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CINCINNATI NEGRO NEWS

Last Updated: 6:43 pm | Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Kenneth Douglas appears in court this morning.

(Enquirer contributor/Tony Tribble)

David Steffen, 23, was convicted in 1983 of murdering Karen Range, 19. Range was stabbed to death Aug. 19, 1982, in her Roselawn home.

Another coroner’s office controversy
The charges against Kenneth Douglas are another public relations disaster for the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office, where actions and crimes by employees have cost taxpayers millions to resolve lawsuits.

In the past two decades, Hamilton County has paid almost $20 million to settle lawsuits brought after the coroner’s office:

Removed corneas from bodies without permission.

Removed brains and other body parts without permission.

Allowed into the morgue photographer Thomas Condon, who placed objects on bodies in the morgue and took pictures of them.
Related article
Sex crime linked to morgue
Prosecutor calls suspect an animal
By Kimball Perry • [email protected] • July 29, 2008

Bond was set at $700,000 for a suspected necrophiliac who is charged with having sex with the corpse of a 19-year-old murder victim.
The former Hamilton County employee accused of having sex with a body in the morgue had his bond set today at $700,000.

Kenneth Douglas, 55, of Westwood, was before Common Pleas Court Judge William Mallory for an arraignment that lasted less than five minutes where none of the details of the horrific allegations were discussed.

Douglas pleaded not guilty.

Douglas was indicted Monday for gross abuse of a corpse. He is accused of having sex with the body of murder victim Karen Range in the morgue – where Douglas worked as an attendant – hours after David Steffen killed her and nearly beheaded her with a paring knife.

Douglas is accused of having sex with the woman’s uncleaned body after it had been stored in more refrigeration for four hours awaiting an autopsy the next day.

“In a case like this, you are tempted to refer to (Douglas) as an animal but that really isn’t fair to animals. They don’t do things like this. He is one sick dude,” Assistant Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier said after the brief arraignment.

Norm Aubin, Douglas’ attorney, wouldn’t comment on the case.

Piepmeier said officials believe Douglas had sex with more dead bodies and expect similar, additional charges in the future against Douglas.

“Someone capable of what Mr. Douglas is charged with doing is capable of anything,” Piepmeier.

Douglas rarely spoke, only telling the judge his age, where he lived and that he’d recently lost his job.

• Update: Coroner to do DNA tests

His job from 1976-1992 was an attendant at the morgue

Steffen was convicted in 1983 of the aggravated murder, rape and aggravated burglary after the door-to-door soap salesman attacked 19-year-old Range in her Roselawn home. Her partially nude body was found by her mother.

Steffen admitted he killed Range but insisted he never raped her. Last year, DNA analysis exonerated Steffen of the rape.

After Douglas was convicted of violating his probation on a drug trafficking conviction, his DNA was taken. Days later, officials discovered it matched the body fluid found inside Range’s body.

The gross abuse of corpse charge is a fifth-degree felony, the lowest felony in Ohio, and carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

Hamilton County law-enforcement officials knew that Steffen killed Range in 1982, but he insisted for 26 years he never raped the teen.

Prosecutors won murder and rape convictions against Steffen to send him to death row – the first Hamilton County inmate to receive a death sentence after the death penalty was reinstated in Ohio.

DNA evidence exonerated Steffen last year on the rape charge.

Now, authorities have the man they believe responsible for the sexual attack.

Douglas, 55, of Westwood, was arrested Friday on a charge of violating his probation for a March conviction on a drug offense. He had been ordered to give a DNA sample after the March conviction, and last week, Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation told authorities that the sample matched evidence from Steffen’s case.

“There are no words to describe the disgust everyone associated with the case feels,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Monday as he outlined the twists in the bizarre case.

“Now we know what happened. As horrific as it is, now we know,” Deters said Monday.

“This was a scenario no one imagined in this office,” Deters said. “It was so bizarre that no one could even comprehend it. I can’t explain this at all.”

Douglas was charged with abuse of a corpse. If convicted, he faces up to a year in prison.

Deters expects Douglas to be charged with violating other corpses based on “overwhelming evidence” from those discussions with the suspect.

“Our initial indication is it’s less than five (victims), but we don’t know,” Deters said.

Because of the allegation against Douglas – and the hint of more charges to come – Deters said his office and the coroner’s office are obligated to review all of the cases Douglas was involved in during his 16 years with the coroner’s office.

He said the government will look at files from other cases and check DNA evidence when it’s available.

“There’s people who had loved ones in this county who deserve to know,” Deters said.

Coroner O’dell Owens was elected in 2004, 12 years after Douglas left the office.

Deters sent two of his employees to Florida to tell Range’s mother, Laurie Rockel Range, of Douglas’ indictment.

The mother was ecstatic at the news.

She insisted that her daughter was a virgin when she died and fumed at the suggestion during Steffen’s murder trial that Karen Range had been sexually active.

“I am jumping for joy. I’m going out dancing tonight,” the 76-year-old mother said Monday from her Florida home.

