Author: Dennis Nilsen
Publisher: eBook Partnership
ISBN: 1913062821
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Get Book Here
Book Description
Dennis Nilsen was one of Britain's most notorious serial killers, jailed for life in 1983 after the murders of 12 men and the attempted murders of many more.Seven years after his conviction, Nilsen began to write his autobiography, and over a period of 18 years he typed 6,000 pages of introspection, reflection, comment and explanation.History of a Drowning Boy - taken exclusively from these astonishing writings - uncovers, for the first time, the motives behind the murders, and delivers a clear understanding of how such horrific events could have happened, tracing the origins back to early childhood.In another first, it provides an insight into his 35 years inside the maximum-security prison system, including his everyday life on the wings; his interactions with the authorities and other notorious prisoners; and his artistic endeavours of music, writing and drama. It also reveals the truth behind many of the myths surrounding Dennis Nilsen, as reported in the media.Nilsen was determined to have his memoir published but to his frustration, the Home Office blocked publication during his lifetime. He died in 2018 entrusting the manuscript to his closest friend and it is now being published with the latter's permission.Any autobiography presents the writer's story from just one perspective: his own, and as such this record should be treated with some caution. An excellent foreword by criminologist Dr Mark Pettigrew offers some context to Nilsen's words, and this important work provides an extraordinary journey through the life of a remarkable and inadequate man.Extract from the Foreword by Dr Mark Pettigrew, criminologistIn the UK, there are thought to be at least two serial killers active at any one time; in the USA the figure is estimated to be as high as fifty. Although a relatively rare phenomenon, there is a great deal of public interest in the life and crimes of serial killers. Yet, despite the inordinate amount of interest, the serial killer remains one of the least understood types of criminal - even in the academic world the simple definition of a serial killer has still not been settled.In a saturated market of true crime novels, there are very few that include the voice of the actual killer. As such, amongst a literary sea of accounts devoted to the serial killer and his crimes, this book stands out as unique. Of course any subjective retelling by the killer must be approached with caution; the prevalence of personality disorders, psychopathy, paranoid schizophrenia and other psychiatric and mental disorders, can distort the personal account just as an attempt at self-aggrandising can misrepresent the true narrative of the crimes. Yet, the simple facts of a case can be gleamed from police records, trial testimony and crime scene evidence, whereas personal introspection offers much more of an insight into the motivation of the killer.As the reader will learn from these memoirs, a confluence of factors met to form Dennis Nilsen. In all the academic and clinical research on the topic, there is no definitive answer as to why or how a person becomes a serial killer. Realistically, we can only identify risk factors. What this book offers, though, is an insight into how those killings are comprehended and understood by the killer in retrospect. In my own conversations with Dennis Nilsen, over several years, he did not try to excuse what he did, nor trivialise the devastating effect his actions had upon the families and loved ones of his victims. Instead, he sought to understand his actions in light of his particular circumstances. I cannot honestly say that he ever found a definitive answer as to why he became one of Britain's most infamous serial killers, but if the answer is ever to be found, it will be found within these pages.
Author: Brian Masters
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0099552612
Category : Murder
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Get Book Here
Book Description
"On February 9th 1983 Dennis Nilsen was arrested at his Muswell Hill home, after human remains had been identified as the cause of blocked drains. Within days he had confessed to fifteen gruesome murders over a period of four years. His victims, all young homosexual men, had never been missed. Brian Masters, with Nilsen's full cooperation, has produced a study of a murderer's mind which is unique of its kind. 'KILLING FOR COMPANY must stand as one of the most remarkable and accurate accounts ever written of the singular relationship between a mass murderer and a society. Brian Masters, in the writing, has achieved the impossible. Though dealing with sensational and horrific matters he has managed to treat his material with such objectivity and restraint that what we have is not a penny dreadful from the Hammer House of Horror, but a bloody masterpiece' BERYL BAINBRIDGE Observer."
