Triple killer James Desborough stayed in same homeless shelter as victims

James Desborough stayed in the same homeless shelter as Claudio Aquilino and Daniel Coleman before he murdered them and hid their dismembered bodies in woodland in Cornwall, then killed his HMP Exeter cellmate Steven Kempster while on remand awaiting trial. By the later verdict, he had become a triple murderer.

Desborough was found guilty of murdering Aquilino, 57, and Coleman, 43, after already admitting preventing the lawful burial of their bodies in 2025. The shelter link has pushed the case beyond a murder trial and into a wider examination of how homeless accommodation, police and prison systems handled a man moving between shelter, investigation and custody.

Devon and Cornwall Police said one body had been recovered from woodland, a detail that became important after Alison Hernandez, the Devon and Cornwall police and crime commissioner, apologised for claiming multiple bodies had been found. Police had said only one body had been recovered. The correction mattered because the case already involved concealment in Cornwall woodland and the dismemberment of the victims’ remains.

The prison killing added a second failure point. Desborough was convicted of murdering Steven Kempster at HMP Exeter while the two men were sharing a cell, and one account said the killing happened only three days after they were placed together. A man awaiting trial for the double murder was able to kill again inside prison, intensifying questions about risk assessment, supervision and the safeguards in place for vulnerable people across the system.