For long-time fans of PYSIH, you will recognize a wonderful vindication of sorts. Many stories on this site often attract friends, relatives and the like to come and defend their own special criminal.

When this story first broke the waves of the media, it was so un-fucking-believable that it automatically was relegated to tabloid status. And, like all stories dealing with human trash, there was an onslaught of supporters of the perp stating how she was innocent and that the victim was the real villain — You people slinging blame just don’t know all the facts!

Uh-huh.

Oh, yes. Innocent, innocent, innocent. With this case, some had the audacity in the comment sections of articles posted to liken the “poor” child-raper to Christ on the cross and His sufferings.

Well, turns out the perp came clean in a court of law and pleaded guilty as charged. Yep. Owned up to it being all HER fault. She doesn’t know why she did it, but yep, it was all on her.

Sooooooooo, it is with great pleasure that I can ask all of those denizens of denial, “How’s that working for ya now?”

Let’s get to the story, a story of incest, rape, psychological manipulation, emotional trauma and a life-sentence of being totally screwed up.

Depending on the personal belief of the reporter, you can tell by the headline how he/she really feels about the story:

Michigan Mom in Prison For Getting Intimate With Her Own Son
(no link)

Police: Michigan Mom Found Long Lost Son Online, Raped Him

Michigan Mom Aimee Louise Sword Faces Trial for Incest With Son She Gave Up for Adoption

What Made A 36-Year-Old Mother Want To Start An Incestuous Affair with Her 14 Year-Old Son?

Aimee L. Sword Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison For Having Physical Relations With Her Son

Mother Sleeps With Son She Gave Up For Adoption (no link)

If you think that perhaps you are seeing more than one news story, then it is perfectly understandable as you’d never be able to tell that it is one and the same story. In various headlines, the crime is described as: rape, sexual assault, incest, sex, affair, a summer romance, physical relations – but “Mother sleeps with son” has got to take the cake. It sounds like a police state over-reaction to a mother sleeping in the same bed with her son!

And summer romance?

Give me a break!!

Overall, the predominate tone is hushed, muted. Few papers were calling it rape or sexual assault. The headline where it states “Aimee L. Sword sentenced to 30 years in prison for having physical relations with her son” is a real work of art. From the headline, one could suspect that something happened under the banner “physical relations” and that Aimee was being unduly punished.

Papers that felt she was being treated harshly reported the upper limit of her sentence and it is only once you read the body of the article that you find out that she is sentenced to 9 to 30 years in prison, with 9 years mandatory before consideration of parole.

Furthermore, the people who raved on and on about how innocent Aimee was built their house of cards around vilifying the victim. Should we be surprised? Nah. This kind of thing goes on all the time. When the facts aren’t out there (as they were under wraps here with Aimee), then the next best thing is to spew whatever you can in terms of shit at the target – the victim – and some shit is bound to stick.

The worst of it came from her supporters – Aimee was really “forced” into having sex with the boy, don’t cha know? He laid on a guilt trip on her about her giving him up for adoption and she felt like she had to have sex with him. Well, that was one story. It actually makes it a tale of rape in reverse – the child raped Aimee.

Confused yet?

Well, Aimee’s supporters didn’t stop there. He was said to be a 17-year-old gangbanger who was in serious trouble with the law all the time. He was diagnosed bipolar, he was on the run, he was into drugs, he was … well, just short of Adolph Hitler right?

While they were busy shooting down her boy, the denizens of decorum were busy saying that the fruit of her loins was a piece of white trash. Really. That’s what it amounts to.

So how did they deal with the fact that Aimee has (sort of) confessed and pleaded guilty? Aimee swears it was just the one time that they had sex, but the boy said it was many times, and the prosecutors have the hotel records of several trysts. They don’t know the exact number, but they know it was more than once.

Back to her supporters. Well, I would like to tell you that these idiots finally came forth and apologized for demonizing said boy, but we know that ain’t the way the world works.

There appears to be a movement afoot that would, if the genders were reversed, be stomach-churning and nauseating.

It would seem that there is a plethora of incest-supporters out in internet-land. It is sad that the excuses weren’t so freely posted before, but there appears to be a “new” study that indicates Genetic Sexual Attraction as an affliction one psychologist seems to think explains this all away.

Forgive me for being old-fashioned, but there already is a term that explains a mother sleeping with her son: INCEST.

But these people would have you believe that it was something Aimee couldn’t help. This is bullshiting a bullshit theory at its best because GSA was only dreamed up to explain couples who DO NOT KNOW they are related, meet and fall in love. It was theorized that this thing can happen and that there was a psychological explanation lurking nearby.

In Aimee’s case, one must first examine the facts. She gave the child up for adoption two days after she gave birth to him. She did receive updates from the adopting family about her boy throughout his life. She was kept in contact with his progress. When she didn’t receive an update when she felt she should have after his 14th birthday in 2008, she took matters into her own hands and she used the internet to track him down, primarily through Facebook and Myspace.

Aimee found him and got to see a recent photograph of him. In her own words, at court, she said that when she saw his picture, it wasn’t a mother-son feeling she experienced: it was a girlfriend-boyfriend feeling.

All together now: EEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!

And, knowing, as all people do that the feelings she was having were wrong, and a clear sign she needed psychotherapy, in a perfect world, she would have signed herself up for frequent appointments at the local psych ward.

But as we know, she didn’t do anything smart like that. After all, she’s a narcissist. What she saw was a perfect way to travel back in time and use the boy she got pregnant with fourteen years ago. Sort of an easy way to recapture her youth, know what I mean?

As the boy was having problems in Grand Rapids, Aimee suggested the boy come stay with her for a while. The adopted parents, feeling that maybe some time with his biological mother may help him with the terrible teens all that angst and stuff, agreed.

Remember folks, at the time, she is MARRIED and has FIVE children living in her home. She is 35 years old and she looks her little boy up in his 14TH year. Essentially, this 35-year-old woman is having the hots for a 14 year old boy. We are looking at a BIG gap. Some papers try to skew the facts and let the reader assume that the age difference ain’t so big. She was a teenager when she gave him up – nope, she was at least 21 years old. Another said she gave her son up ten years ago – nope, at least 14 years ago. But that story said she gave him up when he was 5 years old. See,, whatever Aimee’s fans want to spin, then they play fast and loose with the facts. If she had actually given him up at 5 years of age, then it would have been even worse.

The media has tried to track the ex-husband down to get his view on all this, but he hasn’t said a word. What could you say?

And dear sweet Aimee, her lawyer said that she decided to plead guilty because she didn’t want the boy to suffer the trauma of having to testify against her.

I can hear it now – she just did that so that the boy would be safe. Yes,, she isn’t really guilty of anything except loving her son too much. YUCK!!!

Oh, and her lawyer said Aimee had been sexually and physically abused in her childhood too. Hmmm. That must be why she abused her son. She just wanted him to have the same wretched fucked up psychosis for his life, too, right?

Wow. She’s mother-of-the-year material.

I guess what sticks in my craw more than anything is the blatant double-standard that seems to be going on here.

The whole focus should be on the victim; but you know it isn’t. He was vilified up one side and down the other.

To give you some idea, here’s a quote from one site(emphasis mine):

The original press article mentions that her son wasn’t ten but fifteen. Not only that, this teenager was a gangbanger. He had been repeatedly in trouble with the law. He likely used anabolic steroids. Most likely, as most criminal juveniles his age, he already had a wild sex life.

Aggressive, early matured boys at that age are at their sexual prime, and guys with a criminal record and who even threaten their parents don’t exactly take no for an answer when they try to get into a girl’s pants. So much for the “Permanent emotional damage of the little boy that so cruelly lost his virginity by a perverse incest rape” that the prosecution alleges. As far as we know, it was him who demanded the sex, not his biological mother.