Author: Lisa Downing
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022600340X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Get Book Here
Book Description
The subject of murder has always held a particular fascination for us. But, since at least the nineteenth century, we have seen the murderer as different from the ordinary citizen—a special individual, like an artist or a genius, who exists apart from the moral majority, a sovereign self who obeys only the destructive urge, sometimes even commanding cult followings. In contemporary culture, we continue to believe that there is something different and exceptional about killers, but is the murderer such a distinctive type? Are they degenerate beasts or supermen as they have been depicted on the page and the screen? Or are murderers something else entirely? In The Subject of Murder, Lisa Downing explores the ways in which the figure of the murderer has been made to signify a specific kind of social subject in Western modernity. Drawing on the work of Foucault in her studies of the lives and crimes of killers in Europe and the United States, Downing interrogates the meanings of media and texts produced about and by murderers. Upending the usual treatment of murderers as isolated figures or exceptional individuals, Downing argues that they are ordinary people, reflections of our society at the intersections of gender, agency, desire, and violence.
Author: Russ Coffey
Publisher: John Blake
ISBN: 9781782194590
Category : Criminals
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
In February 1983, civil servant Dennis Nilsen was arrested after body parts were found to be blocking drains at the house where he lived. As the squad car drove him away, he confessed he had strangled 15 young men. But it wasn't just the crimes that stunned the police, but the way Nilsen spoke. He said he loved the young men he killed. When newspapers carried stories of how the 37-year-old lured men back to his flat and why, the nation was shocked by his sheer evil. Yet some psychiatrists considered him a man of rare, complex, and extreme psychological problems. In addition, none of them had met a killer who seemed so keen to understand his own psyche. Whilst on remand in Brixton Prison, Nilsen filled 55 exercise books with thoughts. During his subsequent 30 years in prison he has continued to write--most notably on the first draft of a multi-volume autobiography--which the Home Office has banned. Using exclusive access to Nilsen's writing and extensive independent research, Russ Coffey explains what Nilsen says and how much of it we can believe. This is a shocking glimpse into the mind of a killer.
Author: Brian Masters
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Michael Morley
Publisher: Coronet
ISBN: 1529371716
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Get Book Here
Book Description
For fans of ITV's 'Des', starring David Tennant as Dennis Nilsen. Only one TV interview with a serial killer has ever been recorded in a British jail and broadcast. This is the exclusive story of that dramatic event, carried out by award-winning documentary maker Mike Morley with Dennis Nilsen, then the country's most prolific murderer. In what became front page news, Morley overcame two eleventh hour government attempts (in the High Court and Court of Appeal) to stop ITV in the UK screening any extracts of the Nilsen interview. Controversially, the court ruled no more than 4 minutes of a four-hour interrogation should ever be shown. The Dennis Nilsen Tapes: In Jail with Britain's Most Infamous Serial Killer covers those full four hours, plus two days spent face to face with Nilsen in Albany Prison and two years of graphic correspondence and confessions from the infamous Scottish serial killer. With fresh insight from world famous psychological profilers and a leading pathologist, Morley completes almost three decades of investigation into what turned the former chef, policeman and civil servant into one of the world's most notorious murderers and necrophiles.
Author: Everest Media,
Publisher: Everest Media LLC
ISBN:
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 51
Get Book Here
Book Description
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I was born in 1945, after my mother had been divorced for her adultery. My sister, Sylvia, was born in 1947, and this event provided my mother with the grounds to finally divorce my father for his adultery. #2 I grew up in a small town in Scotland, surrounded by cold and hostility. I was raised by my mother, grandmother, and aunt, who were all very religious. I was often screamed at, and I cried a lot. #3 My grandfather, who had taken a liking to me, had a traumatic impact on my early development. He was a good man, but he had a secret life of sexual abuse that he couldn’t control. #4 I had lost the good aspect of my grandfather as well as the painful trauma of his abuse. I had wished him gone, and he had gone, leaving behind the stark memory of the uncertain fact of his disappearance. I was told that he was in heaven, but I knew not where that was.
