In 1987, Wendy Knell hopped off the back of her boyfriend motorbike after finishing work. Her boyfriend, Ian Plass, rode off down the street when Wendy was grabbed by a man lurking in the shadows. The man had been waiting for her to return home.
Dragging Wendy into her bed sit, he bound and gagged her, raped her. Smashed her head in and then strangled the life out of the woman.
Ian discovered the scene the very next day, early in the morning, when her work called him to ask where she was. What seemed an interminable amount of time for the police to arrive. Ian sat looking at the gruesome scene. Wendy was clearly dead after following a horrific attack.
Five months later, a lone woman by the name of Caroline Pierce arrived home in a taxi late one night and within a stone’s throw of where Wendy was murdered. Caroline screamed just once as the man attacked but being quickly subdued and overpowered. It was fifteen days before the battered naked body of Caroline Pierce was found over forty miles away. Caroline’s body wore the horrific hallmarks of the same killer, the media jumping onto the bandwagon, naming the vile murderer as the bedsit killer.
The murders were so horrific, detectives hadn’t come across such a violent killer. Other murders who had since been arrested, tried, and found guilty were also interviewed. The like of Levi Bellfield, who was pinged for the brutal murder of Milly Dowler.
The events themselves overshadow the far-reaching impact of losing a child in these cases. What people can’t relate to is the effects these killings have on the immediate family.
The death of Wendy separated her parents. Her mother found it impossible to be out of the house and even 25 years later, her life was still in ruins.
Items from the victim were missing, in Wendy’s case, her key ring and diary went missing as well as a key ring from Caroline.
It convinced the police they were missing something. A killer who behaved in such an evolved way had to have cut their teeth on lesser violent crimes, and since the murder of Caroline, nothing.
Then in December 2020. With advancements in forensic technology, the cold case team in the Kent Constabulary had a lead. DNA from a convicted burglar had alerted the police there was a match to an unsolved killing’s 33 years ago. The death of these two women was still as fresh in the minds of the seasoned detectives who would have been junior constables.
Police knocked on the door of prime suspect, David Fuller. A 67-year-old electrician who worked for the NHS. When the police read Fuller about his rights, he claimed to know nothing about the murders.
In Wendy’s case, DNA left by the killer on her duvet was one billion times more likely to be convicted burglar David Fuller and DNA left on the tight of Caroline made him 160,000 times more likely.
When police entered Fullers residence, they uncovered more than what they bargained for.
Relating to the murders, evidence of Fuller visiting Buster Brown restaurant after the murder of Caroline, where she worked, added a macabre twist to the tale. Similar, with Wendy, photos of Fuller at the Supasnaps photo developing centre was also present.
And while these crimes were violent and sickening, police discovered something far more sickening, so sickening, the judge at Fullers trial commented ‘No British court has ever seen abuse on this scale against the dead before and I know he would still offend to this day had it not been for this painstaking investigation and prosecution.”
She said, ‘Fuller’s appalling crimes did not end with these killings and he abused his position of trust as a hospital electrician in the most grotesque manner imaginable.’
What police uncovered at Fullers residence nauseated even the most stoic of police officers. Offences against the dead.
Fuller, for over twenty years, had worked at a local NHS hospital as an electrician.
He would visit the mortuary and feign a reason for him to return in the evening when no one was there, so he could make repairs. Alone in the hospital mortuary, Fuller would engage in necrophiliac pursuits, videoing the sexual sodomisation of dead bodies. No age was preferred. From elderly cadavers to children. He would violate their bodies in such a way. Officers struggled to watch the insurmountable evidence against Fuller.
His computers yielded over four million downloaded images of sexual abuse and uploaded copious amounts of footage of Fuller having penetrative sex with dead people.
Three victims under the age of 18, charges of 44 counts of sexual assault of a dead body and a further 33 counts of sexual penetration of a corpse.
Other charges included separate images of child pornography and an offence of voyeurism relating to footage taken from his own home. The total tariff of charges, 78, were relating to dead bodies in the mortuary. All the bodies in the mortuary were identifiable. Making the duty of candour for the hospital Trust a grisly task.
Each family linked to the dead bodies had to be informed of the abuse levied by Fuller. The Trust having to apologies for the abuse and mistreatment of their loved ones after for some bodies had experienced a traumatic death.
The judge sent Fuller down for a whole life term for the murders of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce. A further twelve years for the mortuary offices.
Police never gave up. The preservation of evidence in these cases is critical.
What must be celebrated here was there on ongoing cold case investigation of the two women murdered in their prime. Justice finally prevailed. However, the grotesqueness of David Fuller is yet to be fully understood. Necrophilia is a niche fetish which doesn’t see the light of day.
I will monitor the airwaves for anything further as I think this will be a fascinating short book for my Murder in My Mind series.
Stay Frosty.