She conceded partly due to guilt, partly out of fear of losing contact with her son forever and last but not least, partly because she was asked by his adoptive parents, the social workers and her son’s shrink to make an attempt to bring him to his senses – or he would face juvenile detention. She was desperate to do whatever it took to save her son from jail.

The article in question isn’t provided with a link for readers to judge for themselves, but factual truth is the least of this writer’s concern.

The teenager had just turned fourteen when his mom hooked up with him.

He wasn’t a gangbanger.

He hadn’t been repeatedly in trouble with the law, but, like most adolescent boys, had been in trouble and was getting counseling from a psychologist and his parents were spending time and money to get him help.

He didn’t use anabolic steroids – but you’d leave this article with the impression he did.

He wasn’t a criminal juvenile – but again you’d think he had a rap sheet a mile long.
And he didn’t already have a wild sex life.

It glides over specifics and gives the impression that he had a criminal record, that he had threatened his parents, that he had raped other girls.

They do state “As far as we know….” but when you first read this article, it takes a very critical eye to spot the fallacies they are fobbing off as facts.

In fact, you get the impression that the son raped the mother. Every time I read this paragraph, I can feel my blood pressure rise.

“As far as we know, it was him who demanded the sex….” Actually, no, we know it was Aimee as she testified that it was all her idea.

They end their supposition with poor Aimee giving in to her child’s demand for sex in an effort to assuage the guilt he made her feel at putting him up for adoption and in an effort to keep her emotional connection with him.

Hmm? Sounds like she’s not playing with a full deck. Any mother this easily manipulated doesn’t deserve to be in charge of raising any children, and Aimee has five more at home. So the case of the boy bullying his mother into fornication doesn’t stand any sort of scrutiny.

And when you start to look at the way in which the words are put together, you realize what kind of a hatchet job they are doing on the victim.

He didn’t want or seek her out and make contact. Aimee did that all on her own. She testified in a court of law to this and she was the one who asked the adopted parents if she could have him live with her for a while.

The thing people have lost sight of is the young boy who is now royally screwed up. He wasn’t some drug-using sex-mad aggressive gangbanger intent on raping all females in his path, up to and including his biological mother.

Who’s the victim here?

You’d honestly swear it was Aimee. The article continues:

Is Aimee Louise Sword A Pedophile?

Look at her. Is this a pedophile predator? She seems to have no problem getting adult male attention, and clearly enjoys it. A pity we have no picture of her “raped” son, because we strongly suspect that he looks similar in maturity to this tattoo artist. Poor child. His tender soul will never recover from banging this MILF he has no emotional bond with and wouldn’t even recognize as his biological mother. When a man violently rapes an underage girl, it is a despicable crime. When an adolescent horny young man manipulates a woman he has no relationship with into sex, it is worse for that woman than for him, if that woman is his mother and is desperately trying to establish a rapport with him. He certainly isn’t being raped in the ethical, moral sense. We sometimes forget that the Law is there to fairly enforce the morals of society, not to be politically correct. The Law should concern themselves with the spirit of the law, not blindly follow its letter. However, extremist feminism and political correctness make us treat “statutory rape” cases equal, regardless of which gender is the “rapist”, what the relationship was between the parties and how much emotional or physical damage was inflicted. This is an abomination. There were other cases where a gang of youths coerced a not so bright teacher into gang-banging them, and hey presto, the woman gets plastered all over the Internet as one of the worst serial rapists in history – and she’ll spend her prime years in jail.

I particularly like the inference that there is a “look” that one can identify for pedophile predators. Again, the rape isn’t about sexual attraction – it’s about power. The pseudo-pity is more salt on the wound. It mocks whatever feelings the boy may have, and it certainly paints him as active participant and chief villain in his own assault.

Did he know she was his mother? Yes, eventually.

Did he know prior to their first encounter? Well, no. You see, Aimee got around to telling him at their first rendezvous. And since the Aimee-supporters engage in speculation, I can too. Can’t you just hear her telling the boy, “We’re special, you and I. We have a bond no one can understand. We are connected on a different plane of existence. The rules don’t apply to you and I.”

Of course, I can’t do Aimee justice as I don’t really know what yarn to spin to convince a child I had given birth to that it was okay I tracked him down just to have sex with him.

And there is the blatant stereotype here of the wronged woman – “experts|” have been crawling out of caves to spew forth some drivel about “genetic sexual attraction” as some sort of explanation for Aimee’s actions. GSA is seen as a reason for people having attractions for their cousins or relatives they never knew about.

This is bogus and I call it junk science.

To begin with, IF Genetic Sexual Attraction exists, then it should at least follow the theory’s premise. The premise? That two individuals, who do not know that they are related, somehow meet and find an irresistible attraction to one another.

I’ll reiterate this sticking point: the two individuals do not know they are related.

Hmmm. Doesn’t really cover Aimee’s case, now does it?

But you’d be nauseated to read in comment after comment the apologists foisting this tepidly acknowledged psychological babble as the “explanation”.

In Aimee’s case, she knew who the boy was and when she didn’t get her update on her 14 year old, then she tracked him down.

My theory? Aimee is one of those women that never want to grow up. She is a narcissist who thinks everything she does is clever and cute. Every man she’s been with she has managed to have a child with. Starting with this boy.

When she saw her boy, entering the teen years, he must have resembled the original man that knocked her up and left her flat.

And why shouldn’t she go and have a piece of time travel and recapture her youthful passionate relationship with the end result of the original fling?

How often have we read stories about fathers, particularly lately, deciding to keep their daughters captive and impregnate them year after year until they escape? The reason being, I made you, you’re mine to do with as I please.

I don’t cut any slack if the perp happens to be a mother doing essentially the same mind-fuck.

And she is.

Do you know how difficult it is for males to even admit someone is sexually abusing them? There are studies on male victims of sexual abuse, but the studies are fraught with problems as it is under-reported especially for boys. There is a cultural bias that males cannot be victims. To be a victim is to admit that one is less than a “true” male; aggressive, assertive, confident, knowledgeable, in charge and in control.

So aside from having to surmount this hurdle, what if the boy in question responds sexually to the abuse? The victim would somehow feel responsible for the abuse – why else would his body have reacted?

It is a vicious set of cultural and psychological factors that almost condemn male victims to suffer in silence. Both girls and boys fear having the abuse made public, but boys fear it for more reasons: loss of freedom and independence, the perception of others of the male as a “helpless” victim, the threat of reprisals, negative judgment, being held responsible for the abuse occurring in the first place.

Worse consequences are for those males who may have a homosexual orientation and thus end up believing that they somehow “attracted” male abusers, that it is somehow their fault. Public revelation would then carry the double threat of exposure to the abuse and to the boy’s orientation. There is less sympathy held for male victims of sexual abuse, and even less for homosexual victims.

In Aimee’s abuse, it is thoroughly reprehensible. The “Mrs. Robinson” scenario of an older woman seducing and “initiating” a young male into sexual activities is seen as some sort of cultural rite-of-passage, and the fact that many sites on the internet have referred to her as a MILF (Mothers I’d Like to F*ck), the whole thing is taken as a joke.

But would it be so funny if the genders were reversed? Would people be so quick to crack jokes if this were a story about a 35-year-old father looking up his 14-year-old daughter? She is having troubles at school and coping with adolescence; she’s seeing a psychologist and a school counselor. She’s into arguing with her adoptive parents and is moody and sulky – in other words, a typical teenager.

Along comes her father, to whom the adopted parents have kept in touch with over the years and have sent him updates as to her life: how she’s done in school, the sports she’s good at, her likes and dislikes. They have even mentioned the help she’s been getting for her teen troubles. The father suggests taking her to his house with his family (spouse and five other children) to see if a visit would break her routine and maybe help her keep her mind off her troubles or work things out?

