A MAN who killed two women in 1987 took photos of dead bodies at two hospital mortuaries, a court has heard.

David Fuller, 67, from Heathfield, is standing trial at Maidstone Crown Court accused of murders of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce.

Their deaths, in Tunbridge Wells, went unsolved for more than three decades.

Fuller has admitted to killing the two women but denies the charge of murder on grounds of diminished responsibility.

Ms Knell was found dead in her apartment in Guildford Road on June 23, 1987.

The court heard that her body showed signs of blunt force trauma to the head, asphyxiation to the neck and sexual assault after her death.

Ms Pierce was killed five months later outside her home in Grosvenor Park on November 24, with her naked body discovered in a water-filled dyke.

DNA evidence from both bodies link Fuller to their killing.

Speaking for the prosecution, Duncan Atkinson QC said that Fuller had a “particular interest” in the sexual assault of dead women.

He said evidence found during a search of Fuller’s home showed he had taken images of women’s corpses in the mortuaries of Kent and Sussex Hospital and Tunbridge Wells Hospital.

Mr Atkinson QC told the jury that the prosecution’s case is that Fuller killed and sexually assaulted the women to satisfy his desire.

He said: “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.

“It follows that he is responsible for the killing of these young women and then sexually assaulting their bodies after their deaths.”

The trial continues.

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