Serial killer Dennis Nilsen murdered at least 12 young men and boys, but some of his victims survived – including Carl Stotter.
There is renewed interest in Nilsen after David Tennant’s Des, a true crime drama exploring the aftermath of his killing spree, dropped on Netflix.
Played by Laurie Kynaston in the series, Stotter survived Nilsen’s attack and later testified against him in court. During the trial, he delivered one of the case’s most haunting quotes: “That’s what I don’t understand. Is he my murderer or my saviour?”
Stotter died in 2013, but for those catching up with the show on Netflix, there’s a rare video interview with him on YouTube where he recounts his experience with Nilsen.
Dennis Nilsen survivor Carl Stotter details terrifying encounter
Originally airing on ITV in 2003 as part of the Real Crime docu-series, the video features Stotter recounting exactly what happened when he met Nilsen.
“I was 21 when he tried to kill me,” he recalls.
“He invited me back to his place. We got into a cab and went to Cranley Gardens. We had a couple of drinks and we were listening to some music; I think it was Laurie Anderson’s O Superman.”
When Stotter walked into the house, he noticed there was a slight smell. He attributed it to Nilsen’s age and the fact that he had a dog, and didn’t think much else of it.
“Obviously, what I didn’t realise was that there were decaying bodies in the house,” he says in the video.
They went to bed together, and Nilsen told him to be careful with the sleeping bag zip, “because [he] might get caught up in it”.
“I woke up with the sleeping bag zip around my neck, and as I put my hands up to feel where the pressure was coming from, I thought Nilsen was trying to help me out,” he explains.
“The next thing I remember is being immersed in cold water, which was when he tried to drown me.”
Carl Stotter reveals why Dennis Nilsen let him live
But Stotter didn’t die. When he came to, Nilsen told him he had to put him in cold water because he was in shock.
He let Stotter leave and, when he got to the hospital, the doctor told him somebody had tried to kill him. “The thing is… if somebody’s going to try and kill you, they’re not going to let you walk out of their house,” he says in the documentary.
It wasn’t until three months later that Stotter started to piece together what happened to him. “I was told afterwards that he had actually given me heart massage and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” he says.
Nilsen claimed it was because “what passed between [them] was a thin strand of love and humanity.”
“The police said it was simply because there wasn’t enough room in the flat to have another body,” Stotter explains.
“It was his intention to kill me. He went out to look for a victim, and he found one.”
Read more: Exploring the victims of UK serial killer Dennis Nilsen in The Nilsen Files
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