How serial killer James Desborough preyed on vulnerable homeless men
BBC News · C · trust 55/100
"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 on Tuesday he was convicted of both of their murders after a seven-week trial at Winchester Crown Court.
On Wednesday, 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.
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Published 20 July 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."
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 and die 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.
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.
They spent three hours and 15 minutes deliberating before finding him guilty.
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