David Fuller: Double murder accused abused corpses, court told
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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".
Warning: this article contains information some people may find distressing.
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.
'Unimaginable sexual depravity'
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.
The footage, which Mr Fuller filmed himself, showed him moving the bodies into positions, onto and off gurneys, and performing sexual acts on "females of significantly varying ages", the court heard.
Mr Atkinson said the footage, filmed on a small digital camera, amounted to "library of unimaginable sexual depravity".
The court was told the offences were committed on days when Mr Fuller was working and had legitimate access to the mortuary with a swipe card.
Mr Atkinson said Mr Fuller had then gone back to name his images using ledgers from the mortuary and identification tags on the bodies.
"He admitted to searching for them on the internet, including on Facebook," Mr Atkinson said, "he claimed that this would be after the offending, rather than research before offending."
Mr Atkinson told the jury: "The defendant was interviewed about this conduct in January 2021. He accepted committing the offences."
"He said he wanted to admit the offences, but that he did not want to go into detail."
"He said he did not know on how many occasions it had taken place, didn't know why he had started, and couldn't remember the first time he did it, but he accepted that he had sexually interfered with the corpses, and had recorded himself doing it."
His sexual gratification from the dead, Mr Atkinson said, "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."
Both Ms Knell and Ms Pierce were also sexually abused at the time of, or after their deaths, the jury heard.
Neither assault on the women was "frenzied", the court heard.
Ms Knell, 25, was killed in her home in Guildford Road on 23 June 1987 after being dropped off by her boyfriend.
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.
Ms 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.
'Irrefutable' evidence
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 Ms 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.
Items under Ms Knell's bedsit window, through which entry had been made to her home, had not been disturbed, and none of the other occupants of the building had heard any disturbance.
'Methodical'
He later spied on a woman in a bathroom using a camera hidden in a pen.
He told police he "knew that it was voyeurism and that it wasn't allowed" but "wanted to see her naked", the jury was told.
Like the files from the mortuary, he systematically labelled the videos and stored them in a digital library.
Mr Atkinson said Mr Fuller's mindset was "methodical, ordered, controlled".
He 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".
In a police interview, Mr Fuller said he had been sexually traumatised when he was four or five years old and other events in his life had made him depressed, the court heard.