(drums booming) (tense music) - I can't understand you. I ask you to start filming from the feet slowly up to the head,
and you go zip, zip pan. Bloody hell, don't you ever watch movies, you've seen thousands of movies. You must know what it's like. They're training chimpanzees
at Cape Canaveral to operate a camera, anybody can do it. - [Narrator] These are the
home movies of a murderer. - [Dennis] Can you go back a bit, I mean you're far too near. - [Narrator] A man who in the 1980s would be uncovered as the
most prolific serial killer in British history. - And you ain't seen nothing yet. (tense music) - [Narrator] A civil servant
whose extraordinary behavior would see him named with cruel
irony, the Kindly Killer. - Batteries have run out. That's why the camera went up the creek. Okay, fair enough. You think you'd know how to use it. All you do is point the damn
thing and press a button. - [Narrator] But was this
murderer of young men driven by nature or nurture? Was the Kindly Killer born to kill? - Cut. (gentle piano music) - In the early winter of 1983 we had a problem arise in the
Muswell Hill area of London. It was initiated by us receiving a call for a blocked toilet. - [Narrator] Number 23 Cranley Gardens had been split into flats and bedsits. The residents had experienced problems with the plumbing for days. - An engineer at the time went
to attend the blocked toilet, cleared the toilet, but
did remark to us afterwards that he'd never smelled such
a bad smell in an apartment before in his life. - [Narrator] Still,
lavatories at the property continued to block. - A plumber was sent round really urgently on Saturday morning, and he
looked down in the drains beneath the house and he
saw what he knew was not what should be there. - He observed, what he said, looked like some butcher's
prepared meat and a few bones. - He discovered that what
was blocking the toilets was actually human flesh. - On the 9th of February,
1983, sitting in my office minding my own business, and suddenly got a phone
call from Peter Slade, who was the early turn uniform inspector. And he asked me if I'd
go up to Cranley Gardens, he had a bit of a problem up there. And I just got into the
CID car and drove up there. I always remember it was bitterly
cold, it had been snowing, and we stood outside this awful house and looked down the pit
where the drains were. And he showed me four
little pieces of flesh, each about three inches by
half an inch, maybe an inch, and also three bones with
a knuckle at each end. And my first thought when I saw them was that they were from a human hand. The drains were blocked over
halfway up the building. So we knew that the
blockage was originating from the very top. - [Narrator] The tenant of the top flat was a 37-year-old executive
officer at a nearby job center. Dennis Andrew Nilsen. He was due to return from work at 5:30. - When my two colleagues and I walked up to the front door of the place in order to wait for him inside, we had no idea what we were gonna find. We knew we had a killer but
we didn't know what he'd done. Nilsen walked in, bang on
cue, at half past five. And leading up to that I had been thinking for two or three hours,
about what I was gonna face. I knew that for someone to have flushed a dead body
down the loo in small pieces, it was gonna be somebody
a little bit different. When Nilsen came in
through that front door I'd already made a decision to be very lighthearted with him. And I remember saying to him "Mr. Nilsen," and he said, "Yes, that's me." And I said, "I'm Detective
Chief Inspector Jay. I've come about your drains." And a little smile came
across his face and he said, "Well, since when have
police been interested in blocked drains?" And I said to him, "Well
you take me up in your flat and I'll tell you all about it." The first thing that caught me was the smell of decomposing flesh. I said to him, "I'm here
because your drains were blocked with human remains." And he said, "Oh my God, how awful." And I just got a little bit
closer to him, face-to-face, and looked him straight
in the eyes and said "Don't mess me about. Where's the rest of the body?" And he just paused momentarily and he said "In plastic bags, in the other room." - [Narrator] Nilsen was
immediately arrested and taken to the station for questioning. - My deputy, Detective
Inspector Steve McCusker, sat in the back of the
police car and I drove. And I dunno what prompted
Steve to do this, but he suddenly said to Nilsen "Are we talking about one
body here or maybe two?" And Nilsen said "Neither." He said, "I think it's 16." (gentle music) Well I can remember the
steering wheel in the car sort of shaking in my hands. - The police hardly
could believe their ears, because this was all said in
a very matter of fact voice. Very dispassionate. Why dispassionate? Because this is a man without passion. His only passion came when he
