A Hamilton County, OH morgue worker was sentenced to 3 years in prison Tuesday- 1 1/2 years for 2 counts of gross abuse of a corpse - by Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Nadine Allen. Kenneth Douglas, who worked at the county morgue from 1976 to 1992, was sentenced for violating the bodies of Charlene Apling Edwards and Angel Hicks, both murder victims. Douglas is currently serving a 3 year term for having sex with Karen Range's corpse back in 1982. Officials said that Douglas had sex with Range's body after it was in the morgue freezer for hours and while it had be nearly decapitated.
Sandra Williams said that “I thought burying my sister was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I thought we could just put it behind us and lay it to rest, but when this happened, I re-lived her death all over again.”
Misheal Apling, Sandra Willams nephew and Charlene Apling Edwards son, said that Douglas "raped a five-months pregnant dead woman” and asked for the maximum sentence.
The judge said Douglas’ crimes were depraved.“There’s a reason we say ‘the dearly departed, may they rest in peace.’ What happened he isn’t even primitive. It’s depraved and inhumane,” the judge said.
Douglas, 56, of Westwood, apologized. “There is no excuse for my crime,” Douglas told the judge. “If I wasn’t under the influence, this never would have happened.”
Prosecutor Joe Deters believes Douglas violated many more corpses but he can’t prosecute those cases. "He was, by his own admission, out of control,” Deters said. “If you extrapolated it, there are many, many corpses he did this to. ‘Scores’ is a good word.”
The reason Deters declined to press charges was because “Just because someone confesses to something doesn’t mean they can be convicted. We have to have evidence to prove a crime.” After investigators heard Douglas' confession of having sex with Range's corpse, they used DNA evidence to link him to Willams and HIcks.
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