GUILTY OH - Karen Range, 19, murdered, raped in morgue, Roselawn, 19 Aug 1982

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Missizzy said:
http://www.forensicpsychiatry.ca/paraphilia/necro.htm

So, necrophilia is all about sexual arousal related to dead bodies. You won't find the words, power or control, in the article linked above. Can we think about that? Necrophilia is in the DSM-IV and is classified as a mental illness. So is pedophilia. They are listed under the sexual paraphilias:

http://www.psychologistanywhereanyt...yschologist/psychologist_paraphilias_list.htm



Am I correct in concluding that it's totally unlike rape which is all about control and power? But aren't most (not all) rapists also sexually aroused--either before, during or after the crime? Isn't part of the attraction of necrophilia, pedophila, elder rape, and rape of the severely disabled, the total control one has over a "partner"?

I'm always left thinking that all these crimes and paraphilias are a combination of sexual arousal, control, power, narcissism, and sociopathy. A nasty stew, to be sure.
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I believe feminists came up with "rape is all about control and power." Personally, I don't think it makes much sense. As for this poor girl's corpse being raped-obviously completely sickening.
This only was discovered because she was a murder victim. How many dead bodies did this guy came in contact with during his years of working at the coroner's office?
Boggles the mind.
 
Nappy2--I initially worried about the same thing--until I read the profile in the article I linked. I imagine this guy has always had a "thing" for dead animals and people. I don't think he necessarily killed, though, or raped live people. I think he found his thrills with dead people--and most likely dead animals, as a child. It's the grossest thing imaginable as it pushes all our buttons of honoring the dead.

I doubt, though, from what I'm reading, that most necrophiliacs move on to kill. Don't you think it sometimes goes the other way, though, like Jeffrey Dahmer? I think that necrophiliacs are drawn to work where the dead bodies are, just as pedophiles are drawn to work with children, and shoe fetishists are drawn to work in shoe stores. And then of course, we have to remember that very fine people work with the dead, with children and selling shoes. It's just a job they do well.

Some paraphilias are accepted as mild deviations from the norm and even used subliminally (or not) within our culture. Others push the envelope and get you jail time.
 
I was almost going to hit the thank you button jjenny because I partly agree with you. I do think we've thrown out the baby with the bath water by not keeping sexual arousal "on the table" for the discussion of the dynamics of rape.

I'm not going to hang that on the feminists, though. I truly believe control and power are the driving force. Sexual arousal is most assuredly an element, though. I consider myself a feminist and I will concede that quite readily.
 
There are more of these people around than you think...

I have my AAS in Mortuary Science and worked for a funeral home in Chicago before I got married...

One guy in school with me (He must have been about 19-20, the same age as me, at the time) was doing a lab with us and the instructor asked him what method he would like to use to pack the anal orifice... (Sorry, but it is part of the procedure...) and this creepy guy said that he would skip the probe and learn to do it manually. Okay, nothing odd there, it is a method... But, then the guy started taking off his gloves. The instructor asked what he was doing and this freak said he needed to really feel what he was doing and the latex would interfere with the "intamacy" he wanted to have with the subject.

FREAK! I never saw an instructor move so fast. He grabbed the guy by his jumper and marched him out. We never saw him again...

Then, after school and while working in Chicago we got the body of a 15 year old girl who had passed away after a long battle with cancer... The poor thing was so thin and frail... As the trade embalmer was washing her body in prep, he found that there were certain "fluids" that should not have been there... She passed away at the hospital and we went to pick her up about 2 hours after she passed, so the only people who had been with her were me & the hospital staff. We called the police ASAP and they came and started an investigation.

They even took swabs from our trade embalmer... I am not sure whatever came of the investigation...

I cannot imagine the grief of the parents who not only lost their darling, baby girl and then had to deal with the idea that someone had violated her.

We also had people, on almost a weekly basis, asking if they could come in and look at the bodies. These were not relatives, just creepy people hoping to see something.

I didn't mean to gross anyone out... But, if you think about it, there are very few checks & balances in the death industry... The victims are almost always voiceless...
 