was in a murderous impulse. When he was overtaken by the other self. - [Narrator] In Nilsen's wardrobes were two black plastic bags
and several air fresheners. The bags contained dismembered body parts and two severed heads. In a tea chest was found another
torso, bones and a skull. Under a drawer in the bathroom
were legs and a pelvis. It constituted the remains of three men. In the garden of an
address in Cricklewood, investigators would identify
the fragmented remains of at least eight more. - He told me off the record
that if it hadn't been 15, it would have been 150, if we
hadn't caught him when we did. Because there was no stopping. The whole thing was just totally bizarre. (gentle music) (waves crashing) - [Narrator] Dennis Nilsen was
born in 1945 in Fraserburgh, a remote fishing community
in northeast Scotland. His mother's family had
lived there for generations. His father was a visiting
Norwegian soldier. - He was one of three
children, the middle child. He had an older brother, a younger sister. He never really knew his father. - Nilsen, as a child,
was a bit of a loner. - He didn't really have friends because everybody
thought he was a bit odd. His mother said she
could never cuddle him. He didn't have tactile
relationships with anyone except his grandfather. - [David] Nilsen's father is
absent from the household, and so he had formed a
bond with his grandfather. They would walk together,
fish together and so forth. - [Narrator] The boy's grandfather would often be away for weeks at a time, trawling the fishing
grounds of the North Sea. - One day he came home from school and his mother said to him, "Oh, do you want to see your granddad?" He said oh, he didn't
know he was there even. So he was very pleased about that and he went into the kitchen and there on the kitchen
table was a long box, and in it was his grandfather. Nobody had prepared him for
the fact that he was dead. - [Narrator] Nilsen's
grandfather had died at sea and his corpse had been
brought home for burial. - He had this picture
in his mind imprinted of seeing his grandfather
white as a sheet. And I think that affected him deeply. - Nilsen would later say that
when he saw his grandfather laid out in the front sitting room, after his grandfather's death, that this was when Nilsen first began to associate love with death. An inert body. - From that moment, I'm
convinced, I can't prove it, but I'm convinced that his idea of love and his idea of death,
fused and became linked. Inextricably linked. When his mother said to him "Your granddad's gone to a better place," he, the little boy aged six, thought well if he's gone to a better place why didn't he take me with him. He would sometimes even
go out into the sea and simulate drowning, as
a means of being with him. (tense music) - [Narrator] Aged 15, Nilsen
would leave his home behind. - Nilsen would join the army. Specifically, he joined
the Catering Corps, which is, of course, where he'd
learn his butchering skills. Skills that were gonna be put
to use in a different context, when he's back in civilian life. (tense music) (gentle music) - [Narrator] In 1983, the
discovery of human flesh blocking the drains of 23 Cranley Gardens had led to the arrest of
civil servant Dennis Nilsen. He claimed to have taken the
lives of at least 15 young men. Investigators learned that
he'd had a lonely childhood, punctuated by the death
of a beloved grandfather. At 15-years-old he joined
the Army Catering Corps. Early on, the young Nilsen would stand out from his fellow new recruits. - He was quite
argumentative in as much as, not picking an argument
in a nasty sort of way, but if you said that
photograph is black and white, he'd go no, saying it was
white and black, and so forth. He was quite contrary as a person really. We used to sit listening to
The Beatles, Rolling Stones. We'd read the "Parade" magazines, which are like girly magazines of the day. And he'd probably be reading broadsheets. And he'd also listen to classical music. I remember there was once
a scrap in the barrack room and I think he scratched and slapped, he didn't thump like the rest of us. I remember somebody saying,
"Nilsen, you're weird!| - [Narrator] The teenage
Nilsen harbored a secret. - What's interesting
about the army experience is that it would have
been impossible for Nilsen to have shared the fact that he was gay with any of his colleagues. - Basically, they just didn't
accept homosexuals at all. So if somebody was gay they'd keep very, very quiet about it. - [Narrator] During his time in the army, Nilsen began a lifelong
interest in photography. - He maintained it was
his hobby, photography, but it was much more
important than a hobby. It was self-realization. He used to get his colleagues in the army to pretend that they were corpses, as if they'd been slain in battle, and he would take photographs of that. They thought this was a bit odd, but they went along with it. (tense music) - [Narrator] Nilsen would spend 11 years in the armed forces Catering Corps, rising to the rank of corporal. - Think he was a bit of a bully
