The Mail on Sunday

In court: man, 66, accused of 1987 bedsit murders

- By Scarlet Howes

A PENSIONER appeared in court yesterday charged with killing two young women more than three decades ago.

David Fuller is accused of the murders of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce – whose deaths became known as the ‘Bedsit Murders’.

Fuller, 66, from Heathfield, East Sussex, appeared at Medway Magistrate­s’ Court dressed in a grey jumper, white T- shirt and grey trousers.

He spoke only to confirm his identity during the hearing, which lasted less than five minutes. No plea was entered and he was remanded in custody to appear at Maidstone Crown Court on Tuesday.

Shop manager Ms Knell, 25, was found sexually beaten to death

‘Not a day goes by when I don’t think about her’

i n her ground- floor bedsit in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on June 23, 1987 after failing to t urn up for work.

The court heard the cause of death was ‘ compressio­n of the neck and a haemorrhag­e’.

Ms Pierce, 20, lived little more than a mile away from Ms Knell and was killed five months later. She was seen at about midnight on November 24, 1987 when she was dropped off by a taxi at her home.

Screams were heard outside the house and her body was found by a farm worker in a drainage ditch 40 miles away on Romney Marsh on December 15.

Ms Pierce’s cause of death was strangulat­ion and head injury, the court heard. She had also been sexually assaulted. The women did not know each other despite both working in the same busy town centre street. Police launched a huge investigat­ion at the time but both of t he deaths remained unsolved despite periodic reviews by cold-case detectives.

Yesterday Assistant Chief Constable Tracey Harman, of Kent Police, said: ‘ While more than three decades have passed since these murders took place, I would urge anyone who has any informatio­n, no matter how minor or insignific­ant it may appear to be, to contact us.’

Ms Knell’s mother Pam, 83, said: ‘Wendy would have been 59 this year and not a day goes by when I don’t think about her.

‘It’s still just as hard 33-and-ahalf years later. The pain just gets more embedded.’

She said the dying wish of her late husband Bill, who died in 2018, had been for his daughter’s killer to be brought to justice before he died.

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 ??  ?? VICTIMS: Caroline Pierce, above, and Wendy Knell, below. Left: David Fuller, 66, outside Medway Magistrate­s’ Court yesterday
VICTIMS: Caroline Pierce, above, and Wendy Knell, below. Left: David Fuller, 66, outside Medway Magistrate­s’ Court yesterday

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