Jenni979--I wanted to thank you for taking the time to share those stories. I have a lot of respect for those who work around death--either hospice or after the fact. It is an honorable profession. I agree that there needs to be more oversight. Is there any sort of mandated reporter regulations? If a violation of that sort came to your attention, if you were doing that sort of work again, are you mandated to report?

I've always thought that other cultures get the "death-event" so much more right than we do. The cleansing of the body by the family, the family members who keep vigil. Maybe we've forgotten the inherent dangers.

Once again, thanks for the perspective.
 
Missizzy said:
Jenni979--I wanted to thank you for taking the time to share those stories. I have a lot of respect for those who work around death--either hospice or after the fact. It is an honorable profession. I agree that there needs to be more oversight. Is there any sort of mandated reporter regulations? If a violation of that sort came to your attention, if you were doing that sort of work again, are you mandated to report?

I've always thought that other cultures get the "death-event" so much more right than we do. The cleansing of the body by the family, the family members who keep vigil. Maybe we've forgotten the inherent dangers.

Once again, thanks for the perspective.
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Funeral directors & embalmers are mandated reporters... I hate, hate, hate to admitt this but most of the ones that I have met couldn't care less. That is not to say that all FD's are like that. I am just talking about the ones that I have had the displeasure of meeting.

I don't know how else to explain it other than that it is an occupation that attracts both the very best of people and the very worst, with almost no middle ground.
 
Jenni979, thank you for the insight. When me dad died suddenly, I went to high school with the neighbourhood's funeral home director (family biz). I had just got out the of Army, 1st semester school, etc. He was such a good guy. Told me straight up, we will do the planning, don't worry about the money, etc. I paid him off over the years, no interest, hell no paperwork. It was a handshake deal, still worth something back then. I guess he was on the correct end of your very interesting spectrum. Topic-wise, John Waters said he was getting cremated with witnesses by his side from the moment of death. He felt that sickos go to the source and did not want that last indignity. I understand its JW speaking, but his logic is accurate and scary. Pervs go to the source, that is true. In a nutshell, it supports your theory/opinion. Revolting but so glad true pros are aware. The other post about the rape part being part of the case for a death penalty. Thank God DNA evidence is now the norm...
 
ThommyMac said:
Jenni979, thank you for the insight. When me dad died suddenly, I went to high school with the neighbourhood's funeral home director (family biz). I had just got out the of Army, 1st semester school, etc. He was such a good guy. Told me straight up, we will do the planning, don't worry about the money, etc. I paid him off over the years, no interest, hell no paperwork. It was a handshake deal, still worth something back then. I guess he was on the correct end of your very interesting spectrum. Topic-wise, John Waters said he was getting cremated with witnesses by his side from the moment of death. He felt that sickos go to the source and did not want that last indignity. I understand its JW speaking, but his logic is accurate and scary. Pervs go to the source, that is true. In a nutshell, it supports your theory/opinion. Revolting but so glad true pros are aware. The other post about the rape part being part of the case for a death penalty. Thank God DNA evidence is now the norm...
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BBM --

I was thinking the same thing today after reading thru this thread again....I don't think it's too paranoid to consider it.

I also wondered is it possible to have friend or family watching over 24hrs/day because I wouldn't want to be left alone for even 5 minutes!!

JW's right...pervs are everywhere and we're still vulnerable even after death. :(
 
Texas Mist said:
BBM --

I was thinking the same thing today after reading thru this thread again....I don't think it's too paranoid to consider it.

I also wondered is it possible to have friend or family watching over 24hrs/day because I wouldn't want to be left alone for even 5 minutes!!

JW's right...pervs are everywhere and we're still vulnerable even after death. :(
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I am not sure about all places, but most will not allow someone to sit with the family member during the embalming. Part of it might be insurance... The chemicals that are used are carcinogenic and can be VERY caustic if it touches living skin. The fumes are horid and there are so many diseases that can be spread from the deseased, even after death.

Another reason is that it would be amazingly hard for most people to actually see & process the things that have to be done to embalm a body. It's better to try to remember them the way they were and not prone on a table, being prodded and manhandled. It is not a gentle proceedure... And if they had been autopsied... Well, let's just say that the ME doesn't really care what they happen to look like when he/she is done. It takes a lot of work and a lot of dye & makeup to make a deseased person look anything like they did in life...