The couple is happy that the father is taking an interest and agrees wholeheartedly. I mean, after all, she’d be going to a house where the wife and children are, so it would be safe. And, the man is her father, right?

Now, the father takes the daughter to a motel and they end up in bed together. It doesn’t happen just once, but many times. It happens at the house where the father and his wife live. It happens at several other motels.

The girl returns home after a period of months, but she’s not any better. In fact, she is now downright secretive. The discussions are few and far between. Conversations are non-existent and responses are monosyllabic.

Do you see the difference? I can, and I’m just writing it down. The whole idea that it is somehow less of a crime against a young, confused and vulnerable boy is just wrong and I don’t believe that shame and the trauma of abuse has a color or a gender.

In fact, I think what Aimee’s done is even worse as the boy isn’t going to get any sympathy as her crime is seen as “not that bad” and I’ve seen comments in internet sites about this case stating things like, “You can’t rape the willing.”

Really?

I think Aimee and her ilk all deserve a special place in hell. Their justifications and rationalizations are just as bad as those used when girls are raped by their fathers.

And the excuse that Aimee used? I mean, you know that an excuse had to be coming because no one accepts responsibility for anything anymore.

Her excuse? She was sexually and physically abused when she was young.

You know what? Big deal. Suck it up and move on. Many people were, but they chose not to ever abuse anyone in their life time. It’s called making a choice and living to a code of moral standards.

Aimee should try it some time.

She does have at least nine long years to think things over.

It’s the beginning of the 21st century. You’re a member of an incredibly successful musical group. You and your bandmates have paid your dues, working gigs at run down bars and 3rd rate venues for little or no pay, working your way up the ladder of fame.

Your big break comes in the form of an American Idol type television talent show for singing groups. All that hard work, all those hours and hours of practicing and rehearsing finally pay off, and you and the band are declared the winners.

Now, instead of gigging at dive bars that hold 50 or 100 people, you’re performing in twenty-thousand seat arenas to overflow crowds. The band’s first album sells nearly one million copies before it ever arrives at record shops.

You’ve finally made it.

There’s just one problem, and it’s a big one. You’ve known for many years that you are HIV positive. You were infested by a blood transfusion during surgery, through no fault of your own, but you a convinced that if it is ever revealed publically, it will mean the end of the band and your dream.

You decide to keep your condition a secret, which is harmless by itself. But what about the guys you choose to date. Whether it’s a one night stand or a long term relationship, what do you tell your partner? Do you tell the truth, and risk a vindictive lover spilling the beans in a fit of anger or jealousy, or do remain silent, but make sure you practice safe sex.

Or do you take door number three, and pretend that everything is fine and dandy, and you don’t actually have the virus, therefore, there’s no need to take precautions to ensure the safety of your partner. Now you don’t have to explain why you insist on a condom.

So what do you do?.

It really is test of character, isn’t it? Well, this is exactly the predicament that singer Nadja Benaissa, 28, one of the original members of the German girl band No Angels, found herself in. From what I can tell, No Angels is the German equivalent of Girls Aloud (whoever they are – I’m really feeling the generation gap right now).

Her solution has not only shocked people with her callous disregard for the well-being of others, but presented us all with the moral dilemma I discussed at the beginning of my story; How far would you go to protect your lifelong dream of fame and fortune?

Before I continue, it’s important to know that Nadja Benaissa has been on trial this week for knowingly infecting one of her sexual partner with HIV without informing him of her status or using proper precautions. Closing arguments were on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010, and a verdict is expected any time now.

Nadja Benaissa was addicted to crack cocaine at 14 and living on the street, but 2 years later, in 1998, she discovered she was pregnant and stopped using drugs, only to find out during a regular pregnancy blood test that she was HIV-positive. Thankfully, her now 12-year-old daughter was virus-free.

She and the other original members of the No Angels were selected during the international TV talent show Popstars in 2000, and became Germany’s most successful girl band, selling five million albums from 2000 to 2003.

When Nadja Benaissa was faced with her dilemma, she chose to remain silent. She hid her HIV status from everyone, fearing it would damage her career. She also claims that she didn’t want to stigmatize her then baby daughter – even though the child had no trace of the disease. And, of course, she didn’t want to jeopardize the band.

Even though I don’t buy Nadja’s claim that a health professional told her it was nearly impossible for her to infect another person, I think most of us can see her point – hey, it’s nobody else’s business anyways. But Nadja Benaissa wasn’t celibate during this period either – or careful.

As a matter of fact, she admits to having sex with the three men a maximum of five times between 2000 and 2004. During those five encounter she neither informed her partners of her HIV positive status nor took any precautions to protect them from becoming infected.

Unfortunately one of those partners, a 34-year-old man, discovered that he was HIV positive in 2009, when news of Nadja Benaissa’s HIV status became public, prompting him to get tested by his doctor:

“[After] a few hours he called me and said I should go to see him. It was then I knew I was positive.”

Needless to say, the man, who I’ll call Mr. Smith, was pretty unhappy that Nadja Benaissa had neglected to inform him of her little “issue”. Surprisingly though, he was not the one who ended up reporting Nadja to the police.

No, one her other two sexual partners, who had also heard through the media of Ms. Benaissa’s HIV positive status, went to police and made a complaint.

On April 11th, 2009, police arrested Nadja Benaissa on charges of causing grievous bodily harm for allegedly infecting Mr. Smith with the virus in 2004 and attempting to cause grievous bodily harm for having unprotected sex with her two other partners.

Nadja Benaissa was held in jail for 10 days, after a judge ruled there was a danger she might repeat the alleged offense, but eventually she was released on April 21st, 2009, after German and other European AIDS groups complained about her treatment.

The arrest of such a high profile person for infecting another person with the HIV virus has opened a HUGE can of worms. To me, this is a simple case; Did Nadja Benaissa have the right to protect her career by not informing her lovers that she was HIV positive? Even she doesn’t believe that, as we can plainly see by the statement she read on the stand during her trial, where she admitted to the charges and apologized to all three of her “victims”.

“I’d been told the likelihood of infecting someone or that I would develop the illness [Aids] was more or less zero. For that reason, I kept the news, even from my close group of friends, [as] I didn’t want my daughter to be stigmatized. I told the band members because I trusted them but I never made it public because I feared that it would mean the end of the band.”

“I am sorry from the bottom of my heart. No way did I want my partner to be infected.”

She gets no points from me for this pretty speech. In my book, anything you say or do after you’ve already been caught loses a major portion of its credibility. If Nadja Benaissa had made a similar statement in, say, 2008, well now that would have taken some courage.

But AIDS activists couldn’t resist the opportunity to criticize this prosecution as contributing to the stigmatization of people with HIV, and demanding that all laws that criminalize anything to do with HIV or AIDS be overturned. Many went so far as to, that’s right folks, suggest that the victim, Mr. Smith, was partly responsible for his infection.

OK, so I believe in practicing safe sex myself, but I don’t know, maybe I’m naive for expecting this, but if my partner has a disease as serious as HIV, she’d have the common fucking decency to let me know about it. Especially, ESPECIALLY if we were about to engage in unprotected sex.

So please, to all you AIDS support groups out there who are using this incident as a chance to get a little free publicity for your respective agendas, please, have some compassion for a 34-year-old man whose life has just been turned upside down through no fault of his own, and shut the fuck up.

Thank you.

To Nadja Benaissa, I have this to say. I understand that you were young, and that you literally went from rags to riches. I also understand that protecting your career must have seemed like the most important thing in the world. But lying by omission to these three men was not your only option, nor your first one. What you chose to do was beyond selfish. It was reckless, premeditated and evil.

Perhaps I’m being too hard on Nadja Benaissa. After all, she has admitted in court that her actions were irresponsible and cruel, and she has apologized directly to the man she infected, along with her other two ex-boyfriends. Maybe it’s wrong to condemn someone for actions taken 5 or 6 years ago. I’ve thought a lot about these two points.

