned lies.

500
00:31:28,344 --> 00:31:29,929
When I was about eight or nine,

501
00:31:30,013 --> 00:31:33,683
I was first afflicted
by that thing called love.

502
00:31:34,183 --> 00:31:37,687
It was for another boy
with whom I'd never even spoken.

503
00:31:38,980 --> 00:31:42,775
Visions of him, as seen in school,
filled my whole consciousness.

504
00:31:45,820 --> 00:31:49,991
It was a strange,
vibrant, and compelling situation,

505
00:31:51,492 --> 00:31:54,913
but the stern moral principles
of society and the church

506
00:31:54,996 --> 00:31:56,414
were of such a magnitude

507
00:31:56,497 --> 00:32:01,127
that my inner joys and longings
had to be kept secret from the world.

508
00:32:01,628 --> 00:32:03,129
[dance music playing in video]

509
00:32:03,212 --> 00:32:04,923
[reporter] Men who choose
to love other men

510
00:32:05,006 --> 00:32:07,550
are treated
not only with intolerance and contempt

511
00:32:07,634 --> 00:32:09,344
but prosecuted and jailed.

512
00:32:09,427 --> 00:32:12,847
For many of us, this is revolting,
men dancing with men.

513
00:32:12,931 --> 00:32:16,476
Most homosexuals
must lead a secret, dark existence.

514
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:26,903
[Nilsen] It is a great hurt

515
00:32:26,986 --> 00:32:30,573
to begin to appreciate
that one's genetic personality

516
00:32:30,657 --> 00:32:33,701
was considered
to be monstrous and detestable.

517
00:32:34,702 --> 00:32:37,997
There I was, not into my second decade,

518
00:32:38,081 --> 00:32:42,418
and regarded as a criminal,
an outsider, an abomination,

519
00:32:42,961 --> 00:32:46,130
had been convicted
and punished to serve a sentence

520
00:32:47,173 --> 00:32:50,009
for the crime of what nature had made.

521
00:32:50,885 --> 00:32:53,429
I was forced not to be anything true

522
00:32:53,513 --> 00:32:54,973
outside of my head.

523
00:33:02,271 --> 00:33:04,524
[McCusker] The interrogators
were happy enough

524
00:33:04,607 --> 00:33:08,194
to let Nilsen tell his story
without pressing him too much

525
00:33:08,277 --> 00:33:10,446
because he was free flowing with his talk.

526
00:33:16,619 --> 00:33:19,956
So I thought,
"I'll sit down with Nilsen myself."

527
00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:22,875
I wanted to see
if he could remember anything extra

528
00:33:24,210 --> 00:33:27,338
about the pubs
where he picked some of the victims up.

529
00:33:28,256 --> 00:33:29,966
And he told us a lot of them

530
00:33:31,968 --> 00:33:33,469
were gay bars…

531
00:33:37,515 --> 00:33:38,975
in the West End of London.

532
00:33:40,935 --> 00:33:42,645
[Nilsen] Of course I'm homosexual,

533
00:33:43,730 --> 00:33:45,690
but I keep myself to myself.

534
00:33:45,773 --> 00:33:48,985
The last thing
anyone would ever admit to is being gay.

535
00:33:51,070 --> 00:33:54,741
[McCusker] So I concentrated my squad
in the West End of London.

536
00:33:57,785 --> 00:34:00,955
Then we found out
he picked up men in gay pubs.

537
00:34:01,456 --> 00:34:04,333
And once you've got something
that you can nail to it,

538
00:34:04,834 --> 00:34:05,960
"the gay killer,"

539
00:34:06,502 --> 00:34:07,628
it's gonna stick.

540
00:34:09,297 --> 00:34:11,257
Whatever the reality,
whatever the truth of it,

541
00:34:12,258 --> 00:34:13,259
it's gonna stick.

542
00:34:15,762 --> 00:34:16,888
[Nilsen] Exclusive!

543
00:34:17,597 --> 00:34:20,850
Gay Killer Dennis the Mincing Menace.

544
00:34:21,434 --> 00:34:22,310
Oh dear.

545
00:34:26,105 --> 00:34:27,940
[Bence] Even though, in 1983,

546
00:34:28,024 --> 00:34:31,986
consenting adults of 21 and over
would no longer be prosecuted,

547
00:34:32,695 --> 00:34:34,947
gay men and women were ostracized.

548
00:34:35,698 --> 00:34:38,201
There was a lot
of institutional homophobia

549
00:34:38,284 --> 00:34:42,038
in lots of aspects of Britain's society,
including the press and the police.

550
00:34:43,206 --> 00:34:46,459
And as we were about to find out,
Nilsen knew that was the case,

551
00:34:46,542 --> 00:34:47,668
perfectly well.

552
00:34:51,714 --> 00:34:53,633
I remember sitting having a cup of tea

553
00:34:53,716 --> 00:34:56,594
with a member of staff
from Scotland Yard's Press Bureau,

554
00:34:57,095 --> 00:34:59,180
and he said, "This is an amazing story,

555
00:34:59,263 --> 00:35:02,016
but it's even more amazing
'cause he's one of our own."

556
00:35:04,310 --> 00:35:05,645
He's an ex-copper!

557
00:35:09,565 --> 00:35:10,650
[Nilsen snickers]

558
00:35:11,901 --> 00:35:14,570
When we found out
he was a police officer, we…

559
00:35:14,654 --> 00:35:19,117
Well, I thought, "That's why
he's got away with it for so long."

560
00:35:20,785 --> 00:35:23,287
"He's a police officer.
He's gonna be one step ahead."

561
00:35:24,455 --> 00:35:27,875
There were two officers I knew,
in uniform, who'd worked with him.

562
00:35:31,295 --> 00:35:35,883
[man] The detective chief superintendent
running the inquiry ordered me

563
00:35:35,967 --> 00:35:37,593
to come over to his office,

564
00:35:39,178 --> 00:35:41,597
'cause he wanted me
to come and tell them all about

565
00:35:42,598 --> 00:35:43,975
my friend Dennis.

566
00:35:47,019 --> 00:35:48,271
He was one of these people,

567
00:35:48,354 --> 00:35:50,773
if you spoke to him,
he would drop his head.

568
00:35:50,857 --> 00:35:53,192
He would avoid eye contact.

569
00:35:53,276 --> 00:35:54,986
A real loner.

570
00:35:57,488 --> 00:35:59,115
He wore a uniform

571
00:35:59,198 --> 00:36:00,950
but didn't really achieve anything.

572
00:36:01,033 --> 00:36:03,077
I don't think his interest was in it.

573
00:36:05,788 --> 00:36:08,082
He went before he was pushed.

574
00:36:11,043 --> 00:36:13,462
I don't think anybody batted an eyelid.

575
00:36:17,133 --> 00:36:19,093
You know, there was no leaving do.

576
00:36:19,177 --> 00:36:20,803
[siren sounding]

577
00:36:20,887 --> 00:36:23,347
[Brenton] And then, a few years later,

578
00:36:23,431 --> 00:36:25,099
before he killed anybody,

579
00:36:25,183 --> 00:36:27,768
I got a phone call
ordering me to go to an address

580
00:36:27,852 --> 00:36:29,937
to investigate a serious assault.

581
00:36:30,521 --> 00:36:35,943
And the first thing I noticed was
the walls had been painted black,

582
00:36:36,819 --> 00:36:39,155
which really wasn't my color.

583
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,703
The living-room window
had been completely smashed,

584
00:36:45,786 --> 00:36:47,830
and there's blood everywhere.

585
00:36:49,248 --> 00:36:53,002
A young juvenile
had been taken from the address

586
00:36:53,085 --> 00:36:54,170
to the hospital.

587
00:36:54,795 --> 00:36:58,507
And he was just a pale,
skinny waif of a kid.

588
00:36:59,091 --> 00:37:02,261
And if I remember rightly,
he had over 100 stitches.

589
00:37:04,138 --> 00:37:06,224
He had been picked up in a pub

590
00:37:08,142 --> 00:37:12,355
by a man with a dour Scot's voice

591
00:37:14,273 --> 00:37:16,275
and was taken back to the flat…

592
00:37:20,404 --> 00:37:21,822
plied with alcohol,

593
00:37:22,490 --> 00:37:23,824
and then he woke up

594
00:37:24,742 --> 00:37:27,620
and discovered
that he was completely naked,

595
00:37:27,703 --> 00:37:30,248
and this man was coming towards him.

596
00:37:31,415 --> 00:37:33,459
So, fight-or-flight,

597
00:37:33,542 --> 00:37:36,379
he just hurled himself through the window.

598
00:37:39,882 --> 00:37:44,220
So I went back to the police station,
and this Scottish man was there,

599
00:37:44,720 --> 00:37:45,554
and it was

600
00:37:46,722 --> 00:37:47,974
my friend Dennis.

601
00:37:50,434 --> 00:37:51,477
So I asked him,

602
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:55,773
"Why did this young juvenile
hurl himself through the window?"

603
00:37:56,524 --> 00:37:59,527
And then he said,
"Well, I don't know why he did it."

604
00:38:01,529 --> 00:38:03,739
"But if you got the evidence,
you charge me."

605
00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:06,117
"If you don't, you gotta let me go."

606
00:38:07,785 --> 00:38:10,204
And that was our Dennis. He knew the law.

607
00:38:16,335 --> 00:38:20,548
We then discovered
that the juvenile was a missing person.