Now, as for cremation... People still need to be careful... There are many stories of funeral homes giving people the wrong ashes. Not even that it was a mistake... They just don't care and will give you whomever they have sitting around. Luckily, my place was never that bad. I would have called the cops in a flash & then every news agency I could find. That being said, we did have a room that was about the size of an average bedroom that was filled, almost floor-to-ceiling with the cremated remains of people. Their family paid the bill and just forgot about them. They couldn't even be bothered to pick up their loved ones.

I am not trying to scare poeple away from funeral homes, in general... I'm sure that most of them (especially the family run ones) are wonderful. They have ties to the comunity and need their reputations. But, when you go to the huge corporate ones (like SCI & Stewart) they will hire just about anyone, straight out of school, and there really aren't any background checks, other than what you would have at any job...

When I was in school, my Mom tried to make me promise that when she dies I will be the one to "prepare" her for her wake. She didn't want strangers seeing her naked or making fun of her... I just don't think I could do it...

Now, I am from Texas and it is legal there to bury your loved one on your property as long as you have a death certificate & it is not specifically against your HOA... But, in TX you have to wait at least 48 hours to cremate a person unless you get a special waiver... They will tell you that you don't HAVE to be embalmed, but then turn right around and tell you that if the body sits for more than 24 hours it has to be embalmed, and OH, BTW, they have to wait 24 hours before they will do anything with the body. It's like they have people between a rock & a hard place.

Sorry for the rant... But, after actually working in the industry... Well, I guess I am just really jaded.

Oh, and I have walked in to find people (other employees) having sex in the FH. Not with a dead body, but a few times in the same room and twice on a draining table about 14 inches from a body. But, people just laugh it off and then gang up on you for having the nerve to make complaints.
 
http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/0006bfd8171340e286bdd4cbb0f7351b/OH--Corpse-Abuse-Trial/

A lawsuit against officials in a county where a morgue attendant sexually abused three female corpses can go forward, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

A jury might conclude that Hamilton County's former coroner and morgue director should have known that the morgue attendant could harm or disrespect corpses, the three-judge 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said. The judges cited evidence that it was known that attendant Kenneth Douglas was drinking heavily and having sex with live women while on the job.

Douglas' wife had called his supervisor complaining he was coming home from work drunk and "smelling like sex," and the former morgue director knew he had run-ins with the law and other personal issues yet continued to schedule him to work alone at the morgue, court records show.
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My question is how did they not realize that the rape occurred long after death?
That is what I am failing to understand... how did they accuse the killer of raping her?
The forensics should have shown them that much... or could they not tell that at the time? :thinking:
My cousin was murdered in 1977 and they said she was raped before she was killed... so I thought they could tell by then.
 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ohio-man-admits-sex-100-dead-women-article-1.1906370

Kenneth Douglas, from Hamilton, said he had sexually abused three corpses while high on drink and drugs in 1991 and 1992. But he has also admitted having sex with up to 100 dead women over the period between 1976 and 1992, while he worked the night shift...

His victims included 23-year-old Charlene Appling who he had sex with on the day she died after being strangled while six months pregnant...

Douglas's crimes only came to light when the killer of Range, David Steffen, appealed his conviction for rape and murder. In 2008, Douglas admitted his guilt in the Range case and was sentenced to three years in prison. He pleaded guilty to two more cases in 2012.
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"Had sex with" implies consent. A dead woman cannot consent. :banghead:
 
Bizarre 1982 murder case finally ends after DNA proves morgue worker, not killer, raped victim

http://www.wcpo.com/news/crime/bizarre-34-year-old-murder-case-finally-ends-after-dna-proves-morgue-worker-not-killer-raped-her

Decades after a young woman was brutally murdered in her Roselawn home, the long and bizarre case has finally come to a close.

David Steffen, a door-to-door salesman, was sentenced to death for murdering and raping 19-year-old Karen Range in 1982. Steffen admitted killing her and trying to rape her, but he insisted he had not.
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After all these years, Steffen made his final appearance before a judge Wednesday. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss the possibility for the death penalty, and Steffen agreed to serve the rest of his life in prison without parole - and with no appeals
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