A man obsessed with the television series Dexter has been found guilty of murdering two homeless men before dismembering their bodies and hiding the remains in woodland in Cornwall. James Desborough, 40, showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out at Winchester Crown Court, convicting him of killing Claudio Aquilino, 57, and Daniel Coleman, 43.
The former builder, already serving a life sentence for strangling his prison cellmate Steven Kempster at HMP Exeter while on remand for this trial, is now a serial killer with three victims in five months. The trial heard that Aquilino and Coleman had previously lived with Desborough at a homeless hostel, and were last seen alive in his company.
“James Desborough, obsessed with Dexter, convicted of murdering and dismembering two homeless men in Cornwall woods.”
After their disappearances, Desborough, who is 5ft 10in and weighs nearly 18st, used their bank cards to spend money on drugs and alcohol. Their bodies were dismembered in Sticker Woods, near St Austell, where he lived in a wooden cabin. Police found 1,900 burned bone fragments from Aquilino's body deposited in a stream, and parts of Coleman's body—including his torso, legs and feet—in a shallow grave nearby.
Desborough told a forensic biologist searching the woods that he "particularly enjoyed the dismemberment scenes" in Dexter. Inside his cabin, officers discovered a cache of handwritten notes revealing his state of mind. One read: "I know I am a killer and ready to execute any predators." Another said: "Take care of the remaining muppets," with Coleman's name listed. He also drew a series of concentric circles labelled "Kill Zone" with the sub-heading "Operational spheres", placing Sticker Woods at the centre and London and Benidorm at the outer points.
Desborough, a father of one, had planned to leave the UK weeks before his arrest. He denied both murders, telling the jury that the two men dying on his land was a "series of unfortunate circumstances." He claimed that while high on ketamine he found Aquilino—who had a history of suicidal ideation—hanging dead from a tree, and that Coleman helped him dispose of the body. Desborough said Coleman then killed himself, and he merely moved the remains.
But the jury rejected his account, convicting him on both counts. Having already been jailed for murdering his cellmate, Desborough now faces a whole-life term for the double killing.