608
00:38:20,631 --> 00:38:22,425
And we spoke to his parents,

609
00:38:23,175 --> 00:38:25,219
but his father just said,

610
00:38:25,303 --> 00:38:26,887
"He's not going to court."

611
00:38:28,973 --> 00:38:31,434
And I remember saying to his father,

612
00:38:31,517 --> 00:38:33,185
"Do you realize

613
00:38:34,103 --> 00:38:36,772
what is going to happen

614
00:38:36,856 --> 00:38:40,109
if you do not bring a prosecution?

615
00:38:40,651 --> 00:38:42,611
"He's gonna do this to somebody else."

616
00:38:43,195 --> 00:38:45,489
"No." They were adamant.

617
00:38:46,157 --> 00:38:47,074
I was fuming.

618
00:38:49,452 --> 00:38:51,579
I didn't say very much to him other than,

619
00:38:51,662 --> 00:38:54,540
"You have no idea,
Dennis, how lucky you are."

620
00:38:54,623 --> 00:38:56,709
Because he would have gone to prison.

621
00:38:58,002 --> 00:38:59,962
Grievous bodily harm with intent,

622
00:39:00,046 --> 00:39:02,214
potentially life imprisonment.

623
00:39:05,134 --> 00:39:06,635
When you dealt with somebody,

624
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:10,389
it was incumbent upon you
to type out an intelligence card.

625
00:39:10,473 --> 00:39:14,060
And at the top of the card, I typed,

626
00:39:14,143 --> 00:39:17,438
"In my opinion,
this man is a dangerous psychopath."

627
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,196
I always think about
what if they had said,

628
00:39:25,279 --> 00:39:26,614
"We'll prosecute him"?

629
00:39:27,323 --> 00:39:29,200
Who would still be breathing today?

630
00:39:30,576 --> 00:39:32,286
But there was a shame factor.

631
00:39:32,953 --> 00:39:34,080
They would be shamed.

632
00:39:34,789 --> 00:39:39,085
Um, and, "We want to take him home
and, you know, forget all about it."

633
00:39:41,629 --> 00:39:44,673
He must have thought
he was the luckiest person in the world.

634
00:39:46,967 --> 00:39:49,011
And he would never forget that.

635
00:39:58,521 --> 00:40:01,482
[McCusker] The West End was a vibe.

636
00:40:02,358 --> 00:40:05,111
Plenty of action, lots of people,

637
00:40:05,194 --> 00:40:07,113
a way to get lost.

638
00:40:09,490 --> 00:40:12,785
It was just teeming
with millionaires to paupers.

639
00:40:17,123 --> 00:40:20,292
But one of the officers on my team
came back to me, and he said,

640
00:40:20,376 --> 00:40:23,254
"I've been to the pub
and spoken to some people there."

641
00:40:23,754 --> 00:40:27,883
And they had described a guy called John,
and he was known as John the Guardsman.

642
00:40:30,845 --> 00:40:34,515
Nilsen had already told us
about a guy called John

643
00:40:35,433 --> 00:40:39,228
who wore a woolly hat
that looked like a Guardsman's hat.

644
00:40:46,485 --> 00:40:50,364
But we found out that John the Guardsman
was known in that area

645
00:40:51,490 --> 00:40:52,491
as a rent boy.

646
00:40:58,414 --> 00:41:02,209
It's the first time
that I had heard the term "rent boy."

647
00:41:06,922 --> 00:41:09,758
[Nilsen] Night bringeth the wild dance.

648
00:41:10,342 --> 00:41:13,596
It is the prenuptials before the feast

649
00:41:13,679 --> 00:41:15,848
where all appetites are sated.

650
00:41:16,682 --> 00:41:19,935
Helter-skelter into the fray of the dance,

651
00:41:20,019 --> 00:41:23,105
satisfying these appetites.

652
00:41:29,778 --> 00:41:31,614
[Bence] It was a playground, wasn't it?

653
00:41:33,449 --> 00:41:35,409
And Nilsen could get whatever he wanted.

654
00:41:36,535 --> 00:41:38,245
It was just a flesh market.

655
00:41:41,123 --> 00:41:43,792
[McCusker] We went
to West End Central Police Station.

656
00:41:43,876 --> 00:41:46,253
And they had an index
of all the rent boys,

657
00:41:46,337 --> 00:41:47,588
and there was hundreds.

658
00:41:50,799 --> 00:41:53,344
We were able to identify
John the Guardsman

659
00:41:53,427 --> 00:41:55,930
as a man called John Howlett,

660
00:41:57,014 --> 00:41:59,141
and I spoke to his mother.

661
00:41:59,225 --> 00:42:01,685
Howlett had left home of his own accord.

662
00:42:01,769 --> 00:42:03,395
He'd got involved in drugs,

663
00:42:04,063 --> 00:42:07,775
and there was quite simply an acceptance
that her son had died.

664
00:42:11,403 --> 00:42:15,449
Nilsen obviously knew that
if these young rent boys went missing,

665
00:42:16,992 --> 00:42:20,496
usually, they just vanished
into the London ether.

666
00:42:36,637 --> 00:42:39,640
[Hunt] It got easier,
digging that little garden,

667
00:42:40,474 --> 00:42:43,143
but it became evident
that he wasn't lying.

668
00:42:44,395 --> 00:42:48,023
We're finding dozens, and dozens,
and dozens of tiny bones.

669
00:42:51,235 --> 00:42:56,574
But nothing was so intact
that we could identify people from it.

670
00:42:57,992 --> 00:42:59,201
And then I started thinking

671
00:42:59,285 --> 00:43:02,329
perhaps we weren't ever gonna find out
who these people were.

672
00:43:03,622 --> 00:43:06,458
And you think,
"How on earth have you got to this place?"

673
00:43:07,001 --> 00:43:08,836
"What journey did you go on

674
00:43:10,045 --> 00:43:11,380
to end up here?"

675
00:43:15,217 --> 00:43:16,969
[man] The police contacted me.

676
00:43:17,511 --> 00:43:21,682
They'd found
my National Insurance card in Des's flat.

677
00:43:22,391 --> 00:43:25,269
I expect the police
did have suspicions about me at first

678
00:43:25,352 --> 00:43:27,521
as to who I was, and why wasn't…

679
00:43:28,772 --> 00:43:30,399
why wasn't I done away with?

680
00:43:44,580 --> 00:43:45,914
It was a warm night.

681
00:43:50,044 --> 00:43:51,503
I was playing a fruit machine,

682
00:43:52,713 --> 00:43:55,424
and a guy behind me was watching me.

683
00:43:56,216 --> 00:43:59,094
I could see him
from the reflection in the machine.

684
00:43:59,178 --> 00:44:01,430
He said, "You won't win much on that one."

685
00:44:02,681 --> 00:44:04,308
I said, "Oh, now you tell me."

686
00:44:05,142 --> 00:44:07,061
And he said, "I think it's just paid out."

687
00:44:07,645 --> 00:44:10,648
And he said, um,
"Do you want to come home?"

688
00:44:13,025 --> 00:44:15,527
We went back to Melrose Avenue.

689
00:44:15,611 --> 00:44:16,862
[classical music playing]

690
00:44:16,945 --> 00:44:19,323
[Martyn] And he put on classical music.

691
00:44:22,326 --> 00:44:24,703
[Nilsen] Who is this man?

692
00:44:28,791 --> 00:44:30,709
A unit in the herd.

693
00:44:32,503 --> 00:44:34,672
A ghost in society.

694
00:44:36,465 --> 00:44:38,300
How is he formed?

695
00:44:38,384 --> 00:44:42,680
Who and what has placed him
towards this fate?

696
00:44:43,931 --> 00:44:46,725
He asked me where I came from.
He asked me about my family.

697
00:44:46,809 --> 00:44:48,644
So he seemed quite caring,

698
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:50,813
and that impressed me.

699
00:44:50,896 --> 00:44:54,066
And I thought, "Ah! Okay, I like you."

700
00:44:54,149 --> 00:44:56,777
But I never said it.
But I thought, "I like this guy."

701
00:44:56,860 --> 00:44:58,362
[classical music continues]

702
00:45:02,157 --> 00:45:05,744
[Martyn] I told him
that I was from Exeter, outside London.

703
00:45:07,079 --> 00:45:10,749
When I was younger,
a few people knew that I was gay,

704
00:45:11,500 --> 00:45:13,877
but it was just, "He'll grow out of it."

705
00:45:15,587 --> 00:45:18,173
All the kids seemed to think
I was a bit of a joke.

706
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,261
So I would go to my bedroom.

707
00:45:22,886 --> 00:45:24,805
I just wanted to be in the darkness.

708
00:45:31,061 --> 00:45:32,688
I was 14 when I ran away.

709
00:45:34,064 --> 00:45:37,901
Think I had not much more than about £10
or something like that,

710
00:45:37,985 --> 00:45:41,280
but it was enough to get me to London.

711
00:45:46,910 --> 00:45:48,871
I remember thinking, "So this is London."

712
00:45:51,457 --> 00:45:54,042
"I'm in London!
Nobody knows who I am now."

713
00:45:54,126 --> 00:45:55,627
"I can get lost up here."

714
00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,882
But I had no way of living.
I didn't know what to do.

715
00:45:59,965 --> 00:46:01,091
And I was freezing.

716
00:46:01,675 --> 00:46:07,139
So I found somewhere to sleep
in a car park behind Piccadilly Circus.

717
00:46:08,432 --> 00:46:12,186
But then I could see
these other boys just hanging around.

718
00:46:12,269 --> 00:46:13,937
"I wonder what that's about?"

719
00:46:14,021 --> 00:46:16,023
I see money changing hands.

720
00:46:16,607 --> 00:46:18,859
I see men kissing boys.

721
00:46:19,860 --> 00:46:22,196
But then some old man was passing by,

722
00:46:22,279 --> 00:46:24,656
and he explained we were on the meat rack,

723
00:46:26,283 --> 00:46:28,911
where each lamppost
was owned by a rent boy.

724
00:46:30,037 --> 00:46:31,914
And they all had nicknames.

725
00:46:31,997 --> 00:46:35,209
You wouldn't call somebody
by their proper name. That's for sure.

726
00:46:35,292 --> 00:46:36,293
And they weren't all gay.

727
00:46:36,376 --> 00:46:38,295
They were just doing it
because they needed money.

728
00:46:41,298 --> 00:46:44,259
Some of the customers
were not very pleasant sometimes.

729
00:46:45,010 --> 00:46:47,888
But you'd do it
because you need to survive.

730
00:46:50,891 --> 00:46:53,894
But Des was quite friendly,
very friendly, in fact.

731
00:46:55,062 --> 00:46:56,647
And you ain't seen nothing yet.

732
00:46:57,272 --> 00:47:01,109
The other week,
we got this TV here, 360 quid.

733
00:47:01,193 --> 00:47:03,695
Stereo set, about 200 quid.

734
00:47:04,696 --> 00:47:08,450
And budgerigar up here, Hamish.
Have a look at Hamish. Priceless.

735
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:11,703
He even showed me the gardens.

736
00:47:19,169 --> 00:47:22,756
When we came here, this back garden
was like a bloody rubbish heap with…

737
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:26,301
There was tons of old cookers,
and tires, and debris,

738
00:47:26,385 --> 00:47:28,929
and plaster, and wood,
and God knows what else.

739
00:47:29,012 --> 00:47:30,889
It was completely overgrown with rubbish.

740
00:47:30,973 --> 00:47:34,518
And we, the good old tenant,
trying to improve the property,

741
00:47:35,352 --> 00:47:37,354
in three months,
managed to make it what it is now.

742
00:47:37,437 --> 00:47:40,148
Look at it. It's quite neat and tidy.
There's a little fence there.

743
00:47:40,232 --> 00:47:42,359
There's vegetables in abundance growing.

744
00:47:42,442 --> 00:47:43,735
And what else can I say?

745
00:47:43,819 --> 00:47:46,780
But then he had Bacardi in a bottle,

746
00:47:47,364 --> 00:47:49,324
and he drank that as we were speaking.

747
00:47:49,908 --> 00:47:50,993
Uh, and then,

748
00:47:52,494 --> 00:47:53,495
we went to bed.

749
00:47:58,292 --> 00:48:00,002
[Nilsen] As is my desire,

750
00:48:00,085 --> 00:48:03,297
the most beautiful creature in my universe

751
00:48:03,797 --> 00:48:08,135
is sleek, slim, male youth.

752
00:48:08,927 --> 00:48:12,264
The sight of him, in his adamant glory,

753
00:48:12,890 --> 00:48:17,853
sends my mind
into a concentration of cathartic spasms.

754
00:48:18,770 --> 00:48:20,647
The man obsessed.

755
00:48:21,189 --> 00:48:22,774
The drive powerful.

756
00:48:24,192 --> 00:48:26,320
The heart a-pounding!

757
00:48:27,529 --> 00:48:30,490
He is oblivious to the future.

758
00:48:32,075 --> 00:48:34,536
[Martyn] It must have been
about two hours later,

759
00:48:34,620 --> 00:48:37,706
I opened my eyes,
and there was smoke in front of me,

760
00:48:38,248 --> 00:48:40,167
and he was straddled across me.

761
00:48:41,168 --> 00:48:43,378
And just pushing him backwards.

762
00:48:44,004 --> 00:48:46,006
I said,
"What's happening? What's happened?"

763
00:48:46,506 --> 00:48:48,800
And he said,
"You knocked the fire off the wall."

764
00:48:51,887 --> 00:48:54,431
I got water, poured it over the floor,

765
00:48:54,514 --> 00:48:56,975
and I left,
'cause I was really quite upset,

766
00:48:57,059 --> 00:48:59,895
because I thought,
"I've caused that damage to his flat."

767
00:49:02,189 --> 00:49:03,982
But it didn't make sense.

768
00:49:04,066 --> 00:49:07,152
The fire wouldn't have been on
because it was a warm night.

769
00:49:08,570 --> 00:49:11,865
Then I realized
he was trying to kill me that night.

770
00:49:23,126 --> 00:49:26,296
But I didn't know who to talk to.
I didn't know where to turn.

771
00:49:28,340 --> 00:49:31,051
London, at the time,
was extremely homophobic.

772
00:49:31,134 --> 00:49:32,636
The police certainly were.

773
00:49:33,136 --> 00:49:34,721
The press certainly were.

774
00:49:34,805 --> 00:49:38,058
So I stayed quiet, in a room,

775
00:49:38,141 --> 00:49:40,644
like I was used to
when I was younger, in the dark.

776
00:49:41,144 --> 00:49:46,733
[Nilsen whispering] Silence, silence,
silence, silence, silence.

777
00:49:46,817 --> 00:49:49,778
[Martyn] Looking back now,
I would've been the first victim.

778
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:52,489
This was just the beginning for him.

779
00:50:14,511 --> 00:50:17,514
In London, police searching
for the remains of murder victims

780
00:50:17,597 --> 00:50:20,892
today found what they called
"a significant amount of human bone."

781
00:50:22,102 --> 00:50:24,271
It was… it was just a graveyard.

782
00:50:26,398 --> 00:50:29,776
[police officer] We have found
a considerable amount of human bones.

783
00:50:30,277 --> 00:50:33,280
Uh, in particular,
a, uh, piece of thigh bone,

784
00:50:33,363 --> 00:50:36,408
I would imagine in the…
measuring about six inches.

785
00:50:36,992 --> 00:50:38,660
They were coming up all the time.

786
00:50:38,744 --> 00:50:40,662
It wasn't as if,
after three or four hours,

787
00:50:40,746 --> 00:50:41,955
"Oh, I found one."

788
00:50:42,539 --> 00:50:44,374
It was every couple of minutes,

789
00:50:44,458 --> 00:50:47,127
a fragment of this,
a fragment of that, teeth.

790
00:50:47,210 --> 00:50:49,212
[camera shutters clicking]

791
00:50:57,804 --> 00:51:00,640
[reporter 1] Police searching
the rear garden of a North London house

792
00:51:00,724 --> 00:51:03,060
believe they may be
a step nearer identifying

793
00:51:03,143 --> 00:51:05,562
some of the human remains
they've discovered there.

794
00:51:08,899 --> 00:51:12,235
[man] That story was like
a horror film had come to the real world.

795
00:51:12,944 --> 00:51:16,531
But there's also
a kind of strange excitement

796
00:51:16,615 --> 00:51:18,575
when something like that happens,
you know?

797
00:51:18,658 --> 00:51:22,245
There's a macabre attraction
to that kind of stuff.

798
00:51:22,329 --> 00:51:23,580
You want to know more details.

799
00:51:23,663 --> 00:51:25,624
You don't want to know less.
You want to know more.

800
00:51:28,335 --> 00:51:30,921
My mother
tells a very different story than that.

801
00:51:31,004 --> 00:51:32,672
[reporter 2]
Police have half a dozen names

802
00:51:32,756 --> 00:51:34,925
of people they believe
may have been victims.

803
00:51:35,425 --> 00:51:38,678
[woman] Well, the news,
you know, had been breaking and…

804
00:51:39,429 --> 00:51:42,307
I don't know. I…
Of course I was interested.

805
00:51:42,390 --> 00:51:43,809
I mean, who wasn't?

806
00:51:43,892 --> 00:51:46,645
It was horrific, and I thought,
"God, them poor parents."

807
00:51:47,187 --> 00:51:48,563
And that was it.

808
00:51:51,233 --> 00:51:53,860
But then there was a knock on the door,

809
00:51:53,944 --> 00:51:56,404
and this police officer said,
"Can we come in?"

810
00:51:56,488 --> 00:51:58,490
I said, "What's it about?"
He said, "Can we come in?"

811
00:51:58,573 --> 00:52:00,909
"I think you better sit down."
I thought, "Oh God."

812
00:52:01,535 --> 00:52:02,828
Still never entered my head.

813
00:52:03,578 --> 00:52:06,123
And when we got indoors,
he showed me this photo.

814
00:52:06,206 --> 00:52:07,999
He said, "Do you know this person?"

815
00:52:09,751 --> 00:52:11,628
I said, "Yeah, of course I know him."

816
00:52:12,295 --> 00:52:14,464
It was Graham, the love of my life.

817
00:52:15,507 --> 00:52:18,885
And then he said,
"Have you heard of a man called Nilsen?"

818
00:52:19,386 --> 00:52:21,805
Even then,
I didn't put two and two together

819
00:52:21,888 --> 00:52:26,351
because they said that Nilsen
was only picking on homeless homosexuals.

820
00:52:28,186 --> 00:52:32,065
So that put my mind
a bit at rest that he was…

821
00:52:32,149 --> 00:52:34,568
It couldn't be him. He's not homosexual.

