UK: Man accused of double murder abused bodies in hospital mortuaries, court told

An electrician who sexually assaulted two women after killing them in 1987 performed similar sex acts on bodies at two hospital mortuaries, a court has heard.

David Fuller, 67, is accused of murdering Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

Fuller admits to killing the two women but has pleaded not guilty to murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

He also sexually assaulted women’s corpses in the mortuaries at Kent and Sussex Hospital and Tunbridge Wells Hospital while working there, Maidstone Crown Court heard.

Ms Knell was found dead in her apartment in Guildford Road on June 23, 1987.

Her body showed signs of blunt force trauma to the head, asphyxiation to the neck, and sexual assault after her death, the court heard.

Ms Pierce was killed five months later outside her home in Grosvenor Park, on November 24 of the same year.

Her naked body was later discovered in a water-filled dyke at St Mary-in-the-Marsh on December 15, 1987.

DNA evidence from both women’s bodies links Fuller to their killings.

There were reports of “prowler activity” in the lead-up to both women’s deaths, with locals reporting a voyeur looking through their windows.

Fuller was arrested for murder on December 3, 2020, following a new analysis of decades-old DNA evidence, and officers searched his home.

There they found images of dead women at the two hospital mortuaries being abused by Fuller, Mr Atkinson QC said.

Officers then found four hard drives with five terabytes of data storage in total attached to the back of a cupboard.

“When these hard drives were examined, they were found to contain a library of unimaginable sexual depravity”, Mr Atkinson QC said.

“There were both photographs and videos which showed the defendant sexually abusing female corpses in the mortuaries of the two hospitals at which he worked, first the Kent and Sussex Hospital, where he worked full time from 1989, and then the Tunbridge Wells Hospital, to which he moved in 2010”, he said.

The court heard that the images show Fuller performing acts of sexual penetration on women of “significantly varying” ages.

In a police interview, Fuller admitted to using Facebook to search for photos of the people he abused in the mortuary.

In relation to identifying and naming the files containing images of his offending against dead people, he said that he had gone back to name them at a later stage, using the ledgers from the mortuary and identification tags on the bodies, Mr Atkinson QC said.

He added: “He admitted to searching for them on the internet, including on Facebook. He claimed that this would be after the offending, rather than research before offending.”

Mr Atkinson QC said these images provided evidence that Fuller committed the acts out of “sexual gratification” and not a mental illness.

“It shows the defendant to derive sexual gratification from sexual activity with those who have died,” he said.

He added: “It, therefore, provides a reason for the killings, however deviant and repellent, that does not depend on an explanation of mental illness that deprived the defendant of his self-control.”

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Retrieved directly from Independent

Featured Image: Wendy Knell (left) and Caroline Pierce (right). Composite: Kent police/PA Media