Serial killers and true crime

The man who cheated death at the hands of serial killer Dennis Nilsen has condemned a decision to give the murderer cash for a human rights claim.

Dennis Nilsen, who killed at least 17 men in the 1970s and 1980s has been awarded £55,000 to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights to try to publish his autobiography.

Carl David Stotter, 50, of Brighton, said he was enraged to hear Nilsen, who tried to suffocate and drown him, has been given aid – even though the victim has not received a penny in compensation for his ordeal.

Nilsen was refused permission to publish his manuscript by the highest courts in Britain so has taken his case to the European Court in Strasbourg.

That court makes the decision on whether to give him the money to argue his case, but the British government will end up footing the bill.

Mr Stotter said: “Why should he have his human rights when his victims haven’t any?

“It’s not justice.”

“This happened to be 29 years ago and I’ll never forgot it.”

“I feel really angry, but this is not just about me. It is about all the people he killed too.”

“I stopped Nilsen having his book published once before and we won, but no one told me he was going to try again.”

“This is not right. There is less help for victims than killers.”

“I have not received a penny of help from anyone.”

“I was the only one of his victims left to be able to seek compensation and I got nothing.”

**From me: There were others that survived Nilsen.  (Andrew Ho, Douglas Stewart, Paul Nobbs)  See below.

From here.

This is a travesty of justice. There is NO way Nilsen should get money to file this claim. he is prison and that should restrict his ‘rights’.

If he wants to sue he should have to come up with the money himself. Why are we rewarding him in any way?

I would actually read his book but I think and money should be given to the victims and their families.

Victims

• Murder 1, Stephen Dean Holmes: Nilsen’s first murder took place on 30 December 1978. Nilsen claimed to have met his first victim in a gay bar. Nilsen strangled him with a necktie until he was unconscious and then drowned him in a bucket of water. On 12 January 2006, it was announced that the victim had been identified as Stephen Dean Holmes, who was born on 22 March 1964 and was therefore only 14 at the time; Holmes had been on his way home from a concert. On 9 November 2006, Nilsen finally confessed to the murder of Holmes in a letter sent from his prison cell to the Evening Standard. Nilsen was not charged for the murder as the Crown Prosecution Service decided that a prosecution would not be in the public interest.
• Between the first and second murders, Nilsen attempted to murder Andrew Ho, a student from Hong Kong he had met in The Salisbury public house in St. Martin’s Lane. Although afterwards he confessed to the police about the incident no charges were brought and Nilsen was not arrested.
• Murder 2, Kenneth Ockendon: The second next victim was 23-year-old Canadian student Kenneth Ockendon. Nilsen met the tourist in a pub on 3 December 1979 and escorted him on a tour of Central London, after which they went back to Nilsen’s flat for another drink. Nilsen strangled him with the cord of his headphones whilst Ockendon was listening to a record. Ockendon was one of the few murder victims who was reported as a missing person.
• Murder 3, Martyn Duffey: Martyn Duffey was a 16-year-old runaway from Birkenhead. On 17 May 1980, he accepted Nilsen’s invitation to come over to his place. Nilsen strangled and subsequently drowned Duffey in the kitchen sink.
• Murder 4, Billy Sutherland: Billy Sutherland was a 26-year-old father-of-one from Scotland who worked as a prostitute. Sutherland met Nilsen in a pub in August, 1980. Nilsen could not remember how he murdered Sutherland; however, it was later revealed that Sutherland had been strangled by bare hands.
• Murder 5, Unidentified: The fifth next victim was another man who worked as a prostitute; however, this man was never identified. All that is known is that he was probably from the Philippines orThailand.
• Murder 6, Unidentified: Nilsen could recall very little about this and the following two victims. All that Nilsen could remember about the sixth man was that he was a young Irish labourer that Nilsen had met in the Cricklewood Arms.
• Murder 7, Unidentified: Nilsen described the seventh victim as a starving “hippy-type” whom Nilsen had found sleeping in a doorway in Charing Cross.
• Murder 8, Unidentified: Nilsen could recall little about his eighth victim, except that he kept the man’s body under the floorboards of his flat, until he removed the corpse and cut it into three pieces then put it back again. He burned the corpse one year later.
• At some point between murders 6 and 8, on 10 November 1980, Nilsen attacked a Scottish barman named Douglas Stewart, whom Nilsen met at the Golden Lion in Dean Street. Stewart woke up while being strangled, and was able to fend off his attacker. Although Stewart called the police almost immediately after the attack, the officers refused to take action; reportedly they considered the incident to be a domestic disagreement.
• Murder 9, Unidentified: The ninth next victim was a young Scottish man who Nilsen met in the Golden Lion pub in Soho in January, 1981.
• Murder 10, Unidentified: Another young Scottish man. Nilsen strangled him with a tie and placed the body under the floorboards.
• Murder 11, Unidentified: Nilsen picked up his eleventh victim in Piccadilly Circus. The man was an English skinhead and had a tattoo around his neck reading “cut here”. The man had boasted to Nilsen about how tough he was and how he liked to fight. However, once he was drunk, he proved no match for Nilsen, who hung the man’s naked torso in his bedroom for a day, before burying the body under the floorboards.
• Murder 12, Malcom Barlow: The 12th next victim was a 24-year-old named Malcolm Barlow. Nilsen murdered Barlow on 18 September 1981. Nilsen found Barlow in a doorway not far from his own home, took him in, and called an ambulance for him. When Barlow was released the next day, he returned to Nilsen’s home to thank him and was pleased to be invited in for a meal and a few drinks. Nilsen murdered Barlow that night. Barlow was the final victim to be murdered at Melrose Avenue.

