Killer Dennis Nilsen's body releaed for funeral after inquest opened

Nilsen, who is believed to have killed as many as 15 young men, died in hospital in York aged 72 on Saturday after serving 34 years of a life sentence.

The serial killer, who was an inmate at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire, was taken to York District Hospital on Thursday, May 10, after complaining of stomach pains, an inquest at Hull Coroners Court heard on Friday.

Coroner’s officer Gary Lynch said he was found to have a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm which was repaired but he then suffered an blood clot as a complication of the surgery.

Mr Lynch said Nilsen died on May 12 after his condition deteriorated.

He said that a subsequent post-mortem examination showed that the mass murderer’s immediate cause of death was pulmonary embolism and retroperitoneal haemorrhage.

He said the underlying causes of this were deep vein thrombosis and “abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture repair”.

East Riding of Yorkshire coroner Professor Paul Marks said that, as Nilsen’s family had not requested a second post-mortem examination, the body could be released.

He said: “I’m happy to sign the paperwork for Dennis Nilsen’s body to be returned to his next of kin for funeral arrangements to be made.”

Prof Marks adjourned the five-minute long hearing saying a date for the full inquest had yet to be fixed.

Nilsen became known as the Muswell Hill murderer after he carried out a murderous spree of near-unparalleled savagery in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Scottish murderer is believed to have killed as many as 15 men, most of them homeless homosexuals, at his north London home.

After luring his victims to their death, Nilsen would often sit with their corpses for days before dismembering them.

His warped crimes were only detected by chance - when a drain outside his home on Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, became blocked by the human remains he had tried to flush away.

He was jailed for life with a recommendation he serve a minimum of 25 years in 1983, on six counts of murder and two of attempted murder.

This was later upgraded to a whole-life tariff.

Nilsen’s house of horrors in Muswell Hill has been on the market several times since and is still occupied today, with flowers visible in the attic window.

A spokesman for the Prison Service said earlier this week that, as with all deaths in custody, there will be an independent investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.