Three Decade: Man Admits To Killings Of Two Women

David Fuller admitted killing Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, Maidstone crown court heard on Friday. The women were subject to separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1987.

A sixty-seven-year-old man has admitted responsibility for the killings of two women more than three decades ago, marking a significant development in one of the UK’s longest unsolved homicide cases.

As Fuller sat in the dock, the prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC said: “It is right to note that in a further defence statement of 19 August, the defendant admitted responsibility for both killings subject to the potential issue of diminished responsibility.”

Fuller has denied murder and his trial is expected to begin next month, the court heard.

Knell, a shop manager, was found dead in her ground-floor bedsit in Guildford Road on 23 June 1987 after failing to turn up for work. Pierce, who was also from Tunbridge Wells, was attacked five months later outside her home in Grosvenor Park.

She had last been seen at about midnight on 24 November that year, when she was dropped off by a taxi.

Fuller was remanded in custody before his trial.