David Fuller: England’s worst corpse desecrator

David Fuller is a name that continues to evoke horror and revulsion not only in the UK but around the world. This former electrician committed some of the most shocking crimes in modern British history. His gruesome deeds went undetected for decades until the truth finally came to light, revealing the full extent of his crimes. In 2021, David Fuller was convicted of the murders of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce, whom he had murdered in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1987. The two women were attacked in their apartments, strangled, and sexually abused before their bodies were left behind. These horrific crimes became known as the “Bedsit Murders.” Although Fuller’s DNA had already been identified in 2007 during a review of cold cases, many years passed before a match was finally found with samples from the case and Fuller could be identified as the perpetrator. It was not until 2020 that an analysis led to his final arrest. But Fuller’s dark secrets went far beyond these murders. In addition to his murder charges, he also received an additional 12-year sentence for offenses in mortuaries. Fuller had molested the corpses of more than 100 women over the years while working as an electrician at Kent and Sussex Hospital. These heinous acts also took place at the successor hospital, Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, which replaced the original hospital. In 1987, two murders of young women within a few months in the town of Tunbridge Wells in the county of Kent shocked the whole of England. On June 3, 1987, 25-year-old Wendy Knell did not show up for work as a manager at the SupaSnaps photo shop, so her employer, unable to reach Wendy, contacted her boyfriend Ian. Ian had last seen Wendy alive on June 2, 1987, when he dropped her off at her ground-floor apartment at 14 Guilford Road at around 11:15 p.m. When Ian drove to Wendy’s apartment, he found her lying dead in her bed. Wendy was completely naked and had been brutally beaten, strangled, and sexually abused. Her killer had entered the small one-room apartment, which Wendy had moved into after her painful separation from her husband, through an open window. In addition to Wendy’s diary and set of keys, her collection of model trains, which she had purchased at the “Bits and Pieces” store where she was a regular customer, was also missing. Apart from a bloody fingerprint on a shopping bag, a bloody footprint on the cuff of one of Wendy’s white blouses, and traces of semen on Wendy’s bedspread and on her body, there were no clues as to the perpetrator’s identity. However, the day before Wendy’s murder, an unknown man had rung the doorbell of a 19-year-old woman whose apartment was only 50 meters away from Wendy’s apartment and instructed her to close her windows, especially in the bedroom. The police compiled a description of the man based on the young woman’s statements. Just a few months later, on November 24, 1987, 20-year-old Carolie Pierce disappeared from her apartment in Grosvenor Park. Caroline worked as a waitress at the trendy restaurant Buster Brown’s. Three weeks later, her body was discovered by a tractor driver 64 kilometers from her home, naked except for her tights, in a field in Romney Marsh in a ditch filled with water. Since Caroline Pierce had similar injuries to Wendy Knell and had also been strangled and sexually abused, the police assumed that she had been killed by the same man who had murdered Wendy Knell. The investigation was in full swing and the police secured a semen sample from Caroline’s tights. Years passed without any clues about the mysterious double murderer. However, thanks to advances in forensic technology, investigators re-examined the DNA samples in 1998. But there was no matching hit in the database. In 2019, however, forensic experts had developed a new technique for extracting DNA from semen samples, such as those found on Caroline Pierce’s pantyhose. For this, familial DNA technology was used. The database was searched for individuals whose DNA matched the DNA found on Caroline Pierce’s tights in order to find possible relatives of the perpetrator. The closest match was found in a man named Fuller, whose DNA was registered in the police database in 2012. His family tree was then examined, focusing on relatives. This led to his 63-year-old brother, David Fuller. He was born on September 4, 1954, in the coastal town of Deal in Kent. David Fuller had completed an apprenticeship as an electrician and maintenance worker during his time at the naval dockyard in Portsmouth. He had been married three times. David Fuller was a passionate amateur ornithologist, cyclist, and photographer who even accompanied the rock band Cutting Crew on their 1985 tour as a photographer. After a DNA match was made between his DNA and the DNA secured at the crime scenes at the end of November 2020, he was arrested on December 3, 2020, for double murder. But the subsequent house search brought to light an even darker truth. David Fuller turned out to be a necrophiliac who, between 2005 and 2020, sexually abused over 100 women aged 9 to 100 in the morgues of Kent and Sussex Hospital and Tunbridge Wells Hospital, filming himself in the process. David Fuller, who had meticulously documented every aspect of his life in a diary and through invoices, was exposed by his videos on hard drives. The largest collection of child pornography in England was also discovered. David Fuller had worked in electrical maintenance at Kent and Sussex Hospital since 1987, and after its closure, he was transferred to Tunbridge Wells Hospital. He used his employee card to gain access to the morgue, where he sexually abused the corpses of women. David Fuller visited the morgue over 444 times a year without anyone suspecting that he was sexually abusing the female corpses. David Fuller initially denied the double murders. However, the evidence was overwhelming, so he eventually confessed. On December 15, 2021, David Fuller was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the double murder and desecration of corpses. This means that he will remain in prison for the rest of his life. But the legal consequences did not end there. In October 2021, David Fuller was charged with 16 additional offenses in morgues between 2007 and 2020. He pleaded guilty on November 3, 2022. David Fuller is currently serving his sentence at HMP Frankland high-security prison, where other notorious offenders such as Wayne Couzens and Michael Stone are also incarcerated. The revelations about David Fuller’s crimes caused nationwide shock and led to the establishment of the David Fuller Inquiry. In November 2021, Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced an independent inquiry to find out how Fuller was able to remain undetected for so long. The inquiry officially began in January 2022, chaired by Sir Jonathan Michael and assisted by Rebecca Chaloner. The David Fuller case will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the most sensational serial killer scandals. The brutality of his actions and the fact that he was able to carry out his crimes unnoticed for so many years raise serious questions about security measures and controls in medical facilities. The uncovering of his crimes will hopefully help the victims’ families find some comfort in the knowledge that justice has finally prevailed.