Dennis Nilsen

[Fisherman]

Fish, does Sweden know something that we dont?

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/20...-to-every-home

Sometimes it is a case of certain Swedes knowing what certain non-Swedes don´t know, I think...

On a more serious note, this all falls back on that submarine that was found in the Swedish archipelago of Blekinge some thirty years ago. Russia has not been truly trusted ever since.

[Bridewell]

I think serial killers are just as likely to attract coincidences as anybody else, no more, no less. Meaning that you are correct - we must allow for coincidences in that context too, just as we do otherwise.

A problem only arises if we start getting far too generous in allowing for - or even conjuring up ourselves - coincidences in heaps to explain away what otherwise seems to clearly point in a certain direction.

As an aside, the barrister James Scobie, of Lechmere docu fame, says in the documentary that when coincidences start to mount up in the Lechmere case, it becomes one coincidence too many. And since I have seen material that was not in the docu, I can say that Scobie spoke very critically about how people are too easily taken in by how possibilities open up escape routes.

I think he is very correct in that respect - many of us are way too happy about ourselves on account of our ability to cook up alternative suggestions in order to try and nullify what looks like damning material. It is a good thing to be cautious not to convict on too little, but when this ambition turns to an exercise in accepting coincidences, knee-jerk fashion, then we are doing research, history and logic a disservice.

Believe me, I know about this, since I have personally seen it happen.

Presumably, this is what David Wilson is after too: Let´s not get naive when dealing with serial killers.

By post #13 Fish has managed to work Lechmere into a Dennis Nielsen thread. Is that a personal best?

[Fantomas]

Both Dahmer and Nilsen - whose MOs share remarkable similarities - lived in apartments/flats with no ready access to a garden or suchlike for quick disposal of murdered victims.

There's no evidence Nilsen fed remains to his dog but that he was endeavouring to dispose of body parts out of necessity. He boiled a severed head in a saucepan in order to heat the flesh from the skull, then flush the flesh and leave bones out for refuse collectors. He did not intend to eat the corpse but this sight greeted investigating officers on first entering his flat and leaked to the press. He exhibited necrophilous behaviour that could have led to something like cannibalism - consuming the body so that it is part of him.

Dahmer may have attempted to create in on victim a servile slave in a zombie state, tiring of killing and having to dispose of bodies.

Both were said to assume the role of the "other" with a dead or catatonic victim - which in Nilsen and Dahmer's mind was now them while they played the part of the dominant stranger.

[Sam Flynn]

Good post, Fantomas, although I would point out that Nilsen initially DID live in a ground floor flat with easy (and, ISTR, exclusive) access to the back garden, disposing of his first victims there. It was only after he'd moved to new accommodation, with no such easy means of disposal, that he was caught.

[miss marple]

Nilsen burned many body parts in bonfires in the garden of the flat he had in Cricklewood before he has the flat in Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, burning tyres at the same time to hide the smell.
I was living in Muswell Hill when Nilsen was there and have heard a very strange story from someone at Highgate Cemetery [ a walkable distance from Cranley Gardens ] that at the time, a bag of strange rotting meat was thrown over the wall at the cemetery, which was deposed of as no one had any idea it could be suspicious.

Miss marple

[Mayerling]

Sometimes it is a case of certain Swedes knowing what certain non-Swedes don´t know, I think...

On a more serious note, this all falls back on that submarine that was found in the Swedish archipelago of Blekinge some thirty years ago. Russia has not been truly trusted ever since.

I'm not sure Russia has been truly trusted by Sweden since Poltava in 1709.

Jeff