Dennis Nilsen’s murder victim’s family slam ‘cash-grabbing’ ITV for ‘glorifying’ serial killer in David Tennant drama
THE heartbroken family of one of Dennis Nilsen’s victims has slammed ITV for cashing in on the serial killer’s twisted crimes.
Former Doctor Who star David Tennant is due to play one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers in new ITV drama Des.
The show will revisit Nilsen’s gruesome five-year killing spree in a three-part thriller set to air in 2020.
But a source close to Seaton Sutherland, whose brother Billy was one of at least 12 people murdered by Nilsen, has hit out at ITV for dragging up the past.
The family friend told The Sun Online: “Basically, go away ITV. They don’t care about the victim’s families, they’re just making money out of people’s misery and jumping on the bandwagon.
“I thought better of ITV, they’re cash grabbers.
“Can’t they just let it be? He’s dead, that was it. To think they are trying to make money out of a TV series.
“Why are they trying to glorify a murderer? It’s just a joke, why can’t they let sleeping dogs die?”
Billy, 26, was living in London in 1980 after leaving his native Scotland with his girlfriend and three-year-old son to find a job.
He unwittingly entered the job centre where Nilsen was working at the time and took the monster up on an offer of a drink before disappearing.
For three years, Billy’s family tirelessly fought to find the chef – only learning the horrific truth when cops dug open Nilsen’s back garden in 1983.
Police told the stunned family they had found body parts buried under the floorboards – including a piece of skin with a tattoo on it that helped identify Billy.
For the tortured family, the nightmare never ends – despite Nilsen dying in prison in May last year aged 72.
The source said: “It makes me feel enraged. Seaton has suffered with it his whole life, he had a breakdown just seeing it every day. He’s always worrying about murder and thinking about what could happen.
“It hurt the whole family. Nilsen is dead but the victim’s families aren’t.”
Nilsen became known as one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers when he murdered at least a dozen boys and young men in his North London houses of horror.
The ex-soldier put his sick fantasies into action between 1978 and 1983 when he went on a murderous rampage.
Nilsen targeted homeless or gay men and lured them back to his two homes with the promise of alcohol or a place to stay.
Once inside, the monster would strangle his victims or drown them in the bath before carrying out a chilling ritual of carefully clothing their bodies and keeping them in his home for weeks.
The fiend would sometimes lie next to the bodies in bed for hours on end – leading to the haunting nickname the Kindly Killer because he believed his ritualistic killing was humane.
Nilsen would then dismember his victims and often performed sex acts over their corpses.
After butchering young men, the brute would either dispose of their bodies on a bonfire or buried them under his floorboards – flushing their flesh and smaller bones down the toilet.
This eventually led to Nilsen’s arrest after a plumber was called to one of the homes due to complaints from the killer and his neighbours.
Rampage of the Kindly Killer
Dennis Nilsen is believed to have killed 15 men and boys in a four-year murder spree driven by his sick fantasies.
The Muswell Hill murderer was also dubbed the Kindly Killer because of his belief that his methods were humane.
Seven victims have not been identified.
December 30, 1978: Irish lad Stephen Holmes, 14, was lured to Nilsen’s home in Melrose Avenue. The fiend strangled him with a tie and drowned him in a bucket, and kept his body for eight months.
December 3, 1979: Canadian tourist Kenneth Ockenden, 23, was strangled with a headphones cord while listening to music. Nilsen poured himself a drink and put on the headphones himself. He was one of few victims reported missing.
May 17, 1980: Nilsen found runaway Martyn Duffey, 16, sleeping rough at Euston station and offered him a bed. He drowned him in the kitchen sink and defiled the body.
August 1980: male prostitute Billy Sutherland, 26, met Nilsen in a pub near Piccadilly Circus. The killer later claimed he didn’t remember the murder but woke up to find “another dead body”.
September 1980: An unidentified victim Nilsen described as an Irish labourer with rough hands.
October 1980: Another unidentified man. Nilsen met him in the Salisbury Arms and described him as a slim male prostitute who was either Mexican or Filipino.
November 1980: A vagrant Nilsen found sleeping in a doorway on Charing Cross Road. The victim span his legs in a cycling motion as he was strangled.
November or December 1980: An English “long-haired hippy” Nilsen met after pubs closed in the West End. He kept the body under floorboards for a year.
January 4, 1981: Nilsen met an “18-year-old blue-eyed Scot” in the Golden Lion pub in Soho and lured him home for a drinking contest. He chopped up the body eight days later along with the previous month’s victim.
February 1981: A Northern Irish victim in his early 20s who Nilsen nicknamed Belfast Boy because he could not remember his name.
April 1981: A muscular English skinhead Nilsen said he met in Leicester Square. The killer recalled his victim has a tattoo round his neck reading “cut here”.
September 18, 1981: Malcolm Barlow, 23, was the last victim at Melrose Avenue. Nilsen found him slumped outside the house and called an ambulance. He killed Malcolm when he returned to thank him the next day.
March 1982: John Howlett, 23, nicknamed John The Guardsman by Nilsen who invited him back to his flat in Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, and strangled him in bed.
September 1982: Graham Allen, 27, accepted Nilsen’s offer of a meal. He strangled his guest and later claimed he choked to death on an omelette.
January 26, 1983: Nilsen’s final victim Stephen Sinclair, 20, fell asleep drunk at the Cranley Gardens attic. Nilsen strangled him with a tie and a rope and fell asleep beside the body.
They noticed rats feasting on human flesh inside a pipe – leading Nilsen to remark: “It looks to me like someone has been flushing down their Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
But with his suspicions aroused, the plumber returned the next day with his supervisor and police were alerted – bringing an end to Nilsen’s reign of terror.
Police found more than 1,000 teeth and bone fragments when they dug up the garden and a field behind his house in Cranley Gardens in February 1983.
It was searched after Nilsen’s three murders at another flat in Muswell Hill came to light.
He later confessed to cops he killed “15 or 16” victims, including around a dozen in Cricklewood, putting him second only to Harold Shipman as the UK’s most prolific murderer.
Around half of the victims were never identified.
Nilsen went on trial at the Old Bailey in October 1983 and was found guilty of six murders and two attempted murders.
His minimum 25-year jail term was later changed to a whole-life tariff.
Nilsen died in agony in Full Sutton jail in East Yorkshire in May last year after being left lying in his own faeces for two hours as his condition deteriorated.
MOST READ IN NEWS
Tennant’s co-stars in the show include Line Of Duty actor Daniel Mays as Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay, and Jason Watkins as Brian Masters, who wrote a biography on Nilsen.
A spokesperson for the production team said: “The drama focuses on the impact of Dennis Nilsen’s crimes, both on those who came into contact with Nilsen and also on the victims’ families.
“Production have approached all the families of Nilsen’s victims and maintains an open door should anyone come forward who wants to talk to them.”