A necrophiliac whose crimes went undetected for nearly 15 years was enabled by “serious failings” at the U.K. hospitals where he sexually abused the corpses of more than 100 women and girls, a new report has found.
The inquiry was launched by the British government after David Fuller, now 69, was convicted in 2021 of two 1987 murders and sexual assaults of young women. While building their case in 2020, investigators searching his home and office found videos he took of the sexual abuse he committed in the mortuaries of two hospitals where he’d worked as an electrician.
It took 33 years to solve the murders of Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in the English town of Tunbridge Wells. By then, Fuller was already working at the Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, having spent several years at Kent and Sussex Hospital before that.
Between the years of 2007 and 2020, Fuller — who is serving life without parole for the 1987 murders — committed 140 violations against the bodies of at least 101 girls and women aged 9 to 100, the inquiry found. He documented the crimes and kept them on a hidden hard drive among millions of images of sexual abuse, including child porn.
“Over the years, there were missed opportunities to question Fuller’s working practices,” said inquiry chair Sir Jonathan Michael, according to The Guardian, as he announced the first round of findings on Tuesday. It was accompanied by 17 recommendations to shore up security in the future, reported BBC News.
Fuller was enabled by “serious failings” at the hospitals where he worked, the investigation found. For one thing, mortuary visitations were not well monitored, and Fuller apparently knew how to avoid surveillance cameras, though he made his own films.
He visited the mortuary 444 times in a single year, but that went “unnoticed and unchecked,” the inquiry found. Moreover, senior personnel were “aware of problems in the running of the mortuary from as early as 2008,” investigators said.
“The offenses that David Fuller committed were truly shocking,” read the 308-page inquiry report. “However, the failures of management, governance, regulation and processes, and a persistent lack of curiosity, all contributed to the creation of the environment in which he was able to offend. … David Fuller’s victims and their relatives were repeatedly let down by those at all levels whose job it was to protect and care for them.”
With News Wire Services