Twisted sex killer David Fuller may have even MORE victims, police warn
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Father-of-four Fuller, 67, is facing a whole-life term behind bars after he admitted murdering Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, 34 years ago and 51 other offences including 44 relating to sex abuse of corpses and others such as possessing extreme porn, downloading indecent images of children and voyeurism after he filmed a female acquaintance with a spy pen camera over a prolonged period.
Detectives revealed he had assaulted at least 100 dead women and girls while working as an electrician at the now-closed Kent and Sussex Hospital from 1989 until 2010, when he moved to Tunbridge Wells Hospital until his arrest last December.
To those who knew three times married Fuller, he appeared a respectable family man keen on birdwatching, cycling and photography.
Yet, when police investigating the Bedsit murders, after he was linked to the killings through new familial DNA techniques last year, searched his house they discovered hidden computer hard drives, CDs, and floppy discs with 14 million images of sex offences, included footage him sexually assaulting dead bodies in two morgues.
Detectives also uncovered diaries in which he had handwritten details of his victims in hospital with his oldest victim 100 and the youngest aged just nine.
Yesterday police said there is an ongoing investigation looking at unsolved murders and sex attacks in areas the 67-year-old has lived or worked since the 1970s when he was convicted of a string of burglaries.
Detective Chief Superintendent Paul Fotheringham said: “Since Fuller was identified as a suspect, The Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate has undertaken one of biggest investigations in the force’s history.
“Part of this investigation has been to try and understand what drove Fuller to commit such violent and appalling acts and clearly we have also had to consider the possibility that he could be responsible for further violent and sexual offences over the past 30 to 40 years.
“The investigation remains ongoing and is hugely complex, with many challenges and includes collaboration with other police forces, but at this stage there is no evidence to connect Fuller to any other murder victims.”
TV criminologist Professor David Wilson, who has researched what motivates necrophilia, said: “It is logical for police to check the timeline of where he worked and where he lived and other unsolved murders and crimes that correspond to that timeline and using the DNA now available.”
He suspects that sex with the dead may have been Fuller’s primary motivation, rather than murder, which could have driven him to seek out the NHS job, so it is possible there may not have been other murders.
Although he has not worked on the Fuller case, he theorised what could have driven Fuller’s deranged acts.
He said: “With the murders the sex abuse was after the poor women had died.
“What could make sense of the escalation in behaviour is that he seemed to find the opportunity to abuse dead bodies.
“His job allowed him to access more dead bodies without killing.
“I worked with a couple of people convicted of necrophilia.
“They want to try to create a perverted intimacy that is often as a consequence that they fear they will be rebuked, rejected or ridiculed if they engage in the behaviour they want to with someone alive, sentient and feeling.
“Some want to kill and have sex after, while some want just to engage with dead bodies without having to kill, but it goes back to the perverted intimacy of creating a relationship of total control.”
The trust has launched an independent investigation to discover why Fuller wasn’t detected sooner.
It comes as Tunbridge NHS Trust said its Chief Executive Miles Scott would continue in post after relatives of those Fuller violated demanded to know how he was able to get away with the sickening offences for so long and it emerged he was able to keep his job after a 2015 CRB check revealed he had a string of burglary convictions he earlier failed to disclose.
Mr Scott refused to comment on how Fuller had done undetected.
A trust spokesman said: “Miles feels it would be inappropriate to comment while the independent investigation is ongoing so won’t be saying anything more until it concludes.”
It has emerged that Fuller was able to satisfy his lust for dead bodies after hospital chiefs and regulators failed to learn lessons in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, after he died in 2011.
Sources said Fuller had denied having any criminal record when he got the Tunbridge job, but this was never checked out until he was forced to undergo a criminal record check in 2015.
It revealed he had convictions for burglaries in the 1970s, but was allowed to keep his job with an “access all areas” hospital swipe card.
His last victim was abused in November last year, five years after his criminal past emerged.
The CRB check came about after health chiefs ordered stricter vetting of staff in the wake of revelations Savile had sexually assaulted patients for decades at both Leeds General Infirmary and Stoke Mandeville Hospital where he had unrestricted access working as a volunteer.
However, guidelines on the use of security cameras in mortuaries remained at the discretion of individual NHS trusts.
The Human Tissue Authority (HTA), the watchdog that oversees licensing organisations, has “no policy” on CCTV within mortuaries and its use inside sensitive areas is “an operational decision for individual trusts”.
A desire to protect the “dignity of the deceased” means areas where post-mortem examinations take place are not routinely covered by CCTV.
A source said: “Savile was regarded as a one-off. It’s as if no one could believe an individual could be so depraved, so there was no chance of it happening again.
“As a result no one took any decisive action and the dignity of the deceased remained paramount.
“Sadly Savile wasn’t a one-off and Fuller showed no respect for the dead. It’s unlikely now that the guidelines will remain unchanged.”
Three years ago, while Fuller was still offending, an HTA inspection found no areas of concern at the Tunbridge facility.
An HTA spokeswoman said: “We are all completely shocked by these crimes and we understand how distressing they are for the families.”
On Friday a helpline for distraught relatives who believe their loved ones could have been violated after their death received more than 200 calls in the first 24 hours.
Kent Police say they will never know how many women and girls Fuller violated, but they admit it could be hundreds more.
His third wife Mala Fuller, 50, who married him in Barbados in 1999 and had a son with him, only learnt the truth about her husband after his arrest.
She said on Friday: “I’m not with him. I couldn’t carry on in that relationship. I’m too upset to even think about what was going on, I couldn’t live with it.”
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