How serial killer James Desborough preyed on vulnerable homeless men

"He's really off his head. He doesn't care... he is kamikaze."

Those were Claudio Aquilino's words during a 999 call the day before he disappeared.

He was frightened and told police he wanted nothing to do with a crime he believed was about to be committed by a man called James Desborough.

About 12 hours later on 18 April 2025, CCTV captured Aquilino with Desborough in a Newquay pub.

It was the last time Aquilino was seen alive.

Police found his burnt remains in a stream months later as they searched woodland owned by Desborough near Sticker, a small village in south Cornwall.

By then another man - Daniel Coleman - had also vanished after last being seen in Desborough's company. His remains were found nearby.

Desborough denied murdering either man, claiming they had died separately in a "series of unfortunate circumstances", but he was convicted of both of their murders after a seven-week trial at Winchester Crown Court.

He was given a whole life prison sentence with no chance of parole.

On the same day police revealed they are looking into four unexplained deaths at the homeless shelter that had housed him.

Aquilino was described to the court as being "a man with little means but strong family ties".

By the time he met Desborough at Sandy Lodge, which housed homeless people in Newquay, Aquilino had spent years struggling with addiction and poor mental health.

In 2018, his partner of 20 years died from a drug overdose. In the years that followed, Aquilino reported attempting suicide, while services involved in his care noted he was vulnerable to physical, psychological and financial abuse "by known individuals in his own home".

By April 2025, he was described as "doing well", going to the gym and feeling settled in the seaside town.

And despite his difficulties, Aquilino remained close to his mother in Italy, calling her every day.

When those calls stopped, his family knew something was wrong.

Coleman's younger brother Tony Nye remembers him as "loving, caring, kind, friendly, funny... an amazing singer, an amazing cook".

Despite the trauma and alcohol-related health problems that marked much of Coleman's life, he remained close to his family, particularly his grandmother, who raised him.

Nye said: "He would call her every day. Without fail."

But then he too stopped calling.

The court heard Coleman had experienced significant trauma from a young age. His medical notes recorded he had been kidnapped and stabbed aged 13 before escaping by climbing out of a second-floor window.

As an adult, he was the victim of a hit-and-run and multiple other assaults, the court heard.

Coleman also ended up living at Sandy Lodge in Newquay.

After losing his accommodation there, he later spent time living on Desborough's land near Sticker – just as Aquilino had before him.

Coleman was last seen alive on 3 June, after spending the day drinking with Desborough at a number of pubs in Truro and Falmouth.

The pair returned to Paramoor Woods by bus and at about 21:00 BST Coleman rang his grandmother for the final time.

Prosecutors believe Desborough likely killed him in the early hours the following day. Aquilino, they believe, had already been dead for weeks.

In late June, investigators began searching the woodland near Desborough's cabin at Paramoor Woods.

The court heard Desborough had inherited the woodland from his grandfather. He says he built the cabin himself, using a nearby stream to wash in and a hollowed-out tree as a place to stash his drugs.

It was a place for parties and camping but also a place where Desborough lived and allowed other people to stay when they had nowhere else to go.

Prosecutor Ahmed Hossain KC told jurors the search had initially been for Coleman, who had been reported missing.

The investigation at the site would continue for more than four months, involving 724 individual officers and a collective 96,000 hours of search time.

Hossain said they found evidence Desborough had "dismembered their bodies... attempted to burn their bodies, their remains, and conceal what he had done".

"Then he used their money while, at the same time, lying to those around him about where they had gone," he said.

Hossain said 1,900 bone fragments had been found in a stream.

DNA analysis confirmed they had found "what was left of Claudio Aquilino's body".

Coleman's dismembered body was discovered in a shallow grave.

Nye said finding out the details of what happened to his brother had been "awful".

"It was brutal," he said. "How someone could live with themselves for doing something like that to another human being is beyond me."

Desborough admitted preventing the lawful burial of both men but denied murder.

His defence was that both Coleman and Aquilino had been acting "erratic and manic" or "in bad shape" before they left the woods - only to mysteriously reappear having died on his land in what he described as "a series of unfortunate circumstances".

He claimed he did not remember dismembering Coleman's body with an axe because he had drunk a bottle of tequila.

"I was numb by that point," Desborough said. "I wasn't sleeping."

He tried to place the blame for a number of things on Coleman, claiming it had been his idea to "get rid of" Aquilino's body after they found him hanging in a tree.

Desborough said it had been Coleman who convinced him to use Aquilino's bank card and the "bug out list" found in his cabin was also tied to Coleman.

Some of his claims were far-fetched.

After Coleman died, he said he had had to buy a new petrol can because squirrels had been destroying the other cans he had on site.

A diagram titled "kill zone", found in his cabin and written by him, was described by Desborough as a "creative writing exercise".

A plank of wood with nails sticking out of it was, he said, "gas bottle security" rather than a weapon.

The jury rejected his account.

They spent three hours and 15 minutes deliberating before finding him guilty.

For Tony Nye and his wife Rebecca, who was previously in a relationship with Coleman, listening to Desborough was difficult.

"The first thing he would've done if he'd seen someone hanging from a tree or in danger, he would've cut them down and tried to perform CPR," Tony Nye said of his brother.

"Even if he thought he couldn't have saved Claudio, he would've tried and he would've rung emergency services, without a doubt."

Rebecca Nye added there was "no way in this world" that Coleman would have done what Desborough had claimed.

Aquilino's mother Anna Martelli, who travelled over from Italy for the end of the trial, described him as a nice person who was very good at painting art and was always willing to help people.

She said what had happened to him was "very cruel" and she was upset by the lies.

Of her son allegedly being found dead hanging in a tree, she said instead of calling the police or ambulance so they could have proof of how he died, Desborough had decided on "chopping him up, and then burning him".

She said: "What he had in his mind? I don't know. It must be really [a] devil person. Really devil. You know, just to mention it makes me sick."

Tony Nye said: "He's picked on two very vulnerable men and taken advantage of them."

Desborough's violence did not stop there.

Eight weeks after being remanded in prison over their deaths, he killed his cellmate at HMP Exeter.

The court in that case heard Desborough had become irritated by 65-year-old Steven Kempster's snoring and had told other inmates he was going to kill him.

He was convicted of murdering Kempster after initially admitting manslaughter.

For Rebecca Nye, hearing this during the trial reinforced her belief that Desborough remained a danger to others.

"He is not safe to be around anybody, anybody at all. He needs to be in a room on his own because he's not safe. People are not safe around that man. He is a murderer."

And having sat through the trial, the couple said they felt they were also there to support Aquilino.

"I feel like we've got to know him throughout the trial and I just care for him as well... from what we've heard, yeah, he was a lovely man," Tony Nye said.

Asked what the guilty verdict meant to them, the couple said: "Everything. It's justice for Dan, it's justice for Claudio, anyone else who might have crossed his path.

"It shows that all the hard work, the hours and hours of work and dedication that the police and the forensics team have put in has paid off. It's justice for everybody."

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