Court: Wisconsin law bans sex with dead bodies
By RYAN J. FOLEY , Associated Press
July 10, 2008

MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin law bans sex with dead bodies, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in reinstating charges against three men accused of digging up a corpse to have sex with it.

The court waded into the grisly case after lower court judges ruled nothing in state law banned necrophilia. Those decisions prompted public outrage in Wisconsin and on the Internet, where one blogger wrote: "Doing the dirty with the dead OK in Wisconsin."

Not anymore, the court ruled in a 5-2 decision.

Justice Patience Roggensack, writing a majority opinion with three other justices, said state law bans sexual intercourse with anyone who does not give consent whether a victim is dead or alive at the time. Dead bodies obviously can't give consent, she said.

"A reasonably well-informed person would understand the statute to prohibit sexual intercourse with a dead person," she wrote.

The decision brings Wisconsin's law in line with more than 20 other states who prohibit necrophilia or the abuse of a corpse, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California joined that group in 2004 after prosecutors said they couldn't bring charges in some cases without an official ban.

The law in Wisconsin had been murky, and two dissenting justices insisted Wednesday that lawmakers did not mean to ban necrophilia but to allow assault charges when someone was raped and then killed.

The ruling reinstates attempted sexual assault charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 22. They face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.



Armed with shovels, a crowbar and a box of condoms, the men went to a cemetery in Cassville in southwestern Wisconsin in 2006 to remove the body of a 20-year-old woman killed the week before in a motorcycle crash, police said.



One of them had seen an obituary photo of the pretty nursing assistant and asked the others for help digging up her corpse so he could have sexual intercourse with it, prosecutors said. They used the shovels to reach her grave but were unable to pry the concrete vault open and fled after a car drove into the cemetery.

The men were discovered by a police officer responding to reports of a suspicious vehicle in the cemetery and charged with attempted sexual assault and theft.

A judge dismissed the assault charges, saying Wisconsin law does not criminalize necrophilia. An appeals court upheld that decision, ruling state law was ambiguous on that point but the most reasonable explanation was that it did not.

Those decisions were wrong, Roggensack wrote, because the law clearly says assault victims can be dead or alive.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whose office represented prosecutors in the appeal, praised the decision.

"Words matter and the Legislature chose its words carefully to extend the sexual assault law to those heinous circumstances where a dead person is sexually assaulted, whether or not the defendant killed the victim," he said. "Necrophilia is criminal in Wisconsin."

In a dissent, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley called the conduct heinous and said it should be banned for public policy reasons. But she said lawmakers did not do that when they wrote the law in question in 1986.

She said the law was meant to allow prosecutors to bring sexual assault charges in rape-murder cases when they could not prove whether the victim was alive at the time of the rape. That's the same conclusion reached by the lower court judges, who she noted were "reasonably well-informed."

Jefren Olsen, a public defender who represented Radke, said he agreed with Bradley's dissent and the majority opinion was "dead wrong."

"Obviously, the facts are rather notorious and not the easiest to deal with," he said. "I assume that had some impact."

Suzanne Edwards, a lawyer representing Nicholas Grunke, said she was disappointed in the decision. The men will be arraigned on the charges and have a chance to plead not guilty, she said, emphasizing the prosecutors' contentions were only allegations right now.

© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

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Laura Tennessen, 20, died in a motorcycle accident and became somewhat of an internet celebrity, after three Wisconsin men attempted to dig up her body in order to have sex with her.

Laura Tennessen was a nursing assistant, who died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. She was a passenger on the Honda motorcycle, driven by Thomas Sweet, 20, when they were flung from the motorcycle when Sweet lost control. Deputies stated that alcohol and speed were the main factors in the accident, and that neither Tennessen or Sweet were wearing helmets. Tennessen died from her injuries, while Sweet only sustained minor injuries.

As sad as the accident is, it is only the first part of a story that just gets “more sick”.

A few days after Tennessen's death, three Wisconsin men spotted her obituary, and obviously found her quite attractive, and decided to dig up Tennessen's body to have sex with her. Nicholas Grunke ( son of a Methodist minister), his twin brother Alex, and their friend Dustin Radke all plotted this disgusting act.

Police said the three Wisconsin men were carrying shovels, a crowbar, and a box of condoms to the cemetary to dig up the dead body of Laura Tennessen, who had died the week before in the motorcycle wreck.

Nicholas Grunke had viewed her photo in the obituary and asked his brother and friend to aid in helping dig up her corpse so that he could have sexual intercourse with it.

The three guys used shovels to reach her grave, but were not able to pry open the vault. After seeing the abandoned car, police questioned Alex Grunke, who was acting very nervous, and he admitted to police the scheme, and that his cohorts were digging up Tennessen's coffin.

When the police arrived at the gravesite, Nicolas Grunke and Radke were gone, though cops noticed that a hole had been dug down to the concrete vault encasing the woman's coffin. Nicholas Grunke and Radke were later arrested while walking about eight miles from the cemetery.

