A DOUBLE murderer who sexually abused dozens of corpses in hospital mortuaries is facing a life sentence.

David Fuller, from Heathfield, beat and strangled Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, to death before sexually assaulting them in two separate attacks in 1987.

He was caught 33 years later after a DNA breakthrough and a search of his home revealed he had recorded himself abusing bodies in the mortuaries of hospitals.

The 67-year-old pleaded guilty to murdering the two women at his trial at Maidstone Crown Court.

He also pleaded guilty to 51 other offences, including 44 charges relating to 78 identified victims, including three children, in mortuaries between 2008 and November 2020.

The Argus: Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce

They include the sexual penetration of a corpse, possessing an extreme pornographic image involving sexual interference with a corpse and taking indecent images of children.

Fuller filmed himself carrying out the attacks inside the now-closed Kent and Sussex Hospital and the Tunbridge Wells Hospital, where he worked in electrical maintenance roles since 1989.

Investigators have so far detected around 100 potential victims but admitted all their identities may never be known.

The government has announced an independent inquiry into how Fuller went undetected and promised to look at the maximum sentence for necrophilia, which is currently two years in jail.

Fuller faces mandatory life sentences for the murders and could be handed a whole life order when Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb QC passes sentence on Wednesday, December 15.

Ms Knell was found dead in her apartment in Guildford Road on June 23, 1987, while Ms Pierce was snatched five months later outside her home in Grosvenor Park, on November 24.

Her naked body was discovered in a water-filled dyke at St Mary-in-the-Marsh on December 15.

Fuller was arrested for what have been dubbed the “Bedsit Murders” on December 3 last year following new analysis of decades-old DNA evidence, which linked him to the killings.

Images of him attacking corpses were discovered when officers searched his three-bedroom semi-detached home in the town of Heathfield, East Sussex, where he lived with his family.

Images of dead women at the two hospital mortuaries being abused by Fuller were also found at his home, where officers also discovered four hard drives with five terabytes of data storage in total attached to the back of a cupboard.

“When these hard drives were examined, they were found to contain a library of unimaginable sexual depravity”, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC told the court.

In a police interview, Fuller admitted to using Facebook to search for photos of the people he abused in the mortuary.

In a statement, Ms Knell’s family said: “For 34 years we, as a family, the police and press have been focusing on what actually happened to Wendy, wanting to know who did it and how she spent her last moments alive.

“We now know and sadly it is much worse than we could ever have imagined.

“Hopefully, we can now start to grieve and move past the pain, and start to remember her as the beautiful, kind, generous, caring, funny girl she was.

“She had a smile and a kind word for everyone.”

The statement added: “Although the guilty plea won’t change anything deep down as the pain and loss will always be there, it’s good knowing he will not be in a position to hurt or cause any more pain.”