Necrophiliac double murderer David Fuller, 68, is jailed for another four years

Double murderer David Fuller, 68, has been given a further four years in prison at the Old Bailey for the ‘systematic’ sexual abuse of the bodies of women in hospital morgues in Tunbridge Wells.
The families of the women who were sexually abused in the death have described their ‘disgust’ at the ‘sick and twisted’ acts of double murderer David Fuller.
Fuller, 68, is already serving a life sentence for murdering Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in 1987 and was convicted of sexually abusing the corpses of 78 women and girls in Tunbridge hospital morgues. Wells.
He appeared at the Old Bailey today to be sentenced for a second installment of offenses against 23 other dead women.
David Fuller, 67, escaped justice for more than 30 years after murdering Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in Tunbridge Wells in 1987. In December 2020, DNA breakthroughs finally Police were led to Fuller’s home in Heathfield, East Sussex, where they found gruesome evidence that he had raped over 100 corpses of women in two hospital morgues where he worked.
Opening the facts, prosecutor Michael Bisgrove said Fuller had abused the bodies of at least 101 girls and women, although 10 of the victims had not been identified and were unlikely to have been.
Mr Bisgrove said: “The indictment reflects Mr Fuller’s course of conduct during his employment at two funeral homes during which he systematically and repeatedly abused the bodies of dead women and girls. He abused at least 101 women.
The daughter of one of the victims described in court how she felt when she found out about her mother’s abuse, saying: ‘Pain and emotional upset went through my body like a knife.
“He took advantage of her helplessness in death when we couldn’t protect her.”
Addressing the defendant in the dock, he said: ‘David, I want you to know how much damage you have caused, how your sick and twisted behavior has hurt families like mine.
“I am pleased that you are now held accountable for what you did just seven hours after she died.”
Two years ago, Fuller admitted to murdering Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in 1987 after severely beating and strangling them to death.
Both women, who lived alone in rooms in Tunbridge Wells in Kent, were sexually assaulted by the hospital’s former electrician as they were dying or after death.
Miss Knell’s body was discovered in her bed on June 23, 1987, while Miss Pierce, who was attacked just yards from her front door on November 24, was found three weeks later on November 15. December, wearing only a pair of tights, in a field 38 miles away. away in Romney, Kent.
Their gruesome deaths, dubbed the ‘bedroom murders’, became one of the longest unsolved double homicide cases in the UK.
The three-time married Fuller was finally arrested on December 3, 2020 after a breakthrough in DNA science identified a familial link to a relative in the national database.
But detectives only realized the true scope of his crimes when they discovered what prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC described as “a library of unimaginable sexual depravity” hidden in a cache in his home.
Stored on the hard drives were videos and photos Fuller had recorded of himself abusing dozens of women and girls over a 13-year period in hospital morgues, where he worked as a technical supervisor.
Married Fuller, who had been employed by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust since 1989, waited for morgue staff to finish their shifts before accessing the fridges where the bodies were stored.
The victims, some of whom the 68-year-old raped more than once, included three who were under the age of 18 at the time of death. Several others were said to be over the age of 85.
He then used death records to record their details in his own notebooks and even looked up some of his victims on Facebook.
He was still working for the NHS trust when he was arrested and had been given access to all areas of both hospitals via a swipe ID card.
Also on the hard drives were a staggering four million indecent images of children, mostly downloaded from the Internet.
Fuller, from Heathfield, East Sussex, initially denied the landmark murders on the grounds of diminished responsibility before unexpectedly changing his guilty plea amid dramatic scenes on the fourth day of his trial.
The depraved murderer was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
At the time of sentencing, 81 of the mortuary victims had been identified.
However, due to difficulties in identifying all the corpses he abused and fearing there are hundreds of others dating back to when Fuller’s hospital employment registration began, Kent Police set up a call center at the end of the trial to address any public concerns. .
The government also announced that an independent public inquiry would be held, while NHS England ordered all hospitals to review their safety.
Following Fuller’s conviction, the Kent and Essex Serious Crimes Bureau was able to identify a total of 101 victims.
The latest charges relate to the remaining 23 victims, all deceased adult women, whose corpses were abused between 2007 and 2020.
An extensive and complex identification process led officers to formally identify 13 of these 23 additional victims.
Police were unable to establish the identities of the other 10 victims, however the charges reflect crimes against all of them.
No evidence of further victims has been found.
- Any of the families who wish to speak with the Trust or access the victim support services that have been implemented should contact Victim Support Online at: www.victimsupport.org.uk or by calling the Support Line: 0808 1689111.