But I keep coming back to this; Nadja Benaissa chose to have unprotected sex with three men because she was afraid that if she was exposed as HIV positive, it would endanger the popularity of her band No Angels and ruin her chances to remain rich and famous. She decided her career was more important than the health and well being of these men.

That’s what this case is about. It’s about that poor slob who is now HIV positive and will live with that for the rest of his life – as someone who lives with heart disease, I understand all to well what living with a chronic, fatal, incurable disease does to your peace of mind. While HIV is not the death sentence it used to be, there’s no doubt this man’s quality of life has taken a huge hit.

And where are the AIDS advocacy group’s support for him? Why is there no righteous indignation over the treatment he has received? Perhaps if these groups pulled their heads out of the politician’s asses long enough to take a couple of breaths of fresh air, they’d remember the PEOPLE who are suffering out here with HIV and full-blown AIDS.

Anyway, life goes on. The prosecution in Nadja Benaissa’s trial for inflicting grievous bodily harm has just stated in their closing argument that they are not asking the court for jail time for the singer, just two years probation. My idea about Nadja’s actions in court being part of a well orchestrated plan is sounding better and better.

UPDATE: August 27th, 2010

Nadja Benaissa was found guilty as charged today, as a panel of three judges and two laypersons convicted her of one count of causing grievous bodily harm and four counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm. In addition to serving a two-year suspended sentence, Ms. Benaissa was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.

His wife’s sister gave birth nine months ago to a beautiful baby girl, making Michael and his Missus a newly minted uncle and aunt.

His sister-in-law and her husband, fresh to the parenting game, must have been grateful to have the opportunity to avail themselves of the Schmidts’ offer to babysit their angel.

Ask any parent about the importance of making “couple time” and they’ll likely tell you that it is essential Dad and Mom remember that they were once husband and wife first before the pitter-patter of little feet.

Of course, finding a reliable and trustworthy babysitter isn’t an easy task, especially in today’s world. The news is full of horror stories. It’s enough to make you think of putting “couple time” on hold for eighteen years. And who is more trustworthy than people with whom you share a blood relationship and their spouses.

Those of us with large extended families are familiar with the practice of having our relatives look after our children – it is a way of developing relationships for us and for our children. It is a socialization process as well. The more exposure children have to new faces and new people (that we adults approve of and trust), then the better the chances are that our children will develop strong social skills.

As I said, relatives have an edge on strangers in terms of trust – we assume that those tied to us by blood will have our best interests at heart. By proxy, it is assumed that they will have our child’s best interests.

On April 24, 2010, the nine-month old infant was dropped off at the Schmidts’ abode around 3:00 p.m.. The new parents must have felt secure in leaving their little bundle of joy with the Schmidts.

Too bad they didn’t know of those skeletons rattling around the Schmidts’ collective closet like a Calypso band.

At some point in the evening, Michael Schmidt claimed that the girl “messed” her diaper and he had to change it. Unfortunately, he chose the couch to do the task. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her rolling off the couch. He grabbed for her tumbling form, but the diaper wipes had made her skin slippery, he said, and he believes that while trying to catch her, he must have cut her with his hangnail and caused a scratch which would not stop bleeding.

Michael Schmidt told his wife what happened and at around 10:00 p.m., they decided to take the baby to the local hospital, but first Tracy Schmidt called the father to let him know that his daughter needed stitches and that they were transporting her to the hospital.

To say Tracy Schmidt was economical with the details is an understatement.

The father and mother wasted no time in reaching the hospital.

Once there, the couple were told that a woman (identified as Tracy Schmidt) had arrived with a nine-month old female infant who had extensive vaginal and anal bleeding. The doctors and nurses were utterly shocked at the trauma the infant had sustained.

Due to the severity of her injuries, the doctors felt she needed surgery immediately, so they obtained the necessary permission from the parents and immediately sent the baby to St. Paul Children’s Hospital for surgery. She was transported via ambulance.

At the St. Paul location, the baby was whisked into surgery. Medical staff was outraged at the extent of the damage done to the tiny infant.

Fortunately, the surgeon was able to repair the tears made in her flesh and she will eventually heal. The baby has been released from the hospital into her parents care. She is recovering nicely despite the horrendous nature of the attack.

After he completed the necessary repairs, the surgeon pulled the father aside to tell him that his daughter’s injuries were the result of a brutal sexual assault and included:

“…superficial tears in her anal sphincter, and a tear which gaped widely at the girl’s perineum, and extended through the girl’s hymen, continuing the length of her vagina to her cervix…”

Both the father and the police were told that Michael Schmidt’s account of how she sustained the injures was “highly inconsistent” with the nature and extent of the girl’s injuries – internal and external injuries which added up, in the words of Hastings Police Chief Mike McMenomy, to a ”horrendous” rape.

And not, as so sworn by Michael Schmidt, the result of an errant hangnail.

Chief McMenomy said the attack itself was devastating to the whole department as it was one of the worst cases of sexual assault he had seen in over thirty years on the force – and without a doubt, the youngest victim he had ever encountered.

It is worth noting that when Tracy Schmidt brought the baby to the emergency room, she repeated the twaddle story Michael Schmidt gave regarding the injuries, but she had no more luck in being believed than her lying sack of shit husband did.

Interestingly, Michael Schmidt’s past includes several convictions indicating a pattern of violence that his in-laws were completely unaware of. He has convictions for the following items:

2002 interfering with a 911 call in Dakota County

2002 driving with a canceled license in Dakota County

1999 misdemeanour domestic assault in Dakota County

1995 child endangerment in Red Wing, Goodhue County

1994 fleeing a police officer in Hennepin County

Catch that one for child endangerment? That’s a whole lot interesting and grounds for Tracy Schmidt joining her hubby in the cell block She had to have known what he was doing. The baby’s screams would have been heard throughout the house.

See, back in 1994, Michael Schmidt was charged with an incident regarding an 8-month-old infant he was caring for. The little boy suffered extensive genital bruising and purple, swollen testicles. The boy had large bruises on his inner thighs. The doctors could not determine whether the child was sexually abused. Although the Goodhue prosecutor Carol Lee still thinks about the case, she said her priority was to make sure the boy was safe. The infant was sent away to live with a relative.

The domestic assault convictions involved his wife, Tracy Schmidt – at the time she was just his girlfriend – she was present during the times Michael was abusing the infants, but she refused to cooperate in 1994 and has refused to cooperate again in 2010. The two later married.

The 8-month-old infant was her baby boy and she is the aunt of the nine-month old baby girl. Seems to me Tracy Schmidt is an oxygen-thief and waste of space.

So it seems that once a pedophile, always a pedophile. Although, Michael Schmidt seems to be one notch worse than a pedophile as he has a predilection for infants, making his paraphilia technically nepiophilia (also known as infantophilia). It is when someone has a sexual preference for toddlers and infants, usually ranging from 0 to 3 years of age.

My term? SICKO!!

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom is pushing for the longest possible sentence they can against Michael Schmidt. They have filed a motion to “enhance” the sentence based on key factors:

- vulnerability of the victim

- abuse of a position of trust

- multiple forms of penetration

- suspect’s prior crimes against children

- “particular cruelty”

Michael Frederick Schmidt was booked on charges of sexual assault and bond was set at $200,000 without conditions or $100,000 with conditions, including one that he have no contact with any children except for supervised visits with his own children. Yes, that’s right. This ass-hat has children – plural. I want to puke.

I cannot in any way fathom that any human being would be able to defend this piece of shit, but I’m sure he’s already had an offer or two.

As for his wife, well, I think she should be charged with something – obstruction of justice, contributing to the harm of an infant, failure to warn or inform of a predator, wearing white after Labour Day – anything! Tracy L. Schmidt is his enabler and actually helps him try to evade justice.