underneath, with his rank, once he was in charge
of a room sort of thing. I think he tended to be, I
think he tended to bully a bit. - [Narrator] But just
before his 27th birthday, Nilsen would reject the
familiarity and order of army life and strike out on his own. (upbeat music) In 1970s London he found
a thriving gay scene. - He's living in a large,
urban, metropolitan area where clearly there are gay pubs that he would be able to
visit for the first time. - People were more friendlier back then. People were very chatty, and life in London was
exciting at that time. He wasn't a bad looking man
and he seemed quite educated, quite good to talk to. - He chooses his words well, fluently, but after a few minutes you realize that he's not talking to you or with you, but he's talking to himself, because he doesn't pay
attention to anything except what he himself is saying. - What are you doing
switching the bloody thing on and off for? You'd never make a cameraman you know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not gonna do anything pornographic. - [Narrator] Nilsen joined
the Metropolitan Police. - This is not unusual
for these individuals to seek out a profession of authority, whether it's a police officer or some other civil servant type job where they could have
control over someone else. This is what is so stimulating to them. - He's living a double life. He's living a life of
the police constable, but at the same time he's
also living a double life, talking about being able
to express his sexuality. And of course that inevitably
would lead to conflict. - [Narrator] After 11 months, Nilsen tired of the police and quit. He was also becoming disillusioned
with the transient nature of the gay scene, and began to seek more
permanent companionship. - What he was looking
for was a relationship. Somebody to share his life with. - You didn't go out to find
companionship in a club, you just went out to pick up. That was what generally people did. They weren't there for an
affair or a relationship. They just wanted a one night stand. - [Narrator] He got a job
with manpower services, in the heart of the West End. But the opinionated young Scot struggled to bond with anyone. - He's not somebody who's going
to make friends very easily. He's not somebody who's going to be the life and soul of the party. He's far too self-centered,
he's far too self-obsessed. - Harassed commuter. Harassed London tenant being screwed by the Department of
Employment, London Transport, big chain stores, supermarkets. Can you like cut that, let me think? - So he's got this
quite isolated existence in which he finds it
difficult to make friends, in which it's very difficult
for him to socialize in any normal way. And that isolation would mean that he would return to his home and lose himself in alcohol. He was a drunk, frankly. I'm not sure he was alcoholic,
but he did like to get drunk. - Beer I cannot stand, I got it for free at the bottle party. - And he would listen intently to music. (dramatic classical music) - Nilsen was more at ease
with machines and objects than he was with people. So music was a way of
controlling what was being heard. You can't control a person, you can't control what he's going to say and how he's gonna react and
how he's going to respond. But you can control the record player. - Here's to you Mrs. Robinson. - [Narrator] In 1976,
Nilsen meets a young drifter called David Gallichan. Gallichan is unemployed
and living in a hostel. And although they're seemingly unsuited, Nilsen seeks out a flat for them both to set up home together. (machine buzzing) - [David] Tea's ready, yes. - Yeah okay, coming in a minute. I've gotta sign on. - Oh yeah, gotta sign on today. Gotta sign on again. - [Dennis] Where's that bloody dog, he's been chewing my slippers again. - [David] Here it is. Chewing your slippers, so give it. - [Dennis] I'll wring its
bloody neck if I catch it again. (gentle music) - Melrose Avenue was a
very old kind of building. It had lots of furniture in it that looked like as if it'd been bought during the war really. It was quite old. The carpets weren't very nice and it was quite a rundown building. - 10 past one last night, sound asleep, twink over there, me here. What happens, crash,
bang, wallop, have a look, move the camera up there. Have a look at that. Right, look at the state of that. Whole bloody ceiling falls down. Falls down on me for a start. Ripped straight across, hits
the dog, poor old pooch, budgie got up, big row,
that wakes you up as well. Great chunks. Bloody great chunks of masonry. You could kill somebody, listen to that. (masonry thumping) - They had French windows
which led into a garden. Nobody from upstairs
could get into the garden. Only he had the entrance
through the French windows. - [Dennis] You're a big nincompoop. Oi, over here! - Over here?
