PEOPLE
How a Hospital Worker Who Sexually Abused 100 Corpses and Killed 2 Women Got Away with It for 30 Years
By Sean Neumann Published on October 20, 2024 06:00PM EDT
A British man was locked behind bars for the rest of his life in 2021, but his dozens upon dozens of “awful” crimes — including two murders — will “haunt” the families of his victims for the rest of their lives, they say.
For more than three decades, David Fuller, a necrophiliac murderer, believed he had gotten away with the 1987 murders of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce — along with sneaking off and sexually abusing corpses at his day job as an electrician at the Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, roughly 40 miles southeast of London, for what authorities believe to be decades.
Fuller’s crimes “will haunt me forever and the rest of my life,” said the mother of Fuller's 9-year-old victims while testifying at his 2021 sentencing, according to GBN News.
The sinister electrician is now 70 years old, three years into his lifetime prison sentence, and PEOPLE is looking back at how he was able to dupe his family as well as his employer and evade authorities for nearly half his life.
How He Was Caught
Weeks after investigations into the murders of Knell and Pierce began, the trail turned cold because authorities had no witnesses and the forensic capabilities of the late ‘80s were not advanced enough to build off DNA evidence collected at the scenes, according to Sky News’ account.
Knell, 25, was found naked and bloodied in her bed by her boyfriend in June 1987, while Pierce, 20, was discovered dead in her underwear in a flooded drain. Both women had been strangled and sexually assaulted, police determined. But there was no suspect.
But forensic advancements allowed cold case investigators to tie Fuller’s DNA to the crimes, according to GBN. And after Fuller was arrested, as The Guardian reported, investigators began to dig for more evidence in his home and made a shocking discovery.
'Millions' of Disturbing Photos
Investigators uncovered “millions” of photos and videos Fuller made of himself sexually abusing the corpses of more than an alleged 100 victims inside the computers and hard drives in his home office, according to BBC.
It was discovered that Fuller had been using his access card at the hospital to sneak into the morgue, which did not have CCTV out of respect for the victims inside, according to Sky News. Using that to his advantage, Fuller spent more than a decade between 2005 and 2020 abusing the bodies of deceased females — some as young as 9 years old, and others as old as 100, according to the outlet.
An inquiry into England’s National Health Services (NHS) found “serious failings” by the Tunbridge Wells Hospital, according to BBC, which allowed Fuller’s criminal activity “unnoticed and unchecked,” the head of the inquiry, Sir Jonathan Michael, said in the report.
The inquiry found that Fuller’s unmonitored activity allowed him to enter the morgue up to 444 times in a single year at one point, where he continued to abuse the bodies.
'Almost Impossible to Believe'
Fuller’s crimes left families of the victims in utter shock and disgust, as many testified at his 2022 sentencing — during which he received 16 additional years in prison, atop his life sentence for the murders he admitted to the year prior, according to The Guardian.
“David Fuller has tainted every single memory I have of my sister,” one victim’s brother said, according to the newspaper. “All I can think of is what he did to my sister when she was supposed to be resting.”
The family of Fuller’s 100-year-old victim said they will “have to live with this for the rest of our lives,” according to GBN.
According to the BBC, Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb, referencing the victims' families, told Fuller at sentencing: "They have been left in a dark place. They have expressed the outrage and revulsion that the women you abused would have felt at your objectivization of them."
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
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