Wisconsin passed a law yesterday, banning sex with dead bodies, and reinstating charges against the three men. The court had to go into the nasty case after lower court judges in Wisconsin said there were no laws there banning necrophilia. The lower court decisions outraged the public, and a state lawmaker pushed to make having sex with a corpse a crime.

In Wisconsin, the law now states that sex acts with dead people are considered illegal, as the corpse is not able to give consent. Sounds crazy, but I guess that is true!

This ruling now reinstates the sexual assault charges against the twin brothers, Nicolas and Alexander Grunke and friend Dustin Radke, all guys are 22. The charges could carry a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.

The judge, Patience Roggensack, said sexual intercourse is banned with anyone that cannot give consent, “whether a victim is dead or alive at the time”. And continued saying, “A reasonably well-informed person would understand the statue to prohibit sexual intercourse with a dead person, ” she wrote.

This legal ruling brings Wisconsin into line with more than 20 other states that prohibit necrophilia or the abuse of a corpse.

With sickos like this around, perhaps we don't want to look too sexy or attractive in our obituary photos. What do you guys think about this case?

Nobody wants to think about it until it happens, and then, well, they still don't want to think about it. Ew. I remember in the early 80s one of my instructors at the mortuary college had to travel to Nevada to be an expert witness at the trial of a man who broke into a funeral home and stole the body of an eight year old girl. He "loved" it for a few days and then chucked her in a dumpster. Lamentably, under Nevada law at the time, they were only able to charge him as a thief - I believe that he had a B&E charge and grand theft. Necrophilia wasn't specifically prohibited, they were either unable or unwilling to apply sexual battery on a minor, I'm not sure they were even able to stick him with improper disposal.
Nobody ever thinks they will need a law to prohibit something so fundamentally wrong and it may be at the backs of all of our minds that when the truly unthinkable happens we will probably drag the monster into the street and beat him to death with shovels. It sounds appropriate but the lawyers will tell you it isn't.

That's why we should also take the shovels to the lawyers.

Quick little story that this reminded me of. My Bears body pillow has put in alot of time so I had to throw it away the other night. I've been stealing the wifes body pillow mostly cause I'm larger and can cry louder. So two nights ago she goes to sleep and she tells me "I'm rubbing my vagina all over this pillow". Of course I fear a night without said pillow so I rush to save it. As I'm pulling on the pillow shes fighing back and she says "You'll have to pry this pillow from my cold dead vagina". We laughed and laughed. I got the pillow after she fell asleep.


Now onto the story. I'd hit it. Why do people bitch about lawyers so much?

Wait... you went to mortuary college?

Ok ok ok........Wait a minute....These dudes wanted to dig her up because they thought that she was hot in her obituary photo, correct?? Hey brainiacs, she was in a motorcycle crash...I doubt that she still looked like that. Not that her physical appearance would make a difference. It's still fuckin' nuts. Oh well, by the looks of those guys, the only way they'll ever get laid is if they keep digging up corpses.

It said she was wearing a helmet so if you just look her in the eye(s) it might be cool.

This post has been edited by strangerwithcandy11: Jul 18 2008, 10:02 AM

I'm just wondering.....A vagina after rigor mortis sets in....I just kinda wonder about the mechanics involved here.

You have to take a jar of vasoline.

Thanks for the advice SWC....Now I just gotta run to the shed and grab the shovel and a crowbar.....

*searching the obits for hot chicks

This post has been edited by Moondog: Jul 18 2008, 10:14 AM

I guess we should start burying our women wearing chastity belts.

Alright, it's obvious these 3 aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer (looks can be deceiving.. NOT!). Isn't it standard for anyone (dead) that gets buried, to be in a sealed concrete vault?

And why did I immediately know it was the one with the long hair that had the 'jeanyus' idea in the first place?

LOL The one in the mddle looks like he just saw a dead body.

Yes. That was in the 80s. I like learning different things. Embalming was in between theatre production and porn. Mostly I did subcontracting work for the SF health dept.'s indigent burial program and anatomical donations for the UC system.


Depends on state law. It's not a security measure, it's to keep the ground from sinking over the graves. In California you can be buried in a cardboard box as long as you have a concrete grave liner.



As to the post-rigor vagina question - couldn't tell you, Moon. I never made an attempt to compare, though I have had to introduce packing material (with forceps) in cases that were autopsied. There was never much, umm, resistance. I suppose there are ways that a really informed and determined necrophiliac could tighten an orifice or two...ew.
The big flaw that I see with their choice of playmate is that she "died from injuries sustained" in the crash. That usually means that she survived long enough for swelling, bruising, and other responses to injury to appear, so her remains were probably pretty fucked up. If your selection of a corpse is based on the photo, what you really want is "dead at scene" or "killed on impact".

That's probably TMI, but whatever. Hope it helps.