She was stunned, though, to find out who was accused of abusing her daughter’s corpse.

“Who’s going to rape a dead body? Well. A morgue attendant (apparently),” she said. “I was shocked.”

For 26 years, she said, her daughter has come to her in dreams. She never saw her daughter’s face in the dreams, but she was always washing dishes or shoveling snow.

“That showed she was trying to help me deal with all of this,” Range said.

Steffen was convicted in 1983 of aggravated murder, rape and aggravated burglary of Range.

Steffen was a door-to-door soap salesman who knocked on the door of the Ranges’ Roselawn home and then stabbed the teen to death, almost severing her head.

Steffen, 48, was sent to death row after admitting he killed Range, but he always maintained that he never raped her. DNA testing had not been developed in 1982, and blood typing did not rule out Steffen as a suspect.

Last year, DNA tests showed the body fluid inside Range was not Steffen’s.

In Ohio, defendants are eligible for the death penalty only if they are convicted of murder and another crime – such as rape, kidnapping, burglary or another murder, among others.

Steffen’s lawyers have argued that because the body fluid of someone other than Steffen was found in Range, prosecutors can’t prove that he raped her. They say that means Steffen isn’t eligible for the death penalty.

Prosecutors have countered that Steffen – who admitted stabbing Range to death – should remain on death row because he was convicted of aggravated burglary and that still makes him eligible for execution. They also contend that Steffen tried to rape Range but couldn’t.

An attempted-rape conviction along with the murder also would qualify him for the death penalty.

In your voice
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amadeo13 wrote:

Too much emotional outrage here. A corpse was mutilated. Laws are on the books. Follow the law. In addition, a long-term stay at a mental ward may be in order. People need to focus their energy on something with larger consequences. Terrible as it was, this young lady was already dead.
7/29/2008 9:10:37 PM
Too much emotional outrage here. A corpse was mutilated. Laws are on the books. Follow the law. In addition, a long-term stay at a mental ward may be in order. People need to focus their energy on something with larger consequences. Terrible as it was, this young lady was already dead. amadeo13
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PhlemPickens wrote:

Replying to comutec275:

is this the redneck blog or what

Yep – feel right at home.
7/29/2008 3:43:16 PM
Replying to comutec275:

is this the redneck blog or what

Yep – feel right at home. PhlemPickens
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summerice wrote:

Necrophilia will never be anything more serious than abuse of a corpse. Once a person is dead, they are considered a body – not a person. Same thing happened when R. Carroll burned the body of Marcus Feisel. He was charged with abuse of a corpse. Unfortunately, not a serious enough offense to warrant a longer jail sentence. And as a side note – if someone in jail takes care of him the same way he “took care of” her, he won’t know it either.
7/29/2008 3:38:59 PM
Necrophilia will never be anything more serious than abuse of a corpse. Once a person is dead, they are considered a body – not a person. Same thing happened when R. Carroll burned the body of Marcus Feisel. He was charged with abuse of a corpse. Unfortunately, not a serious enough offense to warrant a longer jail sentence. And as a side note – if someone in jail takes care of him the same way he “took care of” her, he won’t know it either. summerice
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missy4181 wrote:

Replying to Mamamedic:

There are times in the past when there was only one person on duty at the morgue, especially at night. Budget constraints, don’t you know. But the fact that this guy may have done this to 5 others is carrying it a bit far. The laws need to be changed to make necrophillia what it truly is-rape! Just because the person is not cognizant of what is happening doesn’t lessen what the sicko did.

I understand the mother’s feelings of relief that her daughter was unaware of the other brutalization that happened. She’s lived with this for 26 years, this jerk should get 26 years to think about the suffereing this poor mother has gone through. Hopefully he’ll be able to find someone in prison that will take care of him the same way.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.
7/29/2008 3:33:32 PM
Replying to Mamamedic:

There are times in the past when there was only one person on duty at the morgue, especially at night. Budget constraints, don’t you know. But the fact that this guy may have done this to 5 others is carrying it a bit far. The laws need to be changed to make necrophillia what it truly is-rape! Just because the person is not cognizant of what is happening doesn’t lessen what the sicko did.I understand the mother’s feelings of relief that her daughter was unaware of the other brutalization that happened. She’s lived with this for 26 years, this jerk should get 26 years to think about the suffereing this poor mother has gone through. Hopefully he’ll be able to find someone in prison that will take care of him the same way.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. missy4181
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Mamamedic wrote:

There are times in the past when there was only one person on duty at the morgue, especially at night. Budget constraints, don’t you know. But the fact that this guy may have done this to 5 others is carrying it a bit far. The laws need to be changed to make necrophillia what it truly is-rape! Just because the person is not cognizant of what is happening doesn’t lessen what the sicko did.

I understand the mother’s feelings of relief that her daughter was unaware of the other brutalization that happened. She’s lived with this for 26 years, this jerk should get 26 years to think about the suffereing this poor mother has gone through. Hopefully he’ll be able to find someone in prison that will take care of him the same way.
7/29/2008 3:11:48 PM