The baby girl will heal but one hopes she never again is subjected to her uncle’s perversions.

Schmidt has been remanded for a pre-trial hearing at 1:30 p.m. on November 24, 2010, in Dakota County District Court; currently he is residing in the Dakota County Jail.

Michael Frederick Schmidt is charged with criminal sexual conduct in the first degree (a felony), and, if convicted, Schmidt faces a maximum sentence of thirty years in prison and a $40,000 fine.

It is the least one can hope for.

The criminal complaint states that on or about April 24, 2010, in Dakota County, Minnesota, Michael Frederick Schmidt, engaged in sexual penetration with another person , the complainant is under 13 years of age and the accused is more than 36 months older than the complainant. Victim is 9 months old, perpetrator is 41 years old or 492 months old. Yep, I think he qualifies.

To View The Criminal Complaint Against Michael Schmidt, Click Here

Back in the fiasco of 1994 and with the assistance of his future wife, many of the child abuse and child neglect charges were dropped. As a result, of the one year sentence he received for injuring Tracy Schmidt’s son, he served just fifteen days, with two years spent on probation.

The cover-up and support he has received from Tracy Schmidt is as valuable as money in the bank. When he abused her son, he was 26 years old. When he allegedly raped her sister’s baby, he was 41 years old. There is fifteen years of unknown activity that bears scrutiny. It is not that much of a stretch to assume that there were other actions taken that never came to light due to a perfect cover.

In the words of Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom, child abuse is rampant in our society today, and that in the United States alone, it is estimated that “one in four girls, and one in six boys, will be sexually abused by the time they reach 18.”

Sadly, as Backstrom also indicated, a large percentage of these abuse cases are never reported – for various reasons – shame, guilt, vilification of the victim, family pressures to keep quiet, fear of not being believed, fear of reprisals, and so on.

Cases like Michael Frederick Schmidt’s come to law enforcement’s attention due to the obvious nature and severity of the physical trauma. So in a way, our young victim was a martyr who gave up her body for a higher cause – that cause being the capture of Michael Schmidt.

The fact that people like Michael Frederick Schmidt get away with crimes against the most helpless among us is indeed sad and disturbing. It is only by recognizing abuse when it happens and going forward to prosecute these animals can we reduce the number of damaged adults these self-serving sick mutants create.

If we mean what we say, then it is time to give people like Michael Schmidt the recognition they so richly deserve.

One mother and father did not know what lurked in their own family circle and their little baby girl paid one hell of a price. Physically she will heal, but the trauma is likely to leave some imprint on her subconscious. As for her parents, it is unlikely this betrayal will ever be forgotten.

There are some things that can never be forgiven.

What happened on April 24, 2010 is one such event.

On August 19, 1982, a genetic mistake was slithering around in his pus-filled skin suit masquerading as a human male – David Joseph Steffen. He came across pretty 19-year-old Karen Range, and decided that she was just the victim he was looking to rape. Stalking her to her Roselawn home, he knocked on her door posing as a door-to-door cleaning supply salesman.

He forced his way in when she answered, and began his vicious assault on her. The battering her body withstood was remarkable. Armed with his fists and a paring knife, he nearly decapitated the poor girl. Her half-stripped bloodied form was later discovered by the one person who loved her more than life itself – her mother, Laurie.

Laurie called the police and she was told not to approach her daughter’s body – it was now a crime scene, you see.

The detectives and the crime scene crew arrived; they did their CSI magic and Karen’s body was taken away in a black body bag. She was delivered to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office some time around midnight on August 20, 1982, to await the coroner and his morning autopsy routine. She would be analyzed and clues would be tweezed from her remains.

Karen was booked in to the county morgue by one Kenneth Douglas. Kenny had been working at the morgue since 1976 and supplemented his income by moonlighting at various local funeral homes. He would continue to work in this rather gruesome field until 1992. In fact, he was working part-time at Jamison & Jamison Funeral Home in addition to his job as morgue attendant at the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office.

In the morning, the coroner performed his autopsy as required by state law for all murder victims, on what was left of Karen Range. In his examination, he noted the multitude of knife wounds piercing her body, in particular, drawing attention to the devastating neck injury which had left the head precariously attached to body by the slenderest proportion of cartilage and tissue.

Her body sustained large garish bruises, and blood was dried and caked over her remains. Karen Range, he noted, had been sexually assaulted at some point and he used the standard rape kit to gather evidence in the form of seminal fluid from Karen’s body. In 1982, the best law enforcement could expect from forensic science at this point was identification of the contributor through blood typing of the bodily fluids.

In this case, a suspect was found and the blood typing indicated that David Steffen was potentially the contributor of the semen inside Karen Range’s body based on the results.

When the case went to trial in 1983, it was anything but easy for Laurie Range to attend and tolerate as the defense attorney did his best to vilify her daughter and basically re-victimize her all over again. Difficult to hear was the carnage Steffen wrought on Karen. And then there was the rape evidence, the motive for his attack. But Steffen denied the rape, it was all part of the defense’s “SODDIT” strategy (Some Other Dude Did IT).

Thankfully, the defense didn’t work. By murdering and raping Karen Range, David Steffen became eligible for Ohio’s death penalty under its “special circumstances” provisions which states that anyone convicted of committing a murder and one other felony can face the death penalty in the punishment phase.

Steffen was found guilty and the jury decided he should pay for his crimes: he won the death penalty.

Steffen felt that he didn’t deserve the judgment and so he would spend the next twenty-five years fighting the death penalty conviction on the grounds that, hey, yes, he admitted murdering Karen Range, but he never raped her. It seems that once she was dead, he just couldn’t follow through.

The tough break for him is that no one believes murdering psychopaths. He was sitting on death row and it was due to the fact that the blood test they used with the semen could not exclude him from being the contributor to the specimen found.

David Joseph Steffen OWNED that special circumstance.

Or he did until March 1, 2007. It was on this date that the test results were back. As part of Steffen’s many appeals against his death penalty conviction, the prosecutor’s office ran the DNA sample from Karen’s crime evidence against the DNA sample Steffen provided.

The results were sent to the lab and came back to the prosecutor. And guess what?

It said David Steffen was not the contributor of the semen found in Karen Range. So I guess the murdering psychopathic piece of shit was telling the truth.

Indeed, the results were a real puzzle now, so much so that they decided to take the DNA sample from Karen’s fiancée and run them against the sample – again, no match.

Steffen’s lawyer is now demanding a whole new trial for his client. I mean, if he was telling the truth about the rape, then maybe he could start saying he didn’t really kill her, right?

Fortunately, Laurie Range has been assured that Steffen isn’t going to get a new trial as the bastard had already confessed, in detail, to murdering her daughter. He’s only going to get a new trial on the penalty portion of his punishment and the worst would be that he didn’t get the death penalty again but rather sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Those are his only two options.

But you know what? There is always a silver lining. In the state of Ohio, if you commit and are convicted of murder and one other felony, then you are eligible for the death penalty. Okay, so he didn’t rape Karen, but he’s still guilty of attempted rape, and oh, yes, he was convicted of aggravated burglary as well. So there – he’s still guilty of murder and a felony still despite years of whining and bitching.

He could still get another death penalty judgment, and I’m going to be optimistic and hope for the best. :-)

All of this background is necessary to set the stage for our latest candidate of hell-worthiness. It concerns the mysterious contributor of the DNA.

Karen Range had been a virgin when Steffen murdered her. She was a sweet girl who was saving herself for her fiancée – her mother knew it, her family knew it, her friends knew it. The defense scum, I mean, defense lawyer implied that Karen was a loose lady, that she had, in fact, been sexually active, despite evidence and testimony to the contrary.

Well just how do you explain the semen found? That’s the kicker.

And it totally sucks that Karen Range would have to be victimized twice.