822
00:52:36,153 --> 00:52:39,990
And then they asked me, "Had he had
any dental treatment just lately?"

823
00:52:40,073 --> 00:52:42,951
I was thinking,
"Why do you keep asking me these things

824
00:52:43,034 --> 00:52:45,871
about dental records,
and teeth, and jaws?"

825
00:52:45,954 --> 00:52:47,080
Then it clicked.

826
00:52:47,914 --> 00:52:49,916
["Zoom" by Fat Larry's Band playing]

827
00:52:53,044 --> 00:52:54,880
[Lesley] Graham loved buying me records.

828
00:52:54,963 --> 00:52:57,132
I remember he bought me
the Fat Larry's Band.

829
00:52:57,215 --> 00:52:58,300
It was called "Zoom."

830
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:01,761
And every time that record comes on,
I'm straight back there.

831
00:53:01,845 --> 00:53:06,433
♪ Zoom, just one look
And then my heart went boom… ♪

832
00:53:06,516 --> 00:53:09,519
[Lesley] And that was
the very last record he ever bought me.

833
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:13,106
But I can't say
we were a happy family, 'cause we weren't.

834
00:53:13,190 --> 00:53:15,942
♪ …high in a neon sky… ♪

835
00:53:16,026 --> 00:53:18,612
[Shane] We didn't have much growing up.
We was very poor.

836
00:53:19,487 --> 00:53:21,907
But we felt like a family,
and we loved our mother.

837
00:53:22,490 --> 00:53:23,867
But most memories aren't fun.

838
00:53:24,868 --> 00:53:26,745
Mostly, it was over drugs.

839
00:53:26,828 --> 00:53:29,164
♪ Zoom, you chased… ♪

840
00:53:29,247 --> 00:53:31,291
[Lesley] It was 31st October,

841
00:53:31,875 --> 00:53:35,670
and Graham promised me that morning
that he wasn't gonna have a fix.

842
00:53:36,546 --> 00:53:37,923
And I knew,

843
00:53:38,006 --> 00:53:41,051
the minute he spoke to me,
I knew he'd had something.

844
00:53:41,134 --> 00:53:42,928
And, of course,
I got really cross with him.

845
00:53:43,511 --> 00:53:46,264
And, oh my God,
I said this most awful thing.

846
00:53:46,348 --> 00:53:48,141
I mean, I did.

847
00:53:48,725 --> 00:53:50,685
I said,
"If you go back out and have another fix,

848
00:53:50,769 --> 00:53:52,729
don't fucking ever come back."

849
00:53:52,812 --> 00:53:54,439
That's exactly what happened.

850
00:53:54,940 --> 00:53:56,483
He didn't ever come back.

851
00:53:57,692 --> 00:53:58,526
So…

852
00:54:00,195 --> 00:54:01,029
Yeah.

853
00:54:01,780 --> 00:54:03,907
[ominous music playing]

854
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:09,704
[Shane] I was coming home
from the little sweet shop at the top,

855
00:54:10,580 --> 00:54:12,958
and as I got down the road,
I could hear screaming.

856
00:54:14,542 --> 00:54:17,629
And for some reason,
I knew that was my mother's voice

857
00:54:17,712 --> 00:54:19,381
and that was my mother's pain,

858
00:54:20,090 --> 00:54:24,261
and when we got in there,
my mother was in the kitchen crying.

859
00:54:25,929 --> 00:54:29,557
My father had been murdered
at the hands of Dennis Nilsen.

860
00:54:30,976 --> 00:54:33,311
[Lesley] The reporters were barbaric.

861
00:54:33,395 --> 00:54:35,897
You know, they say,
"They're all homeless, all homosexuals."

862
00:54:35,981 --> 00:54:38,024
They weren't, you know?

863
00:54:38,108 --> 00:54:41,653
Don't clump 'em all in one box.
They were all individuals.

864
00:54:41,736 --> 00:54:44,406
I phoned up newspapers
and blew my top at 'em.

865
00:54:46,116 --> 00:54:48,952
And then
we had the press round at the door.

866
00:54:49,035 --> 00:54:50,161
God, it was awful.

867
00:54:51,871 --> 00:54:54,582
And one of the reporters asked me,
did I know all the facts?

868
00:54:54,666 --> 00:54:57,252
I said, "I know as much
as the police have told me."

869
00:54:58,086 --> 00:55:00,297
He said, "They haven't told you
what happened afterwards?"

870
00:55:00,380 --> 00:55:01,381
I said, "No. Why?"

871
00:55:01,464 --> 00:55:02,549
He said, uh,

872
00:55:04,009 --> 00:55:06,094
"It's not very nice.
Do you want me to tell you?"

873
00:55:06,177 --> 00:55:07,470
I said, "Yes."

874
00:55:11,308 --> 00:55:14,769
It was just some compulsion,
that I had to know.

875
00:55:17,772 --> 00:55:19,607
Nilsen was down the West End.

876
00:55:22,861 --> 00:55:25,196
And he saw Graham trying to get a cab,

877
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:27,115
but no cabs would stop for him

878
00:55:27,198 --> 00:55:29,034
because he was staggering
all over the place.

879
00:55:30,827 --> 00:55:32,954
And Nilsen took him back to his place,

880
00:55:34,664 --> 00:55:36,041
where he went behind him…

881
00:55:40,003 --> 00:55:40,879
and strangled him.

882
00:55:45,091 --> 00:55:46,551
That was his words.

883
00:55:48,678 --> 00:55:53,433
And then he sat him in an armchair
for two days while he went to work.

884
00:55:53,975 --> 00:55:57,187
He came back
and sat next to him on the settee,

885
00:55:57,270 --> 00:55:58,938
and they watched TV together.

886
00:56:00,565 --> 00:56:03,234
On the third night, he stripped him naked,

887
00:56:03,860 --> 00:56:06,780
stood him up in front
of, like, a dressing table mirror,

888
00:56:06,863 --> 00:56:08,573
and held him from behind,

889
00:56:09,866 --> 00:56:12,869
covered him in talcum powder,
and then masturbated over him.

890
00:56:17,248 --> 00:56:18,750
I just wanted to pretend

891
00:56:19,626 --> 00:56:20,877
it didn't happen.

892
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:23,546
He overdosed,
and he was dead somewhere. No! No!

893
00:56:25,006 --> 00:56:26,925
But you can't turn your mind off.

894
00:56:27,675 --> 00:56:28,885
It's impossible.

895
00:56:28,968 --> 00:56:34,557
♪ Oh, zoom, you chased the day away… ♪

896
00:56:34,641 --> 00:56:36,893
[Lesley] Why would you do
something like that?

897
00:56:36,976 --> 00:56:38,937
Even to an animal, why would you do it?

898
00:56:40,146 --> 00:56:41,147
[birds chirping]

899
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:45,360
[Nilsen] Tweetles, are you feeling better?

900
00:56:46,319 --> 00:56:48,905
I think he's got
some respiratory infection.

901
00:56:50,115 --> 00:56:50,990
Yes.

902
00:56:53,243 --> 00:56:55,286
I think it was yesterday
I received a letter

903
00:56:55,370 --> 00:56:57,747
from a reporter fishing for a story.

904
00:56:58,665 --> 00:57:00,834
"I realize
you're producing an autobiography…"

905
00:57:00,917 --> 00:57:02,460
Yak, yak, yak.

906
00:57:02,544 --> 00:57:04,087
"What are you saying in it?"

907
00:57:04,170 --> 00:57:05,255
Yak, yak, yak.

908
00:57:12,095 --> 00:57:15,348
[man] I was a young
wannabe investigative journalist.

909
00:57:15,432 --> 00:57:17,559
I was completely green behind the ears.

910
00:57:18,476 --> 00:57:20,895
And one morning I read in the paper

911
00:57:21,980 --> 00:57:24,482
that there was this serial killer,

912
00:57:25,108 --> 00:57:26,901
killed 15 people,

913
00:57:28,236 --> 00:57:31,656
who was now writing
his own autobiography in prison,

914
00:57:32,282 --> 00:57:34,325
and I was intrigued.

915
00:57:35,326 --> 00:57:37,203
So then I started writing to Nilsen,

916
00:57:37,287 --> 00:57:39,330
saying, "Dear Mr. Nilsen,

917
00:57:39,414 --> 00:57:45,170
I believe your book will become
a landmark work of criminology,

918
00:57:45,253 --> 00:57:46,546
and I'd like to cover it

919
00:57:46,629 --> 00:57:50,049
for a serious
British broadsheet newspaper."

920
00:57:52,343 --> 00:57:55,096
After a week, this letter arrived.

921
00:57:57,474 --> 00:57:59,017
The first thing I noticed was

922
00:57:59,100 --> 00:58:03,229
the Biro was pressed really hard
against the paper,

923
00:58:03,313 --> 00:58:06,691
uh, like a man bursting to tell his story.

924
00:58:07,942 --> 00:58:09,777
"Dear Russ, thank you for your letter."

925
00:58:09,861 --> 00:58:12,739
"You're keen to know
how I justify the publication of my book?"

926
00:58:12,822 --> 00:58:15,783
"Well, my first instinct
is to quote dear old Oscar."

927
00:58:15,867 --> 00:58:18,703
"'There is no such thing
as a moral or amoral book.'"

928
00:58:18,786 --> 00:58:20,955
"'It's either well written
or badly written.'"

