David Fuller is accused of murdering Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in 1987.
Image source, KENT POLICE
A man who admitted killing two women in 1987 abused female corpses in two hospital morgues, a court has been told.
David Fuller, 67, of Heathfield, East Sussex, attacked Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in Tunbridge Wells.
Mr Fuller previously admitted killing them subject to “diminished responsibility”, but denied murder.
A jury at Maidstone Crown Court heard he had “depraved sexual predilections”.
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Mr Fuller worked as an electrician at the Kent and Sussex Hospital from 1989, before moving to the Tunbridge Wells Hospital in 2010.
Duncan Atkinson QC for the prosecution said he used the access his job gave him to enter both hospital mortuaries and “carry out acts of sexual penetration of female corpses”.
His “clear sexual interest in such bizarre and grossly repellent activity provides a unique and terrible link between him” and the deaths of the two women, Mr Atkinson said.
During Mr Fuller’s arrest for the two killings, police searched his home and found “a number of hard drives and hard copy images, carefully concealed and stored at his home” which catalogued the abuse carried out at the mortuaries.
Image source, KENT POLICE
Both Ms Knell and Ms Pierce were sexually abused at the time of, or after their deaths, the jury heard.
Miss Knell, 25, was killed in her home in Guildford Road on 23 June 1987 after being dropped off by her boyfriend, Ian Plass.
She was found the following day, after concerns were raised when she failed to turn up to work.
She had been struck to the head with a blunt heavy object and strangled, possibly “by an arm lock”, the court heard.
Miss Pierce, 20 was abducted from outside her home in Grosvenor Park on 24 November.
Neighbours reported hearing screaming, but it was three weeks before her almost naked body was found more than 40 miles away in Romney Marsh.
She had almost identical injuries to Ms Knell.
It was not until 2021, when the techniques of forensic science had improved, that it was possible to compare the DNA found on and around the women with the DNA profile of Mr Fuller.
His saliva and other DNA was found on Ms Knell’s bedding, a towel and intimate samples.
His semen was also found on Miss Pierce’s tights, the only item of clothing she was wearing when her body was found in a water-filled dyke.
A shoeprint in Ms Knell’s blood is also a match for a pair of Clarks Sportstrek trainers Mr Fuller owned.
The evidence “irrefutably links David Fuller, his fingerprints and his DNA, to the bodies”, Mr Atkinson said.
Addressing the jury, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said they should focus “not on whether he did what is alleged, but if he should be held responsible for it”.
At the time of the women’s deaths, there had been numerous reports of “prowlers and voyeurs” in the area, with a similar description to Mr Fuller, the jury was told.
One report was made on the night Ms Knell died, and Ms Pierce also reported a prowler outside her home in October.
Mr Fuller had “a history of such behaviour, looking through people’s windows”, Mr Atkinson said, and had entered people’s homes through insecure windows before, which saw him convicted for burglary in the 1970s.
Mr Atkinson said Mr Fuller was “a killer thinking about his actions, taking precautions and taking care. Put another way, a killer who had his wits about him, rather than being mentally unfit”.
Items under the Ms Knell’s window, through which entry had been made to her home, had not been disturbed.
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