Enter Kenneth Douglas, Hamilton County Coroner morgue attendant. He looks pretty average, wouldn’t you say? Of course, given his vocation in life involves working with the dead, one would expect these people to somehow look morose all the time — how else can you work surrounded by death every day and not look sad?

Heck, I have to say I am glad that there are people out there who don’t mind working with the deceased. Think about it – morticians, coroners, pathologists, mortuary workers, funeral directors, and all sundry personnel who make the business of death a thriving industry. There was a cable reality show on a few years ago to let America know that these people have screwed up lives just like everyone else. It was called Family Plots.

And heck, leave it to Hollywood to put a rather stylized spin on the daily drama one would supposedly find in a coroner’s office with Quincy, M.E. And neither of these televised shows covered Kenneth’s problem, but I suppose that would be too much even on a cable station. But honestly, working with the dead is definitely not for everyone.

You see, Kenneth Douglas is the proud depositor of the semen found in Karen Range. Kenneth Douglas is a necrophile. I’ll wait a few minutes while you ponder this edifying revelation.

Yes, Karen Range had been brutally and viciously attacked by David Joseph Steffen only to fall prey to another piece of evil after death.

Once the crime scene team had finished their stint in Karen’s home and placed her in the body bag, they transported her remains to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office shortly after midnight, August 20, 1982. It was 29-year-old Kenneth Douglas who booked her into one of the refrigerated slabs in the morgue to ostensibly wait for the medical examiner’s morning autopsy.

Well, that was the plan anyway.

The morgue was under the tipsy stewardship of Dr. Frank Cleveland. He ran the place for thirty years (1964 to 1994) prior to retiring to Florida. During his tenure, it was fairly common knowledge that he had a drinking problem and bottles of 40 proof courage stuffed in his office desk.

Hiring like-minded employees to work for him, he soon had a full complement of less than honorable employees. Parties (!) were often held, with morgue workers frequently having females come to the work place and have sex with them. Drugs and alcohol flowed freely and many irregularities occurred.

In the state of Ohio, this one little county morgue has cost the taxpayers big time. In 2001, they paid $5.25 million in settlement because of the coroner’s policy of removing corneas from bodies without family permission.

In 2007, $8 million was paid to make a lawsuit go away: the coroner allowed a photographer access to the bodies in his possession for his art project. He posed ordinary objects on/next/in dead bodies and took photographs of the resulting image. Picture it: an automobile accident victim, your daughter, on a morgue slab with a telephone placed on her stomach. Page 25 of this yo-yo’s art book.

In 2007, $6 million was paid to make another lawsuit go away: this was over whether the coroner could take body parts without permission from family members. Many people do not realize a black market exists where dead bodies are sold, in parts or whole, to medical research facilities throughout the world and that a “prime” cadaver can fetch over $100,000.

But as crazy and as far-out as most employees were, Kenneth Douglas was without question one-of-a-kind. At least, that what the Prosecutor Joe Deters is hoping for. What’s Joe’s opinion of Kenneth Douglas?

“This guy’s just a pig. I can’t explain why someone would do something like this. … This is off-the-charts weird.”

Still, Joe’s feelings are in line with Assistant Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier, who said:

“He ought to be tortured and put to death.”

Harsh words, yes.

Kenny liked to party with women, booze and drugs too. It’s just his women were dead.

Who knows when it first started? Kenneth claims he doesn’t remember as he has said that his years spent working with the dead are a hazy alcohol-filled zone in his memory. Convenient. And, psychologically speaking, untrue.

On August 20th, shortly after midnight, Karen was ensconced in her slot, but she was not to be left “resting in peace.” Ol’ Kenny decided that Karen Range looked good enough to him and had sex with her corpse.

The girl, lovely in life, was covered in blood. Gaping wounds, still fresh from the frenzied attack mere hours before, marred her body.Her head remained attached by the slightest of tendons as Steffen had nearly decapitated her.

Douglas, however, seemed to be unperturbed by the trauma her body had sustained. Or maybe, as some have speculated, it was because of the trauma her body had sustained that he had an overwhelming desire to have sex with her.

It turns out that Karen Range was not the only body on which Kenneth Douglas released his perversions.

Kenneth Douglas worked for the coroner’s office from 1976 to 1992. During that time, he was moonlighting at several funeral homes in the area. Such dedication to his job is not surprising for those afflicted with necrophilia.

And despite protestations to the contrary, the paraphilia presents itself as early as age 10 or 11. If it is undetected and left untreated, then the necrophile develops into a serious threat for the community in which he/she lives. You see, necrophilia is a sexual deviation and perversion that cannot be cured and sure as hell isn’t normal.

It is next to impossible to detect the disorder because the person will appear completely normal. There are no obvious behavioral clues to look for, no behavioral patterns that provide a clue such as one can observe with pedophiles. As one would expect, there are precious few studies in this area as the subject is even more taboo than pedophilia.

Like pedophilia, it is incurable. It can be controlled, but it can never be eradicated. Medical professionals insist that the person afflicted must undergo intense therapy to understand what motivates the “drive” and only then can the person learn to control it.

According to criminal psychologist Dr. Stuart Bassman, necrophilia is a serious mental disorder:

“Necrophilia is a subset of a paraphilia … mental disorders that are typified by someone engaging in behavior where they take advantage of an unsuspecting victim…..[and necrophiles are like]..chameleon(s) where they’re able to adapt and assimilate into the community…when they’re in a position where they have access, they take advantage and they exploit and abuse someone…”

Necrophiles can be treated, but the disorder is forever. Dr. Bassman says that it is a variation of pornography.

“There is a sense that the person in their mind is having a very endowed fantasy life. So, to a great extent, in their mind they are having an intimate sexual relationship with someone.”

Dr. Bassman added that necrophiliacs act out their fantasies because it’s a protection against being rejected or abandoned.

“This person is not going to leave them. This person is not going to report them.”

Asked if a person could commit multiple offenses of corpse abuse, he said “definitely.” This is a repetitive compulsion that someone acts out over the course of their lives. This is a very serious mental disorder that is treatable, but not curable.

To give you some idea of the strength of paraphilia and what it would be like for Kenneth Douglas to work in funeral homes and morgues, it is the equivalent to having a male pedophile in charge of a pre-school day care center with absolutely no monitoring at all and victims that cannot speak.

Nice picture.

To those who feel sorry for him, forget it. He refuses to own up to the fact he’s even got a problem. Kenny says he doesn’t remember and that he only did it because he was using alcohol and drugs. He not only denies he has any problem; he stated in court that had he not used drugs and alcohol, then he would never have done such things.

We know Kenneth Douglas was a little odd, so it should be no surprise that he did not quit his job in the usual way either. In 1992, one day he just left work and never came back. No call. No letter saying he was quitting. Nothing. At the age of 39, he just stopped showing up to work and that was it.

So how did they know about Kenneth Douglas being the contributor?

We know he up and quit in 1992 at 39 years of age, so he must have gone on to other work, right? I mean, no one can exist in this day and age without some sort source of income. He did not win the state lottery, inherit from a long-lost relative or invent something worthwhile. He did get married in 2005 to Brenda Simmons, but it wasn’t a marriage for money.

The clue as to how he was making ends meet may be in his criminal charge and conviction on March 17, 2008: it was for drug trafficking.

As part of his conviction, he was ordered to provide a DNA sample to the state of Ohio’s DNA database. That’s how they caught him.

Whenever the database is updated, there are hundreds of “pending” samples that get run against the new data. The DNA from Karen Range was one of those “pending” samples and BING! We have a hit.

Now I’m sure that they were wondering like heck as to HOW his DNA got inside Karen Range. In 1982, Kenneth Douglas would have been 29 years old. It is extremely unlikely he would have been dating Karen, but I’m sure that the possibility must have been at least something to consider.