929
00:58:21,039 --> 00:58:23,583
When I first got
parts of his autobiography,

930
00:58:23,666 --> 00:58:26,252
archive boxes
full of tapes and manuscripts,

931
00:58:26,336 --> 00:58:29,547
I'd rung my editor
at The Sunday Times Magazine,

932
00:58:29,631 --> 00:58:31,132
like, you know,

933
00:58:31,216 --> 00:58:33,384
"You're just not gonna believe
what I've got."

934
00:58:34,219 --> 00:58:37,847
The stuff that was of interest
was to do with his grandfather.

935
00:58:39,140 --> 00:58:41,226
[Nilsen] Along the moments of my life…

936
00:58:41,309 --> 00:58:44,312
[Coffey and Nilsen overlap] "…I return
to the mystery of my grandfather,

937
00:58:44,395 --> 00:58:45,522
Andrew Whyte."

938
00:58:46,231 --> 00:58:48,650
"I've gazed at a photograph
of him at his youth…"

939
00:58:50,902 --> 00:58:52,820
[Nilsen]
…taken when he was a petty officer

940
00:58:52,904 --> 00:58:54,489
during the First World War.

941
00:58:55,573 --> 00:58:58,117
I remember playing
with the three medals he received

942
00:58:58,201 --> 00:59:01,496
for serving his King Emperor, George V.

943
00:59:04,707 --> 00:59:07,043
[Scott] He was so fond of his granda.

944
00:59:07,126 --> 00:59:10,463
I can just picture
the two of them together.

945
00:59:13,550 --> 00:59:16,511
Everywhere he went,
he took Dennis with him.

946
00:59:18,012 --> 00:59:20,515
I think
there was something great between them.

947
00:59:23,601 --> 00:59:26,271
[Nilsen] He was, to me, a great man.

948
00:59:27,397 --> 00:59:32,819
The broad sweep of his 62 years
is too great for this short narrative,

949
00:59:32,902 --> 00:59:35,780
but his mark upon me is indelible.

950
00:59:39,117 --> 00:59:42,787
Grandfather died suddenly
when I was five years old.

951
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:47,500
[Scott] He saw
his granda lying in this box,

952
00:59:48,626 --> 00:59:51,921
and then, of course, the religious people,
they never say they're dead.

953
00:59:52,005 --> 00:59:54,591
They just said,
"Oh, he's gone to a better place."

954
00:59:56,175 --> 00:59:58,678
He says,
"He always took me everywhere with him."

955
00:59:59,178 --> 01:00:02,140
"Why could he not have taken me
to that better place with him?"

956
01:00:04,267 --> 01:00:07,687
[Coffey] He said that
when he saw his grandfather's body,

957
01:00:07,770 --> 01:00:11,983
his ideas of love and death fused.

958
01:00:12,066 --> 01:00:13,860
[eerie music playing]

959
01:00:33,630 --> 01:00:37,008
[Nilsen] His abrupt disappearance
left a vacuum in my consciousness,

960
01:00:38,801 --> 01:00:41,679
which was filled
by the drives of my imagination.

961
01:00:42,972 --> 01:00:45,600
[tape winding]

962
01:00:45,683 --> 01:00:46,601
[winding stops]

963
01:00:46,684 --> 01:00:47,685
[recording clicks]

964
01:00:48,394 --> 01:00:50,188
[Nilsen] What a way to spend Christmas!

965
01:00:51,564 --> 01:00:54,400
And I think,
because it's the festive season,

966
01:00:54,484 --> 01:00:57,779
I think I should have a…
a magic cigarette.

967
01:00:57,862 --> 01:00:59,238
[Coffey] Many years later,

968
01:00:59,322 --> 01:01:03,618
Nilsen went through a period of reflection
about his life.

969
01:01:03,701 --> 01:01:05,703
[Nilsen] Let's have a wee spot of magic.

970
01:01:05,787 --> 01:01:09,791
[Coffey] He said it was because he had
ready access to marijuana in prison.

971
01:01:09,874 --> 01:01:14,504
[Nilsen inhaling deeply]

972
01:01:14,587 --> 01:01:16,547
[coughing] Oh dear!

973
01:01:17,507 --> 01:01:18,549
Oh God!

974
01:01:18,633 --> 01:01:20,510
Bloody stoned as a bat here.

975
01:01:22,970 --> 01:01:25,473
Ah, I've got the keyboard out
in front of me.

976
01:01:26,474 --> 01:01:28,559
[eerie electronic music plays]

977
01:01:32,563 --> 01:01:35,858
[Nilsen] Before me
is a small portable mini keyboard

978
01:01:35,942 --> 01:01:37,610
of 1980s vintage.

979
01:01:40,279 --> 01:01:43,700
Here, in this splendid
and accustomed isolation,

980
01:01:43,783 --> 01:01:46,327
I can use this audio brush

981
01:01:46,411 --> 01:01:49,706
to paint
all the colored hues of my emotions.

982
01:01:51,165 --> 01:01:55,169
I reach out to the keyboard,
and my hands are shaking slightly.

983
01:01:56,254 --> 01:02:00,133
[eerie electronic music playing
on recording]

984
01:02:02,009 --> 01:02:04,011
[music continues]

985
01:02:08,516 --> 01:02:10,977
[Coffey] "There followed
an eight-hour trip."

986
01:02:14,021 --> 01:02:16,607
"I am watching what unfolded,
like a movie,

987
01:02:16,691 --> 01:02:20,403
with widescreen
and full Dolby stereophonic sound,

988
01:02:20,486 --> 01:02:22,113
in full living Technicolor."

989
01:02:22,196 --> 01:02:23,698
[music continues]

990
01:02:28,786 --> 01:02:30,788
[Coffey] "For years,
the subject of my grandfather

991
01:02:30,872 --> 01:02:35,376
lay simmering, unresolved
in the veil of my subconscious."

992
01:02:38,671 --> 01:02:42,258
"I vaguely remember
that concrete, slit-eyed pillbox

993
01:02:42,341 --> 01:02:45,595
where strange things had happened
between my grandfather and me."

994
01:02:47,013 --> 01:02:49,891
"It is a most horrifying admission to make

995
01:02:50,516 --> 01:02:55,062
that the only tactile contact
I had in my early formative years

996
01:02:56,022 --> 01:02:59,233
was the painful
and confusing paradoxical embrace

997
01:03:00,318 --> 01:03:01,402
of a pedophile."

998
01:03:03,070 --> 01:03:09,118
[Nilsen whispering] Silence, silence,
silence, silence, silence.

999
01:03:15,875 --> 01:03:19,170
[Coffey] But the most significant
turning point in his life

1000
01:03:20,004 --> 01:03:22,298
was when he became a cook in the army.

1001
01:03:24,300 --> 01:03:27,970
And that was when Nilsen,
for the first time, had his own room.

1002
01:03:30,556 --> 01:03:36,813
And he would strip himself naked
and put talcum powder over his body,

1003
01:03:37,980 --> 01:03:42,652
and he looked at himself in the mirror
as if he was seeing a dead body.

1004
01:03:44,904 --> 01:03:46,614
[Nilsen] That fantasy figure

1005
01:03:47,532 --> 01:03:49,534
of my own necessary creation.

1006
01:03:50,326 --> 01:03:53,246
I am he, and he is me.

1007
01:03:56,332 --> 01:03:59,126
[Coffey] And he almost certainly had,
in his fantasies,

1008
01:03:59,210 --> 01:04:02,213
thought about
how he would make that a reality.

1009
01:04:02,296 --> 01:04:03,965
[ominous music playing]

1010
01:04:15,893 --> 01:04:18,104
[reporter] Dennis Nilsen
has been committed for trial

1011
01:04:18,187 --> 01:04:19,438
at the Old Bailey.

1012
01:04:19,522 --> 01:04:22,525
Four more murder charges
were brought against him this month.

1013
01:04:23,317 --> 01:04:25,903
By the time of the trial
at the Old Bailey,

1014
01:04:25,987 --> 01:04:29,991
we had identified
a total of seven victims.

1015
01:04:31,826 --> 01:04:34,537
[Hunt] We found out
that some of them were homeless men.

1016
01:04:34,620 --> 01:04:36,664
Some of them were gay but not all of them.

1017
01:04:36,747 --> 01:04:39,292
They were just guys
who were drifting through,

1018
01:04:40,209 --> 01:04:41,919
but there was one connection.

1019
01:04:42,587 --> 01:04:45,631
Nilsen knew
that if they were to go missing,

1020
01:04:45,715 --> 01:04:48,551
no one would notice anytime soon.

1021
01:04:50,261 --> 01:04:52,138
All the victims were young men.

1022
01:04:53,306 --> 01:04:55,308
Martyn Duffey from the Wirral.

1023
01:04:56,350 --> 01:04:58,144
Malcolm Barlow from Rotherham.

1024
01:04:59,145 --> 01:05:02,565
Kenneth Ockenden,
a 26-year-old Canadian student

1025
01:05:02,648 --> 01:05:05,318
who was visiting this country
three years ago.

1026
01:05:05,818 --> 01:05:07,737
And William Sutherland of Edinburgh…

1027
01:05:09,572 --> 01:05:11,198
I just can't get over it.

1028
01:05:13,034 --> 01:05:15,411
[interviewer]
Would you have any kind of warning

1029
01:05:16,037 --> 01:05:18,247
for the parents of youngsters

1030
01:05:18,331 --> 01:05:21,292
who were thinking in terms
of going down to London?

