Nilsen later stated that, following a heated argument in May 1977, he demanded Gallichan leave the residence.

Austin told Vice that he became aware of the serial killer when he read Brian Masters’ 1985 book about Nilsen, Killing for Company. By late-1978 he was living a solitary existence; he had experienced at least three failed relationships in the previous eighteen months, and he later confessed to having developed an increasing conviction that he was unfit to live with. While en route to the police station, Nilsen was asked whether the remains in his flat belonged to one person or two.

As a result, he was an unpopular inmate with successive governors at the various prisons in which he was incarcerated. He bragged of this sexual encounter to his colleagues, but later stated he found intercourse with a female both "over-rated" and "depressing". Nilsen, who died in 2018, was a necrophile and one of the UK’s most prolific serial killers who targeted gay and homeless men. Nilsen passed the entrance examinations and received official notification he was to enlist for nine years' service in September 1961, commencing his training with the Army Catering Corps at St. Holmes' bound corpse remained beneath the floorboards for almost eight months, before Nilsen built a bonfire in the garden behind his flat and burned the body on 11 August 1979.

At Nilsen's flat, Sinclair fell asleep in a drug- and alcohol-induced stupor in an armchair as Nilsen sat listening to the rock opera Tommy. Nilsen then led Stottor to a nearby railway station, where he informed the young man he hoped they might meet again before he bade him farewell.Nilsen engaged Stottor in conversation, discovering he was depressed following a failed relationship. When Nilsen enquired as to Barlow's welfare, he was informed the medication Barlow was prescribed for his epilepsy had caused his legs to weaken. No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins.