 MADISON, Wis. (AYP)—From all over the country, thousands of men, and a handful of women, are making haste to Wisconsin, possibly to make it the necrophilia capital of the world. Three men, who were charged for digging up a young woman’s corpse in order to have sex with it, were released after Wisconsin state law was found to lack any reference to sex with bodies post-mortem.
The men, Nicholas and Alexander Grunke, both twin brothers, and Dustin Radke, all 21 years old, were happy to be set free, despite having their names made public throughout the country’s media.
Explained Radke, “I was just showing this photo of a pretty girl I saw in the paper, you know. And then we saw that she was dead from somethin’ like a motorcycle accident. So we got to drinkin’, and then somebody started thinkin’, ‘Hey, maybe she’s still in good shape!’ So, we got some shovels, a hammer and a pry bar we bought at Joe’s Hardware. Joe said that was all we needed and the pry bar we could use to lift off the lid.”
The three then went to a cemetery in Cassville, Wisconsin, and dug up the body of Laura Tennessen, 20, who had been killed the week before in a motorcycle crash.
The men used the shovels to dig up the coffin, pried off the top with the pry bar, but then decided against the sex once they saw the actual corpse. They were in the process of hammering it shut when a car drove into the cemetery and the driver called police about what he assumed were grave robbers.
The men were booked and charged with attempted third-degree sexual assault and misdemeanor attempted theft charges. But Grant County Circuit Judge George Curry dismissed the sexual assault charges, saying no Wisconsin law addressed necrophilia.
Prosecutors, who are appealing the ruling, say the main 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, however, said the law does not in fact 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 dies.
Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, introduced a bill that would make having sex with a corpse a felony with punishment of up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Hoping to capitalize on the loophole before the bill becomes law, newspapers such as The Village Voice have been covering the story, essentially promoting the idea of necrophilia in the state. Soon after, cars were driving in from all over the country, said Sheriff Deputy Leon Willis. “I don’t know what they plan to do here and I don’t want to know,” he said.
When Dustin Radke was asked how he knew to bring a hammer, the young man smiled and said, “That Joe sure is a smart one. We didn’t know why’d we need a hammer but Joe just winked and said, ‘Trust me, guys, you always need a hammer.’ If we didn’t have it, who knows, one of us might’ve got up enough courage to go through with it.”
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