'Bedsit Murders' killer confesses to raping and abusing more than 100 bodies in mortuary

The Double-murder case of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce, famously known as the "Bedsit Murders," has been solved after over three decades.

Knell 25, and Pierce, 20, both from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were beaten and fatally strangled. Knell was found dead at her flat in June 1987, and Pierce's naked body was discovered in a field three weeks later by a farm worker around 40 miles away. The case became known as the "Bedsit Murders" because both women lived alone in flats.

The cold case was reopened after detectives carried out a review of the national DNA database and the crime scene DNA was partially linked to the culprit's brother. The criminal David Fuller, a hospital electrician, was a billion to one match to the crime scene DNA, reports The Mirror.

The 67-year-old admitted to his crimes midway through a trial at Maidstone Crown Court last week, and will now spend the rest of his life in jail. During the trial, Fuller was found to have committed several other unspeakable crimes, including rape and sexual abuse of more than 100 bodies at the mortuary of the hospitals where he worked.

A search of his home led to images of women's corpses in the mortuaries of Kent and Sussex hospital and Tunbridge Wells hospital. Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC told the jury, "His desire for sexual gratification through the observation and identification of vulnerable women, gaining control of them, and then indulging his depraved sexual predilections in relation to them, all provides the explanation in relation to their murder."

Fuller has pleaded guilty to the 51 counts of necrophilia over the images found at his home, but police suspect that the numbers will possibly cross 100 stretching back to the pre-digital era where he was not able to record his crimes.

Sentencing for the murders and the necrophilia will take place at a later date. DI Garry Cook, who arrested Fuller, said that the criminal did not look surprised at his arrest and there was no obvious denial.

Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Ivan Beasly who broke the news of his arrest to the victims' families said that it was a "real" and "genuine" shock for them that the killer was found. Beasly said, "They had thought this day would never come. Clearly it has brought back a huge amount of emotion, trauma and grief."