In October 1981, Nilsen moved to a new house in Muswell Hill.

• In November 1981, Nilsen targeted Paul Nobbs, a student, at the Golden Lion in Soho, and invited Nobbs back to his new home. The student awoke the next morning with little recollection of the previous evening’s events, and later went to see his doctor because of some bruising that had appeared on his neck. The doctor revealed that it appeared as if the student had been strangled, and advised him to go to the police. However, Nobbs was concerned about what would happen if his sexual orientation were to be disclosed, and did not go to the police.
• Following this, Nilsen targeted Carl Stotter *, a drag queen known as Khara Le Fox at The Black Cap, in Camden. After passing out from strangulation, Stotter became conscious while Nilsen was trying to drown him in a bath of cold water. Stotter managed to gasp air four times before losing consciousness. Nilsen’s dog then lapped Stotter’s face and uncovered signs of life.^{[citation needed]} Nilsen then led Stotter to a railway station, through a forest and the two parted ways. Stotter, due to memory loss from the event and alcohol before, reportedly didn’t realise for several years that he had almost been killed.^{[citation needed]}
• Murder 13, John Howlett: Howlett had first met Nilsen in a West End pub in December 1981. In March, 1982, John Howlett was the first victim to be murdered in Nilsen’s Muswell Hill home. Howlett was one of the few who was able to fight back; however, Nilsen had taken a dislike to him and was determined that he should die. There was a tremendous struggle, in which at one point Howlett even tried to strangle Nilsen back. Eventually, Nilsen drowned Howlett, holding his head under water for five minutes. Nilsen dismembered Howlett’s body, hid some of Howlett’s body parts around the house and flushed others down the toilet.
• Murder 14, Graham Allen: Graham Allen was another troubled man; a father, originally from Scotland, whom Nilsen met in Shaftesbury Avenue in September, 1982. Nilsen took Allen to his home and prepared an omelette for him. Nilsen crept up on Allen while he was eating and strangled him to death. After murdering Allen, Nilsen left Allen’s body in the bath, unsure how to dispose of it. After three days, Nilsen dismembered him, like his previous victim. Parts of Allens’ remains were what led to the drains being blocked at the flats where Nilsen lived.
• Murder 15, Stephen Sinclair: Nilsen’s final victim was a 20-year-old man named Stephen Sinclair who was addicted to drugs and alcohol. Nilsen targeted Sinclair in Oxford Street and bought the youth a hamburger. Nilsen then suggested that they go back to his place. After Sinclair drank alcohol and used heroin at Nilsen’s house, Nilsen strangled Sinclair and dismembered Sinclair’s body. Nilsen recalled that the youth’s wrists were covered in slash marks from where Sinclair had recently tried to kill himself. This murder was on 26 January 1983, less than two weeks before Nilsen was arrested. It was Sinclair’s dismembered remains in the drain outside Nilsen’s home that first alerted the police to Nilsen’s murders.^{[citation needed]}