Author: Brian Masters
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
ISBN: 9781529338911
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
________________________________________ AN UNSPEAKABLE CRIME When he was arrested in July 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer had a severed head in the refrigerator, two more in the freezer, two skulls and a skeleton in a filing cabinet. A DEPRIVED ACT But if anything could be more disturbing than the brute horror of this scene, it was the evidence that Dahmer had been using these human remains not only for sexual gratification, but as part of a dark ritual of his own devising -- to furnish a shrine to himself. A KILLER, BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING ________________________________________ The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer offers a chilling insight into the mind of a serial killer and reveals the horrors within. Perfect for fans of Making a Murderer, Mindhunter and The Ted Bundy Tapes, this is a gripping and gruesome read that delves into the mind of a murder and what possesses someone to kill. __________ By the author of Killing for Company, which was adapted into the hit ITV true crime drama DES, starring David Tennant. __________ PRAISE FOR THE SHRINE OF JEFFREY DAHMER: 'Irresistible. . . . It's subject is terrible and repellent. But the study itself is enlightening' Independent 'Unputdownable' Patricia Highsmith 'The persuasive account of a young man spiraling into unspeakable insanity . . . fascinating'Daily Telegraph
Author: Ian Brady
Publisher: Feral House
ISBN: 1627310142
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 487
Get Book Here
Book Description
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley's spree of torture, sexual abuse, and murder of children in the 1960s was one of the most appalling series of crimes ever committed in England, and remains almost daily fixated upon by the tabloid press. In The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady himself allows us a glimpse into the mind of a murderer as he analyzes a dozen other serial crimes and killers. Criminal profiling by a criminal was not invented by the dramatists of Dexter. Novelist and true-crime writer Colin Wilson, author of the famous and influential book The Outsider, remarks in his introduction to Brady's book that one must first explore the depraved reaches of human consciousness to truly understand human character. When first released in 2001, The Gates of Janus sparked controversy attended by a huge media splash. The new edition, the first in paperback, provides the reader with a decade and a half of updates, including Brady's letters to the publisher, both providing information regarding his own demented history along with demands that Feral House remove its unflattering afterword written by author Peter Sotos.
Author: Jack Teich
Publisher: Bombardier Books
ISBN: 1642935247
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 179
Get Book Here
Book Description
The New York Times described what happened to New York businessman Jack Teich as a “front page horror.” Two hundred FBI agents and Nassau County police officers combined forces to form a dragnet, hunt for his kidnappers, and rescue him. Teich lay handcuffed and chained to the walls of a closet in the Bronx with a medical bandage wrapped around his head to cover his eyes. His captors demanded that his wife, Janet, drop a bag with $750,000 (the equivalent of four million dollars in today’s currency) in a locker at Penn Station, making the Jack Teich ransom one of the highest in U.S. history at the time. FBI and Nassau County police detectives spent over a year before finally uncovering the meticulously planned kidnapping ploy hatched by radical mastermind Richard Warren Williams. The FBI internally dubbed the Jack Teich kidnapping operation “Jacknap.” The real-life crime drama that followed proved stranger than fiction, involving a tense across-the-country manhunt, a trailer in California stuffed with tens of thousands of ransom dollars hidden inside, a contentious jury trial that dominated NYC headlines for months; a guilty verdict that was overturned twenty-one years later on a controversial technicality; a retrial stymied by a mysterious fire that incinerated court records; and a civil verdict ruling that the kidnapper pay Jack Teich back the ransom money, plus interest. Operation Jacknap tells the incredible true crime story that continues even now. Indeed, as of this writing, no one knows where the majority of the ransom money is located. Inside, Teich also details his offer of a reward to anyone helping track down the still missing money and kidnappers.
