July 28, 2007
Accused grave robbers dodge sex charges
MADISON, Wis. - Three men who dug up a young woman's corpse to have sex with it after seeing her obituary photo cannot be charged with attempted sexual assault because Wisconsin has no law against necrophilia, an appeals court ruled Thursday.
A judge was correct to dismiss the charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 21, because lawmakers never intended to criminalize sex with a corpse, the District 4 Court of Appeals said in a 3-0 ruling.
The three men went to a cemetery in Cassville in southwestern Wisconsin on Sept. 2 to remove the body of Laura Tennessen, 20, who had been killed the week before in a motorcycle crash.
The men used shovels to reach her grave. They abandoned their plan and were eventually arrested after a vehicle drove into the cemetery and reported suspicious behavior, authorities said.
They said the men had seen an obituary of Tennessen with her photo and wanted to dig up her body to have sexual intercourse. Such an act is known as necrophilia.
The men were charged with attempted third-degree sexual assault and misdemeanor attempted theft charges. But Grant County Circuit Judge George Curry dismissed the sexual assault charges in September, saying no Wisconsin law addressed necrophilia. Prosecutors appealed his ruling.
At issue is a provision in the sexual assault law saying criminal penalties apply "whether a victim is dead or alive at the time of the sexual contact or sexual intercourse."
The appeals court said the law was ambiguous but the most reasonable interpretation was that it does not ban necrophilia. Instead, the court said, the law was meant to make sure prosecutors could bring sexual assault charges in rape-murder cases in which the victim ends up dead.
Outrage over the case might soon change the law.
Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, introduced legislation Wednesday that would make having sex with a corpse a felony with punishment of up to 6 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The bill would levy the same penalties against anyone who intentionally disturbs a burial site or a buried human corpse.
Posted by ronnie at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2007
Man caught with 8,000 stolen women's clothes
TOKYO (Reuters) - Police found more than 8,000 pieces of women's clothing and lingerie in the home of a Japanese man who stole the items so he could sleep buried in them.
Maeyasu Kawamura, 60, was indicted for theft on Friday, police in Osaka prefecture, western Japan, said.
Police found 2,400 pieces of lingerie, 600 kimonos and 5,200 items of other clothing all piled up high in his small apartment room.
Kawamura has confessed to stealing the items, which included a wedding dress.
"He seemed to get a thrill out of sleeping covered in women's clothes," a police spokesman said. "He seemed to like the smell."
No further details were available.
Posted by ronnie at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2007
3 sentenced in castration 'dungeon'
WAYNESVILLE, N.C. - Three men accused of operating what police described as a sadomasochistic "dungeon" that included castrations have been sentenced to jail time. Richard Peter "Master Rick" Sciara, his partner of 20 years Michael Mendez, and the man they called their slave, Danny Carroll Reeves, pleaded guilty to felony castration and maiming. Superior Court Judge Dennis Winner said it was difficult to call the dungeon's willing patients "victims," but he said six castrations performed there were certainly a crime.
"I think this is a type of perversion that cannot be tolerated by society," Winner said during a sentencing hearing Thursday.
In plea bargains, Sciara, 62, was sentenced to a year in prison, though he has served all but two weeks of that time. Reeves, 50, was sentenced to eight months in prison, and Mendez, 61, received four months. Reeves and Mendez have already served their sentences and will enter four and two months of house arrest, respectively, and three years of supervised probation.
In exchange for the pleas, the state dropped charges of misdemeanor practicing medicine without a license and conspiracy.
Prosecutors said the men ran a sadomasochistic "dungeon" fashioned from an enclosed carport in 2004 and 2005 at a house in a quiet neighborhood near Waynesville in western North Carolina. Six men, some from as far away as South America, came to the home for castration, while others went seeking other types of body-modification surgery, prosecutors said.
Sciara had worked as a physician's assistant at the Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center in Topeka, Kan., from February 1976 to June 1999.
Posted by ronnie at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)
February 09, 2007
For women, nothing's like the smell of men's sweat
WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters Life!) - For women, apparently there's nothing like the smell of a man's sweat.
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley said women who sniffed a chemical found in male sweat experienced elevated levels of an important hormone, along with higher sexual arousal, faster heart rate and other effects.
They said the study, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, represents the first direct evidence that people secrete a scent that influences the hormones of the opposite sex.
The study focused on androstadienone, considered a male chemical signal. Previous research had established that a whiff of it affected women's mood, sexual and physiological arousal and brain activation. Its impact on hormones was less clear.
A derivative of testosterone, it is found in male sweat as well as in saliva and semen. It smells somewhat musky.
"It really tells us that a lot of things can be triggered by smelling sweat," Claire Wyart, who led the study, said in an interview on Wednesday.
The researchers measured levels of the hormone cortisol in the saliva of 48 female undergraduates at Berkeley, average age of about 21, after the women took 20 sniffs from a jar of androstadienone. Cortisol is secreted by the body to help maintain proper arousal and sense of well-being, respond to stress and other functions.
Cortisol levels in the women who smelled androstadienone shot up within roughly 15 minutes and stayed elevated for up to an hour. Consistent with previous research, the women also reported improved mood, higher sexual arousal, and had increased blood pressure, heart rate and breathing.
YEAST
For comparison's sake, women also smelled baking yeast, which did not trigger the same effects.
This was the first time that smelling a specific chemical secreted by people was shown to affect hormonal levels, the researchers said. The women had no skin contact with androstadienone.
The researchers used only heterosexual women in the study out of concern that homosexual women may respond differently to this male chemical.
Wyart said while this marked the first time a specific component of male sweat was demonstrated to influence women's hormones, other components of sweat may do similar things.
The study did not determine whether the increase in cortisol levels triggered mood or arousal changes or whether those changes themselves caused the cortisol elevation.
The researchers also said their findings suggest a better way to stimulate cortisol levels in patients who need it, such as those with Addison's disease. Instead of giving cortisol in pill form, which has side effects such as peptic ulcers, osteoporosis, weight gain and mood disorders, smelling a chemical like androstadienone could be used to affect cortisol levels, they suggested.
Posted by ronnie at 09:16 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2007
Man with mannequin fetish sent to prison
PONTIAC, Mich. - A man who acknowledged a sexual fetish for female-shaped mannequins was sentenced Thursday to more than a year in prison after repeatedly breaking into storefront windows.
Ronald Dotson, 39, of Detroit, was sentenced to 18 months to 30 years on charges of breaking and entering and being a habitual criminal.
He was arrested in October after police in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak spotted him near a smashed storefront window containing a mannequin wearing a French maid outfit.
The arrest came less than a week after he had been paroled for his sixth breaking-and-entering conviction in 13 years.
Some of the previous cases also involved mannequins. Police once found him in an alley behind a women's clothing store with three mannequins dressed in lingerie.
"I've never been able to take care of myself," Dotson told Judge Denise Langford Morris at sentencing.
Morris acknowledged that Dotson had never assaulted a person but said his behavior "strikes fear in the community."
Posted by ronnie at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2007
Hair-raising experience for woman on bus
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - In a new twist in Rio de Janeiro's crime annals, scissor-wielding thieves clipped off the long, flowing locks of a 22-year-old Brazilian woman as she rode in a city bus.
"We got on at the same stop and they sat behind me," sales assistant Mirna Marchetti said. "Then all of a sudden I felt someone pulling my hair. My friend tried to help me but they just cut it off, right at the base."
The thieves also stole her handbag and her mobile phone before escaping, she told reporters Wednesday after the incident the previous night.
Marchetti's hair was dark, straight and reached down to her waist. She said she had not cut it for four years. Police suspect the thieves hope to sell the hair to a hairdresser.
Beauty salons in Rio can charge more than 500 reais ($250) for top-quality hair extensions, salon owner Rosangela Castro said.
Muggers in crime-plagued Rio de Janeiro often target bus passengers, sometimes robbing a whole bus at gun point.
"This is a new kind of crime,' said a police officer at the station where the report was filed. "They really did mean to steal her hair."
Posted by ronnie at 09:06 AM | Comments (0)