But no. It wasn’t a dating thing. Laurie Range was correct: her daughter had been a virgin and she had died a virgin.

At first, when he was being interviewed by Prosecutor Joe Deters, he was asked how his DNA could show up from evidence collected from a murder victim. Kenneth volunteered that he did work at the county morgue as an attendant in 1982. Well, they knew that much already.

So again, they asked him if he could think of a way as to how his DNA could get there. After all, DNA technology was not available in 1982, but it was certainly a respected science by 2008. He was told that basically the finger of God was pointing at him as the contributor of the DNA.

Wall of silence.

Deters explained about the DNA sample and that it was semen collected from inside Karen Range.

Still nothing.

Finally, tired of the silent treatment, Prosecutor Deters told Kenneth that either he was there with Steffen when Karen Range was murdered, or something happened at the morgue.

Kenny decided to tell the truth. Funny what it can take to get people to open up.

When asked how often he may have done this sort of thing, he assured them that no more than half a dozen time, at the most, in all the time he worked there and at the funeral homes.

So Deters had the answer to the mystery DNA. He sent two detectives to Laurie Range’s Florida home to tell her that her daughter’s reputation would no longer be sullied by Steffen’s legal dogs – Karen Range had died a virgin. She was pleased that they could prove it, but what about the semen – how did it get there?

Now there’s a job I wouldn’t want. Telling this poor mother that once her daughter’s body was in the city’s custody, a city employee sexually assaulted it.

But it was about to get worse.

To the first crime identified, the assault on the remains of Karen Range four hours after she was admitted into the morgue, Kenneth Douglas plead no contest. The judge found him guilty as charged to abuse of a corpse and also violation of his parole. He was sentenced to three years – one year for the abuse and desecration of a corpse and two years for violating the terms and conditions of his parole stemming from the drug conviction.

This is when the citizens of Cincinnati discovered that the dearly departed were afforded very little in terms of protection against any kind of abuse. It was a fifth level felony – the lowest classification – and the maximum time for those guilty was one year in prison.

Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones was so outraged that he campaigned until one Democrat and one Republican drafted a bill for the state’s legislature to amend the penalty to at least five years in prison.

It must have crossed the mind of someone, but exactly how gross did everyone feel once they realized that this Kenneth Douglas was the same Kenneth Douglas that worked in the coroner’s office in 1982?

Once the prosecutor had the information regarding the DNA match to Karen Range and Kenneth Douglas, his team went back over the years Douglas worked at the coroner’s office and determined if any of the cases had viable bodily fluids which could be checked for DNA. Due to decomposition and the time elapsed, it turns out that there were just twelve such cases that could be tested – of these, two were covered in Douglas’s DNA.

One victim was 23-year-old Charlene Edwards Appling, who was 6-months pregnant when she was strangled by the drug dealer she was with, Mark Chambers, who mistakenly thought she had taken his crack cocaine. Of the family she left behind, her little boy was taken in by her sister, who also had the unpleasant task of identifying her body. She was delivered to the morgue, and violated, on October 1, 1991.

Oh, and Chambers was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in Charlene’s death and was released on parole in 2000.

The second victim was 24-year-old Angel Hicks. She died of blunt force trauma to the head, and although her death was ruled a homicide, the defendant in that case walked – acquitted at trial. She was delivered to the morgue, and violated, on December 8, 1991.

So let’s see now, Karen Range was violated in 1982 and these two women were violated in 1991. That leaves nine long years of questions.

Investigators went back to Kenneth Douglas for a more frank and detailed discussion. Based on what he eventually told investigators, they know he violated dozens and dozens during his 16-years of unlimited access to the dead.

He told them that he was out of control and, if his frank confession is to be believed, then victims number over one hundred. It is, however, a matter of proof. As the prosecutor said, it is one thing to have a criminal confess; it is another thing to prove it in a court of law.

Kenneth said he was out of control and that sex with corpses happened all the time and any chance he could get. In essence, exactly what psychologists state will happen with this disorder actually happened. It is an overwhelming compulsion that cannot be managed by oneself. It can take over a person’s life, and from Kenny’s confessions, it sounds as though that is exactly what happened.

The court date for the crimes on Appling and Hicks meant another appearance for Kenny. In 1991, it just so happens that the punishment for corpse abuse was reduced so when Kenneth was sentenced,, he was asked if he wanted the harsher sentence or the reduced penalty. Well, DUH, he chose the lower sentence as punishment.

At this hearing, he pleaded guilty to both counts. He said he wanted to spare his family and the families of the victims further trauma that a trial would entail. He used this court appearance to state that:

“There is no excuse for my crime. If I wasn’t under the influence, this never would have happened.”

Nope. No excuse. And then he gives one.

Aside from giving an excuse, thereby sidestepping acceptance of responsibility, he is denying the problem he has. It isn’t merely a case of someone being too inebriated or too high to know what they are doing. He was having sex regularly with the corpses he was entrusted with. Kenneth Douglas was, for at least sixteen years, a practicing necrophiliac.

While in jail, he has been receiving alcohol and drug counseling, but absolutely no help for his necrophilia. As we know, it is a strong drive which is dangerous if left untreated.

The truth is that there are many, many victims, but the prosecutor cannot charge him for these crimes – there is no evidence. Deters said that estimates from Kenneth went as high as a hundred, so he’s sure that there are more victims, but the bottom line is that they would need to have samples from every female victim that he ever had contact with from 1976 to 1992, and there is just no way that they could possibly get that evidence. Aside from decomposition and the time involved, there would be the logistics of exhuming all those bodies and getting legal releases and the lab work and so on.

It is a monumental task just thinking about the victims – and for what? Re-traumatizing the families?

The media frenzy did not parlay into frank discussion of a long-taboo subject. Only a handful of articles attempted to delineate the problem the community was grappling with. Those articles often left more questions than answers with regards to a necrophile working at the county morgue. Deters was left with nothing to say when his phone was ringing off the hook from people calling and asking, “Was my loved one violated?”

All he could say was, “I honestly don’t know.”

But for this little notorious coroner’s office, the end result is a little more than bad news – it’s a financial catastrophe.

Once the families had time to process the news, they got angry. When they investigated a little more, they learned that the tenure of madcap Dr. Frank Cleveland had created a thoroughly despicable atmosphere to which they had unknowingly subjected their loved ones’ remains to. And that it was public knowledge. Booze flowed freely, late night escapades with girlfriends and hookers alike dropping by to have sex with workers on the premises, drugs bought and sold, and, more troubling, Douglas having sex with female corpses.

In Laurie Range’s words, “How dare he!”

As such, the families who share this unwanted distinction of being victims of Kenneth Douglas, have joined forces to sue the pants off the county – the retired coroner, Kenneth Douglas and the Coroner’s office have all been named in the suit and they are seeking unspecified damages for the pain and suffering Douglas’ actions have caused. Furthermore, the workplace environment created by Cleveland allowed this type of abuse to happen, so he is named front and center as being the root cause of the dereliction of duty scenario that occurred.

The families are seeking unspecified damages, and while they say that money is not the concern, the end result should be. They had faith that the county would care for their loved ones and prepare them for final internment. Their faith was betrayed in a most vile manner. Their trust has been broken and they want to see something changed, something done to prevent this from ever happening to anyone else’s loved ones ever again.

At the sentencing for abuse of Edwards and Hicks, the judge gave Kenneth Douglas the maximum sentence possible under current legislation: three years (1.5 years per corpse). The judge summed up the community’s feelings when she said:

“There’s a reason we say ‘the dearly departed’ and ‘may they rest in peace.’ What happened he(re) isn’t even primitive. It’s depraved and inhumane.”

We can only hope it is a little more rare occurrence than it turned out to be in Ohio.

Oh no.