- Over here. Stand up. - How long do you think it'll
take me to do your garden? - [Dennis] Don't stand there
with your hand on your hip, you're like a big poof. - Like you you mean? - [Narrator] But Nilsen's overpowering and controlling nature would drive a wedge
between the companions. - [Dennis] Oh come on,
where's my bloody tea then? - [David] Your tea. Oh here it is. - David Gallichan walked out on him after about 18 months. (gentle music) And that really hurt
Nilsen, I'm sure it did. - He was essentially a lonely man by virtue of the fact
that he bored everyone and they all left him. - So the thing he's searching
for is companionship, a relationship, and it's the
one thing that psychologically, sociologically, he's not
set up to be able to do. - [Dennis] You're a great pillock twinkle. - And then he used to invite
more and more people back, hoping that someone would stay. - He did ask me to move in, but I said I don't think I can put up
with you and the bottle. The bottle comes between
us, there's too much of it. You've got to stop that. If you stopped it you'd be a
lovely decent guy to live with. But he couldn't stop that. He couldn't stop that. He seemed to be very into himself. It was all him, him, him. He never hardly asked anything about me. - Anything good you find in this kitchen is probably attributed
to my having purchased it in the first place. Bloody light doesn't even go on. Can you go back a bit, I
mean you're far too near. - [Narrator] The lonely Nilsen
increasingly took refuge in his morbid private fantasies. - He used to lie on the
floor, in front of a mirror, and put blue on his lips and
make his eyes look bloodshot. And he got satisfaction out of regarding himself in
the mirror in that way. Not, I don't think, an
emotional satisfaction, but a deep requirement of his nature, which was obviously perverted. - He would make a, he passed out and would fall to the floor, and then you go rushing up to him and he'd just be laying there. But I actually know that he wasn't asleep. He wasn't out, he wasn't passed out. He was awake. And he would stay there
and he would stay there, you'd sit down, you could cook a meal, you could watch
television, still be there. But I know that he wasn't asleep. You just know. And it would be in this position of a kind of arms outstretched position. I believe he was pretending to be dead. - [Narrator] All the while, Nilsen continued to play the role of the unremarkable civil servant. - He gets up in the morning,
he's a civil servant, he goes to work, he comes home at night. He tends his garden, he cooks for himself, he has a dog which he calls Bleep. - [Dennis] Bleep, come on. (indistinct) Come on Bleep, say something. - So there's a sense in
which these are the banality, the ordinariness of suburban life. - Ooh ah, bloody finger! You great pillock! - But of course Nilsen
doesn't really have a sense of how an ordinary life is actually what most people experience, because Nilsen wants to be extraordinary. (Bleep growling) (tense music) - [Narrator] On New Year's Day, 1979, 33-year-old Dennis Nilsen
woke up next to a teenager he'd met in a pub the night before. The lonely manpower services employee later claimed he couldn't face the thought of the sleeping boy leaving. - There came a moment when
the murderer's impulse to keep this man, not to
let him go, overtook him. - [Narrator] Nilsen took a tie, wrapped it around the
boy's neck, and pulled. - He was astonished at his strength. At the moment of the murder he was amazed at how strong he was, 'cause he was not normally
a very strong man. Once the murder had occurred and Nilsen had before
him a corpse, he then, in a very peculiar fashion,
looked after the corpse. - [Narrator] Now, for the first time, Dennis Nilsen had the means to live out his darkest and most secret fantasies. - He would run a bath, he
would bathe it, clean it. He would then make it comfortable. He would dry it, put it into the bed, put it into an armchair. - [Narrator] Nilsen lived
with the corpse for a week. He then placed the naked
body under the floorboards, where it remained for almost eight months. - If you have this body, you have to find some
way to get rid of it, and you certainly don't
want it to be identified as quickly as you possibly can. - Nilsen was efficient. He couldn't relate to a person emotionally but he could relate to a corpse as something that had to be disposed of. It was a problem that had to be solved. That's much easier than
dealing with people and their emotions. - [Narrator] Nilsen's garden
would provide the solution. - He burned his body in the
garden of Melrose Avenue, obliterating him and spreading
his ashes to the four winds. - [Narrator] It was not until 2005 that the victim would be identified as 14-year-old Stephen Holmes. His murder would prove to
be merely the beginning. - I think the first murder
that any serial killer commits is always the revealing murder. He enjoyed doing it, and I
think it's that enjoyment that he got from that first murder that propelled him to kill
again and again and again. - Well this is Soho,
and the heart of Soho. Old Compton Street. And this is the area that
Nilsen used to favor. He'd come out in his spare
time to this kind of area, and to gay pubs in particular, in order to make contact with people. So he had contact with a lot of youngsters who were coming to London, thinking the streets were paved with gold and who were probably no fixed abode. May have run away from home. Dropouts. That kind of person. - The people that Nilsen went to meet were people he instinctively,
with an uncanny knack, recognized as people who were lonely and would be most likely to
accept an invitation to go home. - Often there is no record of these people being reported as missing, and therefore he's tackling a
particularly vulnerable group that many other serial killers target. (gentle music) - [Narrator] While
living at Melrose Avenue, Dennis Nilsen would pick
up and strangle to death a further 11 young men. (downbeat music) - If you strangle someone you
feel it, you can touch it. You just grab whatever's at hand and pull. - I have always suspected that Nilsen would strangle the people that he really didn't wanna go at midnight or one o'clock in the morning. The ones that he wanted to stay. The ones he didn't
particularly wanna be with, they'd just go at the end of the night. - That may be true to some extent but I would look at it
in a very different way. I would say that he wanted
the bodies to be there because it assured him
how in control he was of other people. This is what is arousing to an individual like Nilsen,
to be in complete control and domination of others. - Nilsen used the bodies
of his victims sexually, and in other ways. Nilsen wanted to stay
close to these bodies, almost as if they were a form of trophy. He wants to express his power, his complete and utter
domination of these young men, even after they're dead. (tense music) - After he killed them, he
would sometimes bring them out and put them in a chair and
have conversations with them, as if they were still alive. - They can watch television with him. He can talk to them. - He even would go so far
as to come home from work and find the corpse sitting
in the same armchair that he'd left him in that morning, and saying to him, "Guess
what happened to me today?" So this was a substitute
for real human company. - Nilsen is so self-obsessed,
so desperate for his opinion to be the only opinion
that counts and matters, he finds it easier to relate,
to have a conversation with a dead young man who isn't
capable of answering back. - He would then keep the
corpse for quite a few days until they became unbearable. He would eviscerate them. He would put into the
garden the spleen and stuff which might prove impossible to live with. And then put the, what
was left of the corpse, under the floorboards. - An obsessive compulsive personality, where somebody is attuned
to details and orderliness and so on, is very common
in prolific serial killers, because that personality
trait will help them elude law enforcement. They're aware of forensic evidence, they'll clean things up
meticulously, and so on. - Ultimately, the bodies that were serving as Nilsen's companions would
become an annoyance to him. They were in the way. He needed to get rid of them
for a variety of reasons. Firstly, they'd smell. Also, they were an annoyance to him because he keeps wanting to
bring more live young men back to his flat. - I would actually stay
there for the night or maybe for the weekend or whatever. All I can say is that the smell, the smell from Melrose Avenue, which you put down to dry
rot or whatever, rising damp, I don't know, animal smells, it smelled awful, it really smelled nasty. But nothing other than
this really stood out. Nothing at all. - [Narrator] With no further
room under the floorboards, the decomposing corpses were removed, cut into manageable pieces,
and taken into the garden. - In the middle of the night
he would have a huge bonfire in his garden, burning the remains, disguising the smell with rubber tires. - And the local children came
and danced around the bonfire because they thought
it was all rather fun, having not the faintest idea
what was going on really. - [Narrator] Dennis Nilsen
had murdered and disposed of 12 young men, without
arousing suspicion. In 1981 he moved to a new address, where his behavior would become
increasingly more bizarre. (tense music) Between 1979 and 1981,
civil servant Dennis Nilsen had murdered and disposed of 12 young men at his flat in Cricklewood. In October of '81 he moved
to a rented top floor flat at 23 Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, where his disturbed fantasies
would take a new twist. 21-year-old Carl Stottor
met the seemingly kind and friendly Nilsen at
The Black Cap in Camden. - He took me back to his place. He was a nice guy. He didn't have murderer
tattooed across his face or anything like that. He was nice. And I slept with him. - What he did was, first of all, attack him from behind with
a tie, and throttled him. - He killed me. He strangled me. - He thought he was dead, but he wasn't. - And then he drowned
me in a bath of water. - While he thought he was dead, he got himself a rum and Coke
and lit another cigarette and said to himself, "Oh
my God, here we go again." As if this had been done by somebody else. - He described it as
being almost in a trance. That he was doing this
act without even realizing that he was doing it. And that's fairly typical. Serial murderers will talk
about almost waking up and realizing that, oh my
gosh, what are they doing. - When he realized the man was alive he then got extra blankets out. He rubbed his legs to get the
blood circulating properly. He put on an extra fire. - Heart massage. Mouth to mouth resuscitation. He brought me back to life. I was there for three days. - You've got a classic example of Nilsen initially, killing, trying to kill, believing he's killed the
victim, but then realizing that the young man is
actually still alive. And then Nilsen going
into good Samaritan mode, trying to help the young man get better. Nilsen is able to kind of inhabit a kind of parallel universe, in which he no longer sees himself as being someone who's doing wrong, but actually can interpret his actions as somebody who's doing good. - He told me that what happened was I got caught up in the sleeping
bag zip and that was it. And I believed him,
because you don't think that somebody's gonna try and kill you. Anyway he did. - [Narrator] Carl Stottor
would not be the only recipient of Nilsen's good Samaritan act. At least three more young
men would be strangled and then allowed to live. The attacks would remain
un-investigated by the police. - Most of the police would say, well, you were in a bondage game and it's your fault, you participated. And the absolute humiliation
of saying oh, gosh, I don't wanna be known
for this kind of behavior, really protects the serial murderer. - [Narrator] It appears
Nilsen's odd behavior was not only reserved for strangers. - I fell asleep on the floor,
I wouldn't get into the bed. I woke up and he was straddled over me. He had what I call an apple knife. But behind him there was smoke. And there was a gas heater
that used to be on the wall had apparently fallen off. Now I couldn't possibly have
knocked that off with my feet. And it was quite bad, the
room was full of smoke, and I said what's the knife for? He said he was trying to cut it, trying to get it right off the wall in case there was an explosion. And I'm positive that when I went to sleep that gas fire wouldn't have been on because he was already asleep and because it was a very mild night. That's all I remember thinking, but then again thought no more of it. I have to believe that he
was going to do something. He was trying to asphyxiate me. - [Narrator] But not everyone
would escape with their lives. - With every serial murderer, although they start out slowly, they then become more frenetic and they will start
killing a lot more people a lot more close in time. - The addiction becomes
so overwhelming that it's, the corpses pile upon one another. - [Narrator] At Cranley Gardens, three men would suffer the same fate as the 12 at Melrose Avenue. But unlike his previous residence, Nilsen's top floor flat had no
space under the floorboards. - He would boil their skulls
to get all the flesh off. And then he would chop
them up into little bits. To him, the people were just
about the same and equivalent to the meat he was
chopping up in the army. Had absolutely no reason or
meaning emotionally to him, it was just something he did. (downbeat music) - Half of one was under the bath. Pieces of another were in
the wardrobe in black bags. - On the day that I went back
there, on the very last day, and he wouldn't let me into the flat. He was in the strangest
mood I've ever seen him in. He was completely flustered and I couldn't understand
what was happening. And the dog ran down the stairs and he said hold the door but don't go in. And I thought charming. I thought I've known you all this time and you won't let me into your flat. I said he doesn't trust me, obviously. And he brought the dog
back up and he said to me you didn't go in? I said no, I'm just
standing here aren't I. And I couldn't work that out. - [Narrator] Nilsen's
desperate efforts at disposal would be his undoing. On the 9th of February, blocked drains would lead
to his discovery and arrest. - Scotland Yard launched its biggest murder investigation today, after a pathologist
confirmed that human remains found in a sewer outlet
were parts of three bodies. - For some strange reason, the minute they said Muswell
Hill, they gave no address, they gave nothing, I seemed
to know that this is him. It's him. I don't know why I would think that. And then an hour later I
was listening more intently and then they said in Cranley
Gardens, and it was the house. (gentle music) Can you stop it a second? - [Narrator] In custody, Nilsen
would describe the murder of 15 young men in minute detail. - He saw no reason to
get worked up about it. All right, if you've arrested
me you've arrested me, so let's get on with it. - Nilsen gave us every bit of information that he could think of. I mean we interviewed him 16
times over the next few months. Throughout the interviews, Nilsen was totally matter of fact. Quite cold. There was no remorse. There was indication
of any remorse at all. - [Narrator] In November,
Dennis Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment. Over a four year period, he had taken the lives of 15 young men. But was the so-called
Kindly Killer born to kill? - Dennis Nilsen was
clearly born with a gene which was flawed, and which
was bound to cause problems in one way or another. Just as some people are born with a gene which makes them prone
to anger or to jealousy. Nobody is born with an
inevitability about his future. The future is shaped by the experience. It may shape the gene, which is flawed, but that is not the same thing as saying that there is evil inherent. So Nilsen could have turned out to be a completely different person. Not a stable person because
of the inherited gene, he would still be flawed, but he need not have become a murderer. The idea that he was
born evil is nonsense. - He was brought up in a relatively banal, ordinary circumstances. There were certain elements
of his life which were odd or which were difficult
for him to overcome, but the circumstances of his childhood and the trials and
tribulations of his childhood were not something that were
unique to Dennis Nilsen, but were common to many hundreds of thousands of young people. And if Dennis Nilsen was born to kill, so would those hundreds of
thousands of young people who had similar circumstances
that they had to deal with when they were growing up. So no, I don't believe that
Dennis Nilsen was born to kill. - You can be born with a flaw which you've got to keep under control. If you don't keep it under
control it's your fault. (gentle music) - I don't think he was born to kill but certain circumstances
made him that way. Des was a necrophiliac. He was a control freak. I think if he couldn't get
what he wanted from a person, like some nights he couldn't
with me, then he would, if he wanted it and he was drunk and he was in the mood
for it, and I mean sex, then he would do something to get it. Go out of his way to get it. He would, whatever it took. - I think all of these people are, to a large degree, born to kill. It's a bio-psycho-social problem. But biology, in my judgment,
has a very large component. We don't know exactly
what the specific biology or neuro-biological problem is. Whether it's genetic,
hormonal, chemical, electrical, brain damage, a combination of factors. But there has to be a
number of things to go wrong in order for a serial sexual
murderer to be created. - [Narrator] Nilsen himself
claimed to have wrestled to find a reason for his crimes. - "It amazes me that I have
no tears for these victims. I have no tears for myself, of
those bereaved by my actions. Am I a weak person,
constantly under pressure, who just couldn't cope with it and escapes to wreak
revenge against society, through the haze of a bottle of spirits? Or maybe it's because I
was just born an evil man." Self-serving crap. For me, this is just specious nonsense. Self-serving nonsense to try
and justify his behavior. - He's nothing. He's a liar. He's taken human lives. I feel sorry for his mother. To give birth to such a monster. (tense music)
