"Katherine Ramsland - dennis_nilsen_the_dangerous_stranger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ramsland Katherine)

The second man was Archibald Graham Allan. Nilsen made him an omelet, and what he recalled of this death was rather odd. УI noticed he was sitting there and suddenly he appeared to be asleep or unconscious with a large piece of omelet hanging out of his mouth.Ф At that point he thought he strangled him, but does not recall. He thought the man might have choked on the egg dish. УIf the omelet killed him, I donТt know.Ф Since an omelet does not leave red marks on someoneТs neck, Nilsen supposed that he was the one responsible.

He placed Allan into a bath and left him there for three days, then dissected him as he had with John the Guardsman.

The third and last victim was Steven Sinclair, age 20, who took drugs and loitered about the Leicester Square. On January 23rd, 1983, some of his acquaintances saw him go off with strange man. They went to NilsenТs home where Nilsen sat and listened to music, while Sinclair shot up and then fell asleep in a chair. Nilsen went into the kitchen and found some thick string, thinking to himself, УHere we go again.Ф The string was too short so he attached it to a tie. He draped the ligature over the sleeping manТs knees and poured himself a drink. Then he sat and contemplated all the pain in Stephen's life and decided to stop it for him. He went over, made sure he was deep asleep, and then used the string-and-tie ligature to strangle him. He struggled slightly and then went unconscious. Nilsen told him, УNothing can hurt you now.Ф Then he removed bandages on StephenТs arms and discovered that he recently had tried to commit suicide with a razor.

Nilsen then bathed him and put him into the bed. He placed two mirrors by the bed and removed his clothes so that he could look at the two of them naked together. He experienced a feeling of oneness and thought that this surely was the meaning of life and death. He talked with Stephen as if he were still alive. The dog jumped into bed with them and sniffed at Stephen. Nilsen turned the young manТs head toward him and kissed it. He had no idea that this corpse would betray him and finally be the cause of his undoing.

Growing Up Alone
Nilsen believes his troubles can be pinpointed to the traumatizing sight of his grandfatherТs corpse. He was born in Fraserburgh, Scotland, on November 23, 1945 the only child of Betty and Olav Nilsen. It was an unhappy marriage, full of conflict from OlavТs drunkenness and long absences.


Wedding photo of Olav and Betty Whyte Nilsen

The marriage lasted seven years until Betty divorced Olav. She and Dennis, along with his two siblings, were already living in the home of her parents, since her husband had never provided otherwise, so they just stayed where they were.


Young Dennis especially loved his grandfather, Andrew Whyte, but when Dennis was only six, Andrew died. Without telling Dennis what had happened, his mother took him in to see the corpse, which triggered a terrible awareness of devastating loss. He says in retrospect that it caused a sort of emotional death inside him.

When he was eight, he nearly drowned in the sea, and was rescued by an older boy who was playing on the beach. The boy must have been aroused by NilsenТs prostrate body, for he removed his clothes and apparently masturbated onto him. Nilsen awoke to find a sticky white substance on his stomach.

Then his mother remarried two years later and he withdrew and became a loner. She had four more children and little time for Dennis.

He never exhibited rage, cruelty to animals or other children, or any type of aggressiveness typically associated with conduct-disordered boys who become killers later in life. In fact, he was horrified by cruelties that he witnessed by others.

Once he helped to search for a man who had turned up missing, and he and a friend found the manТs corpse on the banks of a river. The man had wandered out in the night and had drowned. The body reminded Nilsen of his grandfather, whose death and permanent departure he had been unable to comprehend. He felt oddly distant.

Having had no sexual encounters as an adolescent, but having experienced attraction to other boys, Nilsen remained fairly innocent. Once he had looked at his brotherТs sleeping form, exploring his naked anatomy, but that had been quickly aborted.

In 1961, he enlisted in the army and became a cook, which is how he learned butchery.


He began to rely on alcohol to stave off loneliness, although he kept his distance from others. It was during these years, when he finally got a private room, that he would lay down in front of a mirror in such a way as not to see his head and pretend to be unconscious. The Уother bodyФ aroused him and he would masturbate as he contemplated it.

During the last few months of service, he met a man whom Brian Masters, in the definitive book on Nilsen, called УTerry Finch,Ф and they developed a close friendship. Nilsen was clearly in love and he got the young man, who was not gay, to pretend to be dead while he took home movies. Their parting was a source of great pain for Nilsen. He destroyed the films he had made and gave the projector to Terry.

In 1972, he trained to become a policeman. One of the experiences he recalled was seeing autopsied bodies in a morgue. He found himself fascinated. Nevertheless, this job was not for him and after a year, he resigned. He got employment as a job interviewer and remained with that until his arrest.

He met a young man there, David Painter, who was looking for a job. Nilsen later encountered him in the street and they went together to NilsenТs flat. Painter crawled into bed and fell asleep. He awoke to find Nilsen taking pictures of him, and he created such a row that he hurt himself and had to be taken to a hospital. Nilsen was questioned by the police and released.

He fell into a life of casual pick-ups, but was trouble with how transient and superficial they were. He sought something more enduring. He was ready to commit, if only someone would commit to him. His fantasies in the mirror developed more bizarre qualities. Now he thought of the УotherФ body as being dead-a state he perceived as emotional and physical perfection. He even used make-up to achieve a better effect, including mixing up some fake blood to make it appear that he had been murdered. He imagined someone coming in to take him and bury him. Sometimes it worried him to be so in love with his own dead body.

In 1975, he moved into 195 Melrose Place in north London-a ground floor flat with a garden--with a man named David Gallichan, who denied that their friendship was homosexual. They bought a puppy, which they named Bleep, and then added a cat.

Two years later, with their diverse personalities causing considerable distress to both, Nilsen ordered Gallichan to leave. Afterward, however, he felt very afraid that he would end up alone. УLoneliness is a long unbearable pain,Ф he wrote. He threw himself into his work, became increasingly more political, drank more, and watched a lot of television.

The killings began a year and a half after Gallichan left.