by Russ Coffey
That afternoon, two uniformed and two plain-clothes officers had arrived at Lesley’s house. Shane explains how his mother dealt with learning the circumstances surrounding Puggy’s death:
The months immediately after the death are vague. I hardly recall a thing. I think my mother was shell-shocked … She stayed locked in her room, the house growing darker, and alcohol keeping her afloat.
The last sane thing, or the first insane thing my mother did, was to attend Nilsen’s trial at The Old Bailey….
Post-trial, I remember my mother drinking suicidal amounts. Drunk, she would do nothing but cry and sit on the floor alongside a small stereo listening to old love songs … With the story now out of the media, the victims’ families were left at home alone without even the small comfort of the nation’s empathy to help absorb the event. There were no more journalists offering comfort as they scavenged the victims for scraps of untold story, and no more newspaper reports mentioning their names and telling of their plight. It was over. The murderer was in jail and other news was more important. The victims now only had the torture of solitude and silence to take comfort from … that was no comfort at all. My mother’s drinking and suicidal tendencies spiralled to a climax. She could no longer take it any more. She decided that The Blackout was for her.
That ‘blackout’ was a suicide attempt.
I thought again about how her hand had shaken as she talked to me. I started to feel guilt about having made her relive those memories; they surely must have distressed her more than she let on.
A couple of days later, I emailed Shane and asked him how Lesley was doing. He thanked me but confirmed it had, indeed, shaken her more than she had initially realised. The scars had faded but the wound, it seemed, was easily aggravated.
Later that afternoon, I followed up a claim from Martyn Hunter-Craig that Nilsen now had a Facebook account. It sounded far-fetched, but he seemed adamant. I wondered if one of his correspondents might be posting on his behalf. Certainly, when I looked at the page it really seemed to be his style. But as I scrolled down it became apparent that it was actually a fan using the archive of Nilsen quotes available from books, newspapers and documentaries to write in his voice.
I found it unsurprising that people on the internet should be using social media to further a fixation with serial killers. Still, it made me wonder if my own interest in Nilsen might also be helping to fuel the behaviour of such cranks. Where, I asked myself, did the line between sociological enquiry and morbid fascination exist? And, did all interest in Nilsen, ultimately, serve to flatter his ego?
I started to reflect on the last letters we had exchanged in 2012. At the time of his ‘Jimmy Savile’ letter he had seemed resolute he would find new lawyers and continue with his crusade to publish. He believed he could find new ways to appeal. I imagined this desire had been given added urgency since he had finally been told he would never be allowed parole.
But in April 2013, something happened that might have finally put paid to the last of Nilsen’s ambitions. The Ministry of Justice announced a consultation on plans to reform provision of Legal Aid. These included proposals to reduce prisoners’ access to aid other than where such access concerned a legitimate appeal over sentencing. Nilsen’s complaints about the prison authorities disrespecting his human rights would certainly be excluded.
So now it appears that unless Nilsen finds a publisher willing to take on copies of his sprawling, unedited drafts in whatever form they might exist outside of prison, there really is no further for him to go. Whatever journalists and criminologists may still have to say about these crimes, to the certain relief of his victims, it seems the killer’s ongoing contributions to that discussion have finally come to an end.
SOURCES AND REFERENCE MATERIAL
Aggrawal Anil, Necrophilia Forensic and Medico-Legal Aspects (CRC 2011)
Akhtar, S ‘Schizoid Personality Disorder: A Synthesis of Developmental, Dynamic, and Descriptive Features’
(American Journal of Psychotherapy, 151:499–518, 1987)
A Killing in the Family documentary (BBC 1999)
American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4 & 5
Bence, Douglas &McConnell, Brian, The Nilsen File (Futura, 1983)
Bookmark: Monochrome Man (documentary, J Lustig/Alan Lewens production 1991)
Born to Kill, the Kindly Killer: Dennis Nilsen (documentary), (TwoFour 2011)
Coffey, Russ, ‘Memoirs of a Serial Killer’ (Sunday Times Magazine 2003)
Correspondence between the author and Dennis Nilsen
Correspondence between Dennis Nilsen and acquaintances viewed at a private crime archive
Crimes that Shook the World: Dennis Nilsen (documentary, Discovery 2009)
Daily Express: Archive reports
Daily Mirror: Archive reports
Dennis Nilsen: Gràdh a’ Bhàis? (In Love with Death?) (documentary, including unbroadcast interview with Betty Scott, STV 2009)
Evening Standard: Archive reports
Kay, Mr Justice Maurice, Judgment on Dennis Andrew Nilsen v (1) The Governor of HMP Full Sutton, (2) Secretary Of State for the Home Department, (2003)
Hartnett, Peter-Paul, Call Me (Pulp 1996)
Honeycombe, Gordon, ‘Writing Wrong’s’ (Punch 13 August 1998)
Honeycombe, Gordon, Murders of the Black Museum (John Blake Publishing Ltd, 2009)
Interviews with ‘Rob Ferrier’, ‘Jonny Marling,’ Brian Masters, Gordon Honeycombe, Dr Pat Gallwey, Martyn Hunter-Craig, Carl Stottor, Lesley Mead, Peter Jay, and Shane Levene (Russ Coffey)
Koren, Anna (www.annakoren.com)
Levene, Shane, memoiresofaheroinhead.blogspot.co.uk (All extracts reproduced by special permission of the author.)
Lisners, John, House of Horrors (Corgi, 1983)
Longford, Lord, Lord Longford’s Prison Diaries (Lion, 2000)
Mackeith, James, Psychiatric report on Dennis Nilsen (1983)
Malekos, Matthew, The Birth of Psychopathy: the Psychology of a Serial Killer (Lulu 2012)
Masters, Brian, Killing for Company (Arrow, 1995) (All extracts reproduced by special permission of the author.)
Masters, Brian, ‘Dahmer’s Inferno’ (Vanity Fair, November 1991)
News International: Archive reports
Nilsen, Dennis, ‘Anatomy of an Official Conclusion’ (unpublished)
Nilsen, Dennis, ‘Brain Damage’ (unpublished)
Nilsen, Dennis, ‘Image Distortion’ (unpublished)
Nilsen, Dennis, ‘The Psychograph’ (unpublished)
Nilsen, Dennis, police interviews
Nilsen, Dennis, History of a Drowning Boy (unpublished)
Observer archive reports
The Prison Act, 1952
Real Crime: A Mind to Murder (documentary, Granada 2003)
‘Real Life Crimes and How They Were Solved issue 38’ (Eaglemoss 1993)
Rendell, Ruth, The Reason Why – An anthology of the murderous mind (Cape 1995)
Serial Killers: Dennis Nilsen (documentary, Discovery 2009)
Surviving Dennis Nilsen (documentary, Redback Films 2006)
To Kill and Kill Again (documentary, Brook Lapping 2001)
Viewpoint 1993: Murder in Mind (documentary, Central TV 1993)
World Health Organisation, International Classification of Diseases 9&10
Dennis Nilsen being driven from the Old Bailey in a police van, without the customary blanket over his head, after being sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983. He had insisted on being uncovered at all his hearings.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
Nilsen in police uniform: he trained as a policeman at Hendon Police College.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
The house at 23 Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, North London, where the remains of three of Nilsen’s victims were discovered in the drainage.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
The necktie used by Nilsen to strangle Stephen Sinclair.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
Nilsen in the army at Maybury: his movie camera was instrumental in confusing reality with fantasy.
Photo courtesy Brian Masters
Mrs Betty Scott, mother of Dennis Nilsen, in June 1988.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
The dunes by Fraserburgh Bay where Nilsen believes his grandfather may have abused him.
Photo ©Russ Coffey
An oil painting-cum-collage, called ‘Bacardi Sunrise’, which Nilsen created whilst in Whitmoor Prison.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
A letter in Nilsen’s own handwriting to author Russ Coffey.
Photo ©Russ Coffey
Nilsen’s pet dog, Bleep, pictured at Battersea Dogs Home where she passed away three weeks after the arrest of her master.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
Police plastic covers in the garden of 195 Melrose Avenue, Cricklewood, North London, where Nilsen started his killing spree, hiding the bodies under the floorboards of his flat.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
Jimmy Butler, with whom Nilsen had a ‘romance’ whilst in Wakefield Prison.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
A compilation tape which Nilsen made of his own music. He also designed the artwork.
Photo ©Russ Coffey
The house at 16 Baird Road, Strichen, near Fraserburgh, where Nilsen spent his most formative childhood years.
Photo ©Russ Coffey
The carving knife used by Nilsen to dismember the bodies of his victims.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
Carl Stottor, who survived an attack by Nilsen, pictured in August 2005.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
Survivor Martyn Hunter-Craig pictured outside 23 Cranley Gardens. He often stayed with Nilsen over a period of three years without realising that he was murdering people during that time.
Photo ©Mirrorpix
Copyright
Published by John Blake Publishing Ltd,
3 Bramber Court, 2 Bramber Road,
London W14 9PB, England
www.johnblakepublishing.co.uk
www.facebook.com/johnblakepub
twitter.com/johnblakepub
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those may be liable in law accordingly.
ePub ISBN 978 1 78219 719 5
Mobi ISBN 978 1 78219 720 1
PDF ISBN 978 1 78219 721 8
First published in hardback in 2013
ISBN: 978 1 78219 459 0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by www.envydesign.co.uk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
© Text copyright Russ Coffey 2013
Papers used by John Blake Publishing are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
Every attempt has been made to contact the relevant copyright-holders, but some were unobtainable. We would be grateful if the appropriate people could contact us.