1031
01:05:22,001 --> 01:05:23,336
Never to go. [sniffles]

1032
01:05:24,003 --> 01:05:27,965
It's such a cruel,
horrible place. [sniffs]

1033
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:32,970
[Lesley] The police told me
the trial was beginning, and they said,

1034
01:05:33,054 --> 01:05:36,307
"Listen,
we've just come to advise you not to go

1035
01:05:36,891 --> 01:05:40,561
because they will be talking about Graham,
and they will have some of the…

1036
01:05:41,395 --> 01:05:44,190
more or less,
tools of the trade that he used there."

1037
01:05:44,273 --> 01:05:45,942
And I thought, "No, I'm going."

1038
01:05:46,692 --> 01:05:49,403
I just had that compulsion,
that feeling that I had to go.

1039
01:05:49,487 --> 01:05:53,366
In a way, it was me…
in my frame of mind, really,

1040
01:05:53,449 --> 01:05:56,744
that I was paying
my last respects to Graham.

1041
01:05:59,288 --> 01:06:00,581
Sort of, you know,

1042
01:06:02,083 --> 01:06:03,876
saying goodbye to him, really.

1043
01:06:05,294 --> 01:06:06,712
You know, and I didn't want…

1044
01:06:07,380 --> 01:06:09,256
I didn't want them talking about him,

1045
01:06:09,340 --> 01:06:13,344
and, uh, you know,
he didn't have anyone there for him,

1046
01:06:13,427 --> 01:06:15,972
so I just felt that need that I-- [sniffs]

1047
01:06:16,055 --> 01:06:17,181
That I had to go,

1048
01:06:17,264 --> 01:06:18,599
and that's what I did.

1049
01:06:20,101 --> 01:06:21,644
[tense music playing]

1050
01:06:22,770 --> 01:06:26,065
[Nilsen] Morning of Monday, 24th October.

1051
01:06:26,148 --> 01:06:27,942
I'm inside a security van

1052
01:06:28,025 --> 01:06:31,988
en route to No. 1 Court
of Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey.

1053
01:06:33,531 --> 01:06:34,740
It is now,

1054
01:06:35,741 --> 01:06:38,077
today, the reckoning.

1055
01:06:42,748 --> 01:06:44,333
[Bence] The Central Criminal Court

1056
01:06:44,417 --> 01:06:47,586
is, without question,
the most famous court in the world.

1057
01:06:48,254 --> 01:06:49,463
It is a theater.

1058
01:06:52,091 --> 01:06:54,677
[Nilsen] It is a theater of the absurd.

1059
01:06:55,720 --> 01:06:57,346
Parts have been written.

1060
01:06:57,430 --> 01:07:02,393
The actors clear their throats
for their oratorical delivery.

1061
01:07:03,436 --> 01:07:05,813
I can remember
the first time he walked up the steps

1062
01:07:05,896 --> 01:07:07,690
in No. 1 Court, the Old Bailey…

1063
01:07:07,773 --> 01:07:11,235
…and stood, um, all the eyes are on him.

1064
01:07:11,318 --> 01:07:14,822
We all had expected
that he would plead guilty.

1065
01:07:17,408 --> 01:07:21,454
[Nilsen] I can imagine a Panavision camera

1066
01:07:21,537 --> 01:07:25,499
on a crane, idling round the court.

1067
01:07:26,584 --> 01:07:29,712
[Bence] If there's a guilty plea,
there'd have been no trial,

1068
01:07:29,795 --> 01:07:31,839
but the journalists
would be very disappointed

1069
01:07:31,922 --> 01:07:33,090
because there's no story.

1070
01:07:33,174 --> 01:07:35,301
That's it. Story over.

1071
01:07:37,344 --> 01:07:41,891
At the Old Bailey, civil servant
Dennis Nilsen has pleaded not guilty.

1072
01:07:44,810 --> 01:07:47,521
I couldn't believe it.
He never flinched. Nothing.

1073
01:07:47,605 --> 01:07:50,608
I'm thinking,
"Are you human, actually? Are you?"

1074
01:07:50,691 --> 01:07:53,152
[Nilsen] Silence in court!

1075
01:07:54,111 --> 01:07:59,742
[whispering] Silence, silence,
silence, silence, silence.

1076
01:07:59,825 --> 01:08:01,243
[playing "Für Elise"]

1077
01:08:08,375 --> 01:08:11,462
[producer] Had you ever defended
a serial killer before?

1078
01:08:12,505 --> 01:08:13,380
No.

1079
01:08:14,465 --> 01:08:15,466
Nor since.

1080
01:08:16,759 --> 01:08:19,929
I mean, if you rule out the Krays.

1081
01:08:20,679 --> 01:08:22,181
["Für Elise" continues]

1082
01:08:23,224 --> 01:08:26,852
[Lawrence] Looking at it
from an ordinary person's point of view,

1083
01:08:26,936 --> 01:08:29,355
all this behavior was madness.

1084
01:08:30,189 --> 01:08:32,441
It didn't seem to us to be arguable

1085
01:08:32,983 --> 01:08:35,027
that the fellow wasn't deranged.

1086
01:08:36,946 --> 01:08:38,906
But the whole thing for me,

1087
01:08:38,989 --> 01:08:44,120
was he too mad to be sentenced
to life imprisonment for murder?

1088
01:08:45,996 --> 01:08:49,458
It has been said
that if he behaved normally…

1089
01:08:50,459 --> 01:08:54,338
He was, after all, a civil servant
working in the labor exchange,

1090
01:08:54,421 --> 01:08:55,965
and he'd been a policeman.

1091
01:08:56,048 --> 01:08:59,218
So if he was capable of rational behavior,

1092
01:08:59,301 --> 01:09:01,303
then he can't be mad.

1093
01:09:03,430 --> 01:09:05,808
Ah, but, you see, the law says

1094
01:09:05,891 --> 01:09:10,604
that you can be behaving
perfectly normally for a lot of the time,

1095
01:09:11,313 --> 01:09:16,235
and then on this particular incident
when you kill somebody, you were deranged,

1096
01:09:17,403 --> 01:09:19,321
and then you went back to being normal.

1097
01:09:20,197 --> 01:09:22,700
Then you're guilty
of diminished responsibility

1098
01:09:23,534 --> 01:09:25,327
and, therefore, of manslaughter.

1099
01:09:27,913 --> 01:09:30,332
I don't want him to be mad.
I want him to pay.

1100
01:09:30,833 --> 01:09:31,917
Let him pay.

1101
01:09:32,001 --> 01:09:34,545
Make him responsible for what he's done.

1102
01:09:36,088 --> 01:09:38,257
"He's not insane,"
insisted the prosecution,

1103
01:09:38,340 --> 01:09:40,050
"nor is he mentally ill."

1104
01:09:40,134 --> 01:09:41,969
"He has an abnormal mind."

1105
01:09:42,052 --> 01:09:46,640
"But his responsibility for his acts
was not substantially impaired."

1106
01:09:46,724 --> 01:09:50,102
"He knew what he was doing."
Nilsen is alleged to have told the police,

1107
01:09:50,186 --> 01:09:52,438
"I've taken a lot of people
back to my flat,

1108
01:09:52,521 --> 01:09:54,023
and I haven't killed them all."

1109
01:09:54,607 --> 01:09:57,193
We needed to prove
that he had premeditation

1110
01:09:57,276 --> 01:10:00,571
and had intent to go down
to the West End to pick these victims up,

1111
01:10:00,654 --> 01:10:02,948
which put us in a little bit of a panic.

1112
01:10:03,032 --> 01:10:05,451
We trawled, obviously, looking for anybody

1113
01:10:05,534 --> 01:10:08,120
who'd met him in a bar
that he'd just had a drink with.

1114
01:10:08,204 --> 01:10:11,040
"Have you met this guy?
Did you go to his house?"

1115
01:10:11,749 --> 01:10:13,042
But back in 1983?

1116
01:10:13,876 --> 01:10:15,336
Ah! Brick wall.

1117
01:10:18,714 --> 01:10:21,342
[Martyn] I didn't really want
to be standing in that theater.

1118
01:10:21,425 --> 01:10:24,511
'Cause that's what it was to me.
The whole world would be watching that.

1119
01:10:25,304 --> 01:10:27,806
I didn't want
everybody to know that I was gay.

1120
01:10:27,890 --> 01:10:29,141
I didn't want that.

1121
01:10:29,767 --> 01:10:31,769
Why should I have to go through that

1122
01:10:31,852 --> 01:10:34,563
because of what somebody else has done?
Why should we?

1123
01:10:35,397 --> 01:10:37,191
I was warned by people beforehand

1124
01:10:37,274 --> 01:10:41,612
whoever solicitor was against you
would tear you apart and expose your life.

1125
01:10:41,695 --> 01:10:44,990
So I didn't want to be involved
any more than what I was.

1126
01:10:47,159 --> 01:10:49,703
[Hunt] When we eventually found
some of these men,

1127
01:10:49,787 --> 01:10:52,248
they were afraid
people would think they were gay.

1128
01:10:53,123 --> 01:10:54,875
And that was a problem with the press

1129
01:10:54,959 --> 01:10:57,670
homing in
on this one aspect of this investigation.

1130
01:10:59,004 --> 01:11:00,130
[recorder clicks]

1131
01:11:01,548 --> 01:11:04,635
[Nilsen] My mind now turns to one night.

1132
01:11:06,804 --> 01:11:09,890
I met a wandering spirit like me.

1133
01:11:11,892 --> 01:11:15,229
Nilsen had talked
about a young man called Carl Stottor,

1134
01:11:15,312 --> 01:11:17,231
who'd actually survived him.

1135
01:11:19,858 --> 01:11:23,779
[Coffey] I'd seen the name Carl Stottor
appear in the autobiography,

1136
01:11:24,697 --> 01:11:26,615
so I felt that it was very important

1137
01:11:26,699 --> 01:11:30,035
that I get to know one
of Nilsen's survivors' side of the story.

1138
01:11:32,538 --> 01:11:36,166
We arranged for me to come down
and meet him in his flat near the sea.

1139
01:11:37,835 --> 01:11:39,503
[Coffey on recording]
I'm trying to put you

1140
01:11:39,586 --> 01:11:41,463
into the context of the Nilsen story.

1141
01:11:41,547 --> 01:11:42,881
[Stottor on recording] Mmm.

1142
01:11:42,965 --> 01:11:46,552
[Coffey] How much can you recollect
of the night prior to the incident?

1143
01:11:48,595 --> 01:11:50,097
[Stottor] I was on my own.

1144
01:11:50,180 --> 01:11:51,515
It was a gay pub,

1145
01:11:51,598 --> 01:11:55,686
and he came over
and asked me if I minded if he joined me.

1146
01:11:57,104 --> 01:11:59,481
You know,
I found him quite comfortable to talk to,

1147
01:11:59,982 --> 01:12:02,693
and we hailed a cab
and went to Cranley Gardens.

1148
01:12:06,488 --> 01:12:10,075
We were just chatting.
And he poured a drink, which was Bacardi,

1149
01:12:10,159 --> 01:12:12,619
and, um, we ended up going to bed.

1150
01:12:13,996 --> 01:12:16,623
[water running]

1151
01:12:17,791 --> 01:12:20,711
[Stottor] But before we got into bed,
he said, "Oh, be careful,

1152
01:12:20,794 --> 01:12:23,589
because you might get caught
in the sleeping bag zip."

1153
01:12:23,672 --> 01:12:25,758
-The zip had broken away.
-[Coffey] Yeah.

1154
01:12:26,592 --> 01:12:30,471
[Stottor] But I felt tired,
so we cuddled up, and I fell asleep.

1155
01:12:34,099 --> 01:12:36,185
And all of a sudden, I felt cold.

1156
01:12:37,603 --> 01:12:39,521
[water running]

1157
01:12:39,605 --> 01:12:42,566
[Stottor] And then I realized
I was in a bath of cold water.

1158
01:12:53,327 --> 01:12:55,788
I tried to get out,
and he pushed me back down.

1159
01:12:55,871 --> 01:12:59,416
And three times I came up,
and I managed to say,

1160
01:12:59,500 --> 01:13:01,543
"Stop! Please, no more!"

1161
01:13:03,921 --> 01:13:07,174
And I remember just lying there.
I couldn't fight anymore.

1162
01:13:08,425 --> 01:13:10,594
I remember just breathing in the water.

1163
01:13:12,262 --> 01:13:15,641
It was like breathing solid air.

1164
01:13:19,311 --> 01:13:21,480
I remembered thinking, "You're dying."

1165
01:13:22,106 --> 01:13:24,108
"And this is what it feels like."

1166
01:13:25,275 --> 01:13:26,485
And a light…

1167
01:13:30,364 --> 01:13:34,618
[Nilsen] We are moral creatures
of drives and conscience.

1168
01:13:35,619 --> 01:13:38,497
I am both strong and weak,

1169
01:13:39,039 --> 01:13:42,000
angelic and demonic,

1170
01:13:42,584 --> 01:13:46,922
both the cool hand
to soothe the fevered forehead

1171
01:13:47,548 --> 01:13:51,260
and the desperate, raging hand
at the throat.

1172
01:13:51,969 --> 01:13:56,515
The harbinger of both life and death.

1173
01:14:05,941 --> 01:14:08,944
[Stottor] I remember
coming round and the pain.

1174
01:14:10,320 --> 01:14:12,906
I could hardly breathe. It was awful.

1175
01:14:12,990 --> 01:14:15,951
But I was confused.
You know, I couldn't remember anything.

1176
01:14:17,119 --> 01:14:19,246
But I knew somebody had tried to kill me.

1177
01:14:20,414 --> 01:14:21,915
So I went to the police.

1178
01:14:23,876 --> 01:14:26,879
They didn't believe me.
They didn't take any notice.

1179
01:14:26,962 --> 01:14:31,216
I was just a silly little poofter,
a drama queen.

1180
01:14:35,220 --> 01:14:38,140
[Bence] Carl Stottor went to the police,
but nothing was done.

1181
01:14:38,223 --> 01:14:40,851
Then we found out
there was a string of about five of them.

1182
01:14:40,934 --> 01:14:43,353
They went to the police,
and lodged complaints,

1183
01:14:43,437 --> 01:14:44,688
or tried to lodge complaints,

1184
01:14:44,771 --> 01:14:47,232
and were treated
fairly disdainfully, really.

1185
01:14:47,316 --> 01:14:48,775
So no action was taken.

1186
01:14:52,029 --> 01:14:53,697
[Stottor] I thought,
"Maybe they're right."

1187
01:14:53,780 --> 01:14:56,074
"They know what they're doing.
They know their job."

1188
01:14:57,242 --> 01:14:58,285
"It was me."

1189
01:14:59,495 --> 01:15:00,579
"I imagined it."

1190
01:15:03,999 --> 01:15:07,878
[Coffey] Nilsen gave them information
that led to them finding you.

1191
01:15:07,961 --> 01:15:08,962
[Stottor] Hmm.

1192
01:15:12,925 --> 01:15:15,636
[Stottor] The detective
that interviewed me said,

1193
01:15:15,719 --> 01:15:19,848
"We just wanna ask you a few questions.
Do you know anyone called Dennis Nilsen?"

1194
01:15:19,932 --> 01:15:20,933
I went, "No."

1195
01:15:22,935 --> 01:15:24,937
He said,
"You ever been to Cranley Gardens?"

1196
01:15:25,020 --> 01:15:26,605
I went, "Where's that?"

1197
01:15:27,773 --> 01:15:30,484
And he went,
"Okay then, just one more question,"

1198
01:15:30,984 --> 01:15:32,569
and said, "Sleeping bag,"

1199
01:15:33,695 --> 01:15:35,072
and I started shaking.

1200
01:15:37,407 --> 01:15:38,784
And it all came back,

1201
01:15:39,785 --> 01:15:40,827
everything

1202
01:15:42,246 --> 01:15:43,205
in detail.

1203
01:15:44,623 --> 01:15:45,791
It was Nilsen.

1204
01:15:47,751 --> 01:15:49,670
He used the sleeping bag zip
to strangle me.

1205
01:15:49,753 --> 01:15:50,587
[Coffey] Right.

1206
01:15:50,671 --> 01:15:53,382
[Stottor] But before we got into bed,
he said, "Oh, be careful,

1207
01:15:53,465 --> 01:15:56,343
because you might get caught up
in the sleeping bag zip."

1208
01:15:56,426 --> 01:16:00,264
But by prewarning me,
he was already premeditating my death.

1209
01:16:00,347 --> 01:16:03,100
If he hadn't succeeded,
then he had an alibi.

1210
01:16:03,183 --> 01:16:06,353
He knew what he was doing.
There wasn't anything psychotic about him.

1211
01:16:06,937 --> 01:16:08,564
He was totally in control.

1212
01:16:10,691 --> 01:16:12,651
The simple reason why I'm alive

1213
01:16:13,193 --> 01:16:16,905
is because Nilsen had no more room
under the floorboards to house my body.

1214
01:16:19,908 --> 01:16:23,870
[McCusker] Carl Stottor's story proved
that Nilsen had premeditation.

1215
01:16:24,538 --> 01:16:27,165
But most of these victims
would tell you things,

1216
01:16:27,249 --> 01:16:30,168
but in no circumstances
would they ever want to be a witness.

1217
01:16:32,045 --> 01:16:34,840
[Hunt] It would have been
absolutely horrendous

1218
01:16:34,923 --> 01:16:37,384
for these young men to come forward.

1219
01:16:39,928 --> 01:16:41,847
They would have been vilified.

1220
01:16:41,930 --> 01:16:44,141
I've been in court hundreds of times

1221
01:16:44,224 --> 01:16:47,853
and seen victims,
witnesses torn to shreds.

1222
01:16:48,729 --> 01:16:51,398
So people are not gonna put themselves
in that position.

1223
01:16:52,858 --> 01:16:55,319
[Stottor] I hated
the way the press claimed

1224
01:16:55,402 --> 01:17:01,867
that all of Nilsen's victims were waifs,
and strays, and pathetic homosexuals.

1225
01:17:01,950 --> 01:17:03,160
It was awful.

1226
01:17:04,036 --> 01:17:07,873
I remember thinking, "No. I have worth."

1227
01:17:07,956 --> 01:17:11,710
And, in one respect,
I have to thank Nilsen for that,

1228
01:17:11,793 --> 01:17:14,588
because had I not died
and had that near-death experience,

1229
01:17:14,671 --> 01:17:15,839
I would never have known.

1230
01:17:16,673 --> 01:17:19,384
There's nothing to fear but fear itself.

1231
01:17:19,468 --> 01:17:22,679
Remove the fear,
and there's nothing left to fear anymore.

1232
01:17:24,389 --> 01:17:26,600
[reporter 1] On the second day
of the Dennis Nilsen trial,

1233
01:17:26,683 --> 01:17:29,519
the prosecution
has continued outlining its case.

1234
01:17:33,982 --> 01:17:36,693
[reporter 2] Carl Stottor told
of going to bed with Nilsen

1235
01:17:36,777 --> 01:17:38,320
and waking in the middle of the night

1236
01:17:38,403 --> 01:17:41,448
unable to breathe,
feeling pressure around his neck.

1237
01:17:42,032 --> 01:17:47,037
In a tiny, quiet voice, he told the court
he heard Nilsen whispering, "Keep still."

1238
01:17:47,579 --> 01:17:50,415
[Hunt] I have absolutely nothing
but admiration

1239
01:17:51,124 --> 01:17:53,835
for their courage
and strength of character

1240
01:17:53,919 --> 01:17:54,920
to come forward.

1241
01:17:55,504 --> 01:17:58,215
Well, the…
the thought that went through my mind was,

1242
01:17:58,715 --> 01:18:01,510
"You are drowning.
You are being murdered by this man,

1243
01:18:01,593 --> 01:18:04,262
and this is what it feels like,
and you're going to die."

1244
01:18:04,846 --> 01:18:08,475
[reporter 3] At the Old Bailey, a number
of former partners of Dennis Nilsen

1245
01:18:08,558 --> 01:18:12,062
have been speaking of Nilsen's
alleged attempts to murder them.

1246
01:18:15,774 --> 01:18:19,277
[Martyn] I remember thinking to myself,
"You have to get through this."

1247
01:18:19,361 --> 01:18:20,612
"Just survive it."

1248
01:18:21,405 --> 01:18:22,781
I thought to myself,

1249
01:18:22,864 --> 01:18:26,284
"Let's do it. I can face it.
Whatever life throws at me, bring it on."

1250
01:18:29,204 --> 01:18:31,289
So I did attend the trial.

1251
01:18:32,416 --> 01:18:35,669
I fell asleep,
and about half past three in the morning,

1252
01:18:35,752 --> 01:18:38,672
I woke up, and he was right beside me.

1253
01:18:38,755 --> 01:18:40,549
I looked at him and said,
"What are you doing?"

1254
01:18:40,632 --> 01:18:42,718
And he said, "You knocked the fire over."

1255
01:18:43,218 --> 01:18:47,139
So I found that kind of freedom.
I can express myself a bit more.

1256
01:18:47,222 --> 01:18:49,307
I don't have to hide
what I feel all the time.

1257
01:18:51,560 --> 01:18:52,602
It's lovely.

1258
01:18:54,146 --> 01:18:56,773
First, though, at the Old Bailey,
the jury has now retired

1259
01:18:56,857 --> 01:18:59,317
to consider its verdict
in the case of Dennis Nilsen.

1260
01:18:59,401 --> 01:19:02,279
And indeed, if we hear
any more news from the Nilsen trial,

1261
01:19:02,362 --> 01:19:05,490
we'll bring it to you as soon as possible
later in the program.

1262
01:19:05,574 --> 01:19:08,660
[Nilsen] How can you express
the contents of a trial?

1263
01:19:09,327 --> 01:19:14,541
Ten days of chatter posing
as ten days of relevant evidence.

1264
01:19:15,167 --> 01:19:17,919
[reporter 4] When they returned to court,
they'd reached a verdict

1265
01:19:18,003 --> 01:19:20,589
on all counts of murder
and two of attempted murder.

1266
01:19:21,715 --> 01:19:26,094
Ten jurors had agreed. Two had dissented.
The foreman of the jury answered

1267
01:19:26,178 --> 01:19:30,432
that they'd reached majority verdicts
of guilty on all six murder charges.

1268
01:19:31,683 --> 01:19:33,351
[reporters clamoring]

1269
01:19:35,312 --> 01:19:36,855
[reporter 4] The jury has, in effect,

1270
01:19:36,938 --> 01:19:39,775
found him to be fully responsible
for his actions,

1271
01:19:39,858 --> 01:19:41,610
not out of his mind.

1272
01:19:43,278 --> 01:19:45,405
[Coffey] Everybody
who's involved in the Nilsen story

1273
01:19:45,489 --> 01:19:47,282
eventually comes to a point

1274
01:19:47,365 --> 01:19:50,911
where they decide
that Nilsen was bad and… and not mad.

1275
01:19:52,871 --> 01:19:55,040
You just have to know him for long enough.

1276
01:19:55,540 --> 01:19:57,793
It's like the Wizard of Oz
behind the curtain.

1277
01:19:57,876 --> 01:20:02,214
You're left
with this little piece of dirt.

1278
01:20:04,049 --> 01:20:09,679
Nilsen could paint such a vivid picture
of a romantic outsider character

1279
01:20:09,763 --> 01:20:15,811
that made it hard to believe
that he killed out of pure evil.

1280
01:20:19,147 --> 01:20:23,068
He needed to see himself in a certain way.

1281
01:20:24,152 --> 01:20:26,947
And the grandfather story, it's possible,

1282
01:20:27,447 --> 01:20:29,491
but there's no evidence for it.

1283
01:20:29,574 --> 01:20:31,576
So I cannot help but feel

1284
01:20:31,660 --> 01:20:34,788
that it's simply Nilsen trying
to find another villain…

1285
01:20:34,871 --> 01:20:38,083
[chuckles] …other than himself,
to point the blame elsewhere.

1286
01:20:40,418 --> 01:20:42,212
[Nilsen] At teatime today,

1287
01:20:42,295 --> 01:20:46,842
I was given this categorization review,
Category A.

1288
01:20:47,926 --> 01:20:51,263
"Your custodial behavior is satisfactory."

1289
01:20:51,346 --> 01:20:57,102
"Reports, however, describe you
as a cold and calculating individual,

1290
01:20:57,936 --> 01:21:02,941
who has shown little inclination
to confront your offending behavior."

1291
01:21:03,024 --> 01:21:05,569
"There are no recommendations
for downgrading

1292
01:21:05,652 --> 01:21:08,738
due to the absence of any real remorse."

1293
01:21:09,739 --> 01:21:10,699
Well!

1294
01:21:11,241 --> 01:21:16,997
So I took it upon myself
to provide a very short comment.

1295
01:21:17,914 --> 01:21:20,834
"This report
is just the sort of politically correct,

1296
01:21:20,917 --> 01:21:22,919
prejudiced hatchet job

1297
01:21:23,003 --> 01:21:29,009
which one can expect from petty officials
anxious to embroider the monster myth

1298
01:21:29,092 --> 01:21:30,510
than make any objective--"

1299
01:21:30,594 --> 01:21:31,469
[recorder clicks]

1300
01:21:33,013 --> 01:21:38,018
[Coffey] Society didn't create Nilsen.
That's what he'd like you to believe.

1301
01:21:41,938 --> 01:21:46,943
But we've still got to take responsibility
for creating the prejudiced society

1302
01:21:47,027 --> 01:21:49,988
that enabled him
to kill over and over again.

1303
01:21:52,782 --> 01:21:53,867
[Bence] It was easy.

1304
01:21:54,576 --> 01:21:57,829
He just knew from his experiences
and the circumstances,

1305
01:21:58,997 --> 01:22:00,332
nobody really cared.

1306
01:22:02,918 --> 01:22:05,045
[Hunt] I swear to you, in Cranley Gardens,

1307
01:22:05,128 --> 01:22:08,173
if the bodies
had not got stuck in the drain

1308
01:22:08,256 --> 01:22:11,426
and affected the people
who lived below him,

1309
01:22:11,509 --> 01:22:13,470
he'd have killed for another few years.

1310
01:22:14,596 --> 01:22:16,139
The only reason he was stopped

1311
01:22:16,222 --> 01:22:20,852
is because his activities
imposed on somebody else.

1312
01:22:21,603 --> 01:22:23,605
Nothing to do with the victims.

1313
01:22:49,297 --> 01:22:51,299
[ominous music playing]

1314
01:22:58,682 --> 01:23:00,183
My Shane came in and told me.

1315
01:23:00,266 --> 01:23:02,560
I was in bed.
He come in and said, "Nilsen's dead."

1316
01:23:02,644 --> 01:23:05,522
And I said, "Don't lie."
He said, "I'm telling you. He's dead."

1317
01:23:11,152 --> 01:23:13,530
And I never mentioned it again because…

1318
01:23:15,281 --> 01:23:16,950
it just didn't mean anything to me.

1319
01:23:20,453 --> 01:23:22,539
And the newspapers again, you know,

1320
01:23:22,622 --> 01:23:24,708
"What do you think
now the monster's dead?"

1321
01:23:24,791 --> 01:23:27,377
I said, "I don't think anything.
I don't think about him."

1322
01:23:27,460 --> 01:23:30,547
"Even when he's dead,
I'm not letting him make me a victim."

1323
01:23:32,173 --> 01:23:33,258
You know?

1324
01:23:33,341 --> 01:23:35,802
But I just hope wherever he goes,
he don't meet Graham,

1325
01:23:35,885 --> 01:23:37,929
'cause Graham would be sober. [laughs]

1326
01:23:38,013 --> 01:23:39,514
[somber music playing]