David Fuller

2 offences

What the court heard

He pleaded guilty to sexual interference with a corpse (relating to 23 victims) and possession of extreme pornography between 2007 and 2020. He is serving a whole life sentence for the murders of two women in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1987. Sentencing remarks of Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT Sentencing Remarks 1. In June and November 1987 you murdered two vibrant young women Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Those were sexually motivated killings. Despite an extensive and well publicised investigation, you were not identified. Indeed, you escaped detection until a 2019 scientific case review re-examined the DNA findings from the murder scenes. Following a vast deployment of police staff nationwide, to visit nearly 100 people and take samples to compare with those found 32 years earlier, the police arrived at your front door. A sample taken from you produced a DNA profile which matched that from the murders exactly. You were arrested on 3 December 2020. On 4 November 2021 you pleaded guilty to the murders, four days into your trial. 2. During the intervening forty plus years you had obtained work in maintenance. Firstly, at the Kent and Sussex Hospital where you were employed from January 1989 until July 2011. You then obtained the position of a maintenance supervisor at Pembury Hospital and you worked there until your arrest. I have no doubt you were wary of the risk of attempting to commit sexual offences which might be detected given the atmosphere of public alertness in the Tunbridge Wells area, after what had become known as the 'Bed-sit murders'. These employments gave you access to areas which are ordinarily out of bounds to the public; in particular, the mortuaries of both hospitals. You would pass through security by using your employee swipe card, when the mortuary staff had gone home from work. 3. Once inside the mortuary, hidden from CCTV surveillance, you were free to systematically and relentlessly sexually abuse the bodies of at least 101 dead women and girls. The youngest was aged 9, the oldest had reached 100 years before her death. Some were abused very shortly after they died. Many shortly before or after loved ones had been to see them. You photographed and filmed the acts you carried out using your own digital camera before transferring the images onto computer hard drives which you concealed at home. Evidence of your offending has been discovered dating back, to 2005, and as recently, as…

Around this case

• Central Criminal Court Crown Court
• Prosecuted by CPS South East
• Investigated by Kent Police