David Fuller, who killed Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce, abused 102 female corpses in two morgues.
Image source, Kent Police
A double murderer who sexually abused more than 100 female corpses has been sentenced to a whole-life term.
David Fuller, 67, killed Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells in 1987.
He also abused corpses, including children, in two Kent morgues over 12 years while working as a hospital electrician.
Families of the victims told Maidstone Crown Court that he was “an animal”, and “despicable, sick and twisted”.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told Fuller during sentencing: “There is so much sorrow in this community because of what you have done.
“Your actions go against everything that is right and humane. They are incomprehensible.
“You had no regard for the dignity of the dead.”
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In a victim impact statement read to the court, Ms Knell’s mother Pamela described her as a “thoughtful person who would do anything for anyone”.
“We’ve had to live with her loss with no other comfort for the rest of our lives,” Mrs Knell said.
“Since it happened I’ve never had a good night’s sleep.”
Image source, Kent Police
In a statement read to the court by a prosecutor, Katrina Frost, mother of Ms Pierce, said her murder had been a “truly horrific part of my life which became a nightmare which lasted 34 years and continues to this day”.
Fuller was an “an animal” who “returned to a normal life with his family” after the murder, she said.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced an independent inquiry in the wake of the case, to understand how Fuller was able to operate undetected by the hospital trust, and to look at the “national implications” of his offences.
Investigators said the case came together following recent advances in DNA testing – and a huge police operation costing £2.5m – which linked Fuller to the double killings, dubbed “the Bedsit Murders”.
Following his arrest for the murders in 2020, officers carrying out a search of his house in Heathfield, East Sussex, found footage Fuller had recorded of himself abusing corpses in the morgues.
Folders, some labelled with the names of the victims, contained images and videos of him molesting female bodies, including three children, between 2008 and November 2020.
Image source, Kent Police
Fuller worked in electrical maintenance at hospitals since 1989, and was at the Kent and Sussex Hospital until it closed in September 2011.
He was transferred to the Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury, where the offences continued until his arrest.
Investigators said Fuller would work late shifts and go into the morgue when other staff had left, often “visiting the same bodies repeatedly”.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC said: “David Fuller systematically and repeatedly sexually abused the bodies of dead women and girls.
“It is estimated over the course of his offending he abused at least 102 women.”
He said they included a nine-year-old girl, two 16-year-olds and a woman aged 100.
Image source, Kent Police
The mother of the nine-year-old girl read her victim impact statement to the court.
“She was the kindest and bravest person I have met,” she said.
“She was so so happy and grateful for life. Nothing you have done will change that forever,” she added, addressing Fuller directly.
Fuller, wearing a grey sweatshirt and black mask, looked down for most of the hearing, but raised his eyes when the mother addressed him.
A daughter talking about her mother told the court his actions were “despicable, sick and twisted”, and that it was hard to comprehend something “so immoral”.
“She was dead, vulnerable and not able to fend you off, but you preyed on her, on the day she died,” she said.
There is evidence Ms Knell was also raped during or after her death, the court previously heard.
Ms Knell was killed in her home in Guildford Road on 23 June 1987. She was found in her bed by her boyfriend the following day, after concerns were raised when she failed to turn up to work.
What happened to Ms Pierce after she was abducted from outside her home in Grosvenor Park on 24 November is less clear.
Neighbours reported hearing screaming, but it took three weeks for her body to be spotted by a farm worker, more than 40 miles away in Romney Marsh.
Fuller pleaded guilty to the murders in November while on trial.
He had previously admitted killing the women subject to “diminished responsibility”, but denied murder.
He also admitted 51 other offences, including 44 charges relating to more than 80 identified victims in the two mortuaries where he worked.
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