Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago
When Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay and his police colleagues arrived at 23 Cranley Gardens to investigate a report of human remains blocking the drains, he could not have imagined that he had stumbled across a serial killer, let alone one of the most prolific known serial killers in British history. Asked by Jay's colleague Steve McCusker whether he had killed one or two people, Scottish-born Dennis 'Des' Andrew Nilsen's reply stunned both Jay and McCusker: '15 or 16.'
Please note that this programme was made in 1993:
1) Nilsen died in 2018. Aged 72, he was still serving his life sentence.
2) Nilsen's first victim, the Irish teenager, was identified as 14-year-old Stephen Dean Holmes in 2006. He was the 8th and final victim to be identified, as of 2020. The other 7 that Nilsen originally admitted to killing remain unidentified to this day, and Nilsen himself later claimed that he actually 'only' killed 12 people.
3) Carl Stottor, the 'female impersonator', passed away in 2013. He was 52. Tragically, Stottor was never able to escape the trauma of his near-death experience.
4) DCI Peter Jay passed away in 2017. He was 79.
5) The autobiography by Nilsen mentioned in this video, 'History of a Drowning Boy', was finally published in February 2021 after many years of being blocked by the Home Office.
This is a TV recording, and is thus missing about 3 minutes of footage. Quality is also a bit poorer than the DVD releases.
If you are interested in this case, you are highly encouraged to watch the ITV docudrama series 'Des' and to read the book 'Killing for Company' by Brian Masters.
When Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay and his police colleagues arrived at 23 Cranley Gardens to investigate a report of human remains blocking the drains, he could not have imagined that he had stumbled across a serial killer, let alone one of the most prolific known serial killers in British history. Asked by Jay's colleague Steve McCusker whether he had killed one or two people, Scottish-born Dennis 'Des' Andrew Nilsen's reply stunned both Jay and McCusker: '15 or 16.'
Please note that this programme was made in 1993:
1) Nilsen died in 2018. Aged 72, he was still serving his life sentence.
2) Nilsen's first victim, the Irish teenager, was identified as 14-year-old Stephen Dean Holmes in 2006. He was the 8th and final victim to be identified, as of 2020. The other 7 that Nilsen originally admitted to killing remain unidentified to this day, and Nilsen himself later claimed that he actually 'only' killed 12 people.
3) Carl Stottor, the 'female impersonator', passed away in 2013. He was 52. Tragically, Stottor was never able to escape the trauma of his near-death experience.
4) DCI Peter Jay passed away in 2017. He was 79.
5) The autobiography by Nilsen mentioned in this video, 'History of a Drowning Boy', was finally published in February 2021 after many years of being blocked by the Home Office.
This is a TV recording, and is thus missing about 3 minutes of footage. Quality is also a bit poorer than the DVD releases.
If you are interested in this case, you are highly encouraged to watch the ITV docudrama series 'Des' and to read the book 'Killing for Company' by Brian Masters.