I lay in bed and listen to the deafening noises emanating from my kitchen as my brood prepares me breakfast in bed. I listen with stomach turning intensity to the crashing, and banging of what must be every single pot, pan, bowl and kitchen utensil that my kitchen can offer and on one memorable occasion, the smoke detector going off. I listen to cries of “you’re a butthead! Yeah! Well you’ve got fart breath.” (those two will never be English scholars)

This year they brought me a breakfast consisting of extremely crunchy scrambled eggs which were half raw, burnt pancakes with what appeared to be cut up dried spicy mango pieces (gag) and cold coffee. I devoured every single bite (silently praying that I didn’t get food poisoning) and proclaimed that they are going to be fine chefs some day.

They then presented the homemade tchotchkes, cards and flowers. The sole exception is my oldest who has graduated to the most horrendous, eye watering and I’m sure, skin burning perfume that his $3 bucks can buy. I exclaimed over each gift, and for once, all of my boys kiss me without complaint, and tell me they love me.

After my little troopers filed out to get ready for mass, I finally got to leave the bedroom and survey ground zero – my kitchen. Oh dear God, somebody call FEMA. I loved every minute of it.

Eun Y. Kang, 39, of Venice, California, will never know the joys of motherhood or learn the art of faking delight after receiving a gift of vomit inducing discount store perfume. She will never receive the handmade macaroni encrusted picture frame or the hand painted picture that resembles a demonic Rorschach test with your child gleefully shouting, “that’s you Mommy!”.

Kang, who was four months pregnant with twins, was brutally raped and stabbed to death (allegedly) by Boneetio Kentro Washington, 22, of Culver City, CA. Kang, a Korean-American, was the owner of P-1 Cleaners, a dry cleaning business in Beverly Hills, CA.

She immigrated to the United States in order to care for her sick brother some years before, then opened her business. Her family, friends and neighbors all described her as creative, kind, compassionate, friendly, smiling and trusting with a passion for fashion design.

Homicide is a leading injury-related cause of death among pregnant and postpartum women, second only to car accidents. Pregnant women are most often murdered by a loved one, usually the father of their baby. But in Kang’s case, it appears that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another victim of the ultimate urban bogeyman; the random act of violence.

On December 8, 2009, around 10:00 pm, Eun Kang returned to her Venice, CA home and began unloading her groceries. It appears that Boneetio Washington had entered Ms. Kang’s duplex through an unlocked patio door. His intentions are not known, whether he was there for burglary or premeditated sexual assault.

When Eun entered her home, he attacked her, knocking her to the floor and then began to violently rape her. Her screams awoke her landlord and neighbor, Arnold Springer. Springer stated:

“I heard her scream, and I turned on the lights in my room and outside — the porch light — and I had my flashlight. I had it on shining my light in there. She was screaming `No. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. No.’ I shined my light in there and I saw him. He was raping her.”

The elderly Springer screamed at the man to stop, yelling that he was calling the police. It appears that is when Boneetio Washington began stabbing Eun. Springer ran for his home and dialed 911. Officers responded quickly to his call for help and when they arrived, found Boneetio inside Eun’s residence. He was apprehended without incident.

Eun had suffered multiple stab wounds and was transported to an area hospital. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done to save her life. She was pronounced dead at 11:15 pm. Her unborn son was pronounced dead at 11:18 pm.

It was not until the autopsy was performed the following day, that it was discovered that Eun was carrying twins. The second child was officially declared dead at 3:10 pm on December 9, 2009 according to Ed Winter, a spokesman for the coroner’s office.

Jim McDonnell, LAPD chief of detectives, stated:

“‘Sickening’ is the term that immediately comes to mind. This suspect had no value for the sanctity of human life for the victim or her unborn children.”

On December 17, 2009, Boneetio Kentro Washington was officially charged with three counts of capital murder with the special circumstances of multiple murders, as well as murder during a rape and murder during a burglary. He is also charged with one count of rape and one count of sexual penetration. Boneetio pleaded not guilty to all charges. The District Attorney’s office is deciding whether or not to seek the death penalty.

And what of Boneetio Washington? Boneetio has a long criminal record involving mostly petty crimes such as trespassing, vagrancy and burglary. At the time of the murder, Boneetio was on probation after pleading no contest to burglary charges in September, 2009. Boneetio’s trial in that case was delayed due to a doctor testifying that he was not mentally fit to stand trial. Boneetio was committed to Patton State Hospital from July 2009 to September 2009, when a doctor declared he was mentally capable of proceeding and Boneetio made a plea bargain.

At the time of the 2008 burglary, Boneetio Washington was already on probation for a trespassing conviction and living in a garage. Before that, he was convicted of trespassing and larceny in Rhode Island, where he was born. In 2006, he was charged with breaking and entering and assault in North Carolina.

In a twist of fate, Boneetio Washington was detained two days prior to Eun’s murder for allegedly attempting to break into a Culver City home. Culver City police say that, although Boneetio was allegedly seen trying to turn the doorknob of a home, he didn’t actually enter the house, so they could not arrest him for attempted burglary or trespassing. Lacking any probable cause, Culver City police released Boneetio. Two days later, Eun Kang and her two unborn children were dead.

California, like a lot of states, is facing severe budget crises. In particular, with the ever increasing amount of people being incarcerated, a lot of states are releasing criminals early. The majority of these convicted individuals were serving time for non-violent crimes. But every once in a while, a violent or potentially violent offender is released.

The union representing rank-and-file Los Angeles police officers says the rape and murder of Eun Kang is the kind of crime that could become more prevalent if the state releases 40,000 prison inmates under a federal mandate. The union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, quotes a statement by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, President of Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, and Eddie Jones, President of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Association:

“The alleged assailant of Ms. Kang was a former convicted felon with serious mental problems. Yet, he was released. State officials must immediately re-examine their policies on the release of convicted felons with serious mental challenges. This murder just proves again the case we have been making for months now. The budget-driven decision to provide early releases to criminals has, and will continue, to result in tragedy.”

Because the records are sealed, we do not know what prompted Boneetio Washington’s commitment to a mental facility. All we know is that a man with a history of mental illness, no close personal ties to an area and absolutely no resources was released and returned to society to roam the streets without any form of supervision.

If Boneetio Kentro Washington is found to suffer from mental illness and could not appreciate the horrific crimes which he committed, then he should be committed to the custody of a mental health facility until the time that he is capable of standing trial.

Boneetio Kentro Washington must be held accountable for his actions. He extinguished three innocent lives. Eun Kang did not know Boneetio, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This quiet, hard-working woman was just coming home after a long day at work, looking forward to relaxing. She had no idea of the horror that awaited her within the sanctity of her own home.

I got a mark of zero in Grade 8 Science because I would not go into the classroom. I did all the assignments but still got zero, and my parents finally transferred me to another school. So bonus to you — no matter how rotten a student you may have been, you can say Cleo here got a worse mark than you! BTW, if anyone out there got lower than zero, please let me know.

I should hope we each have also had a favorite teacher, one who had treated us with fairness and kindness, and encouraged us to learn and put forth our best effort. For many people who attended Orchard Park public school in Ontario, Greg Stewart was that favorite teacher.

Greg Stewart was a much admired, inspirational teacher and coach. In 1993 he won the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence. He taught at Orchard Park for thirty years with an unblemished record. That is what makes his fall from grace inexplicable. And that is what made it so difficult for some people to believe the victim.

Greg Stewart either can’t or won’t explain what was going on in his head in January 2009. Apparently, after overhearing a 14-year-old female student talk about masturbation with her friends, this 55-year-old teacher took it upon himself to educate her about the topic.

He began having very personal, very inappropriate conversations with her.

Ewwwww!

At first he encouraged her to look up masturbation on the internet, and later he instructed her in techniques including the use of sex toys and a banana. He advised her how to touch herself in the shower, and told her to masturbate at certain times so he could masturbate simