
Nilsen would then typically carry out a methodical ritual where he would clean and dress the corpses and leave them in his flat for weeks or even months.ĭuring this time, Nilsen occasionally engaged in acts of necrophilia with many of his victims corpses. Nilsen strangled his victims until they passed out and then drowned them in a bucket of water. From 1978 to 1983 Nilsen killed 15 men and attempted to murder several others.

Nilsen served in the British army until 1972 before moving to London and working as a civil servant. Nilsen always killed in his home and he always convinced his victims to enter the premises with promises of food, shelter or alcohol.

Dennis Nilsen is a predatory British serial killer who targeted homosexual or homeless young men. However, some serial killers operate with the same methods for years and always target the same victims. The behaviour of some serial killers can be erratic and their crimes show no discernable pattern or identifiable links between victims. Although serial killers are a relatively rare phenomenon in the criminal world (less than 1% of murders each year are the work of a serial killer), some of the men on this list committed the most notorious and disturbing crimes ever documented.
#Show me pictures of serial killers series#
However, while many serial killers display some sort of pattern in their behaviour, it’s not always easy linking a series of murders over time to the work of one person. Many people mistakenly think that a serial killer has to have the same ‘modus operandi’ and that they target the same types of victims each time and that they always kill people in the same way. This distinguishes serial killers from mass murderers (who kill at least four people in a short amount of time without any ‘cooling off’ period) and spree killers (who kill at least two people in different locations over a short amount of time, again without any ‘cooling off’ period). Although the definition and ‘criteria’ of a serial killer can vary between different law enforcement agencies and psychologists, the term is typically applied to any person who kills at least two victims with a significant ‘down time’ between the murders. Serial killers are some of the most fascinating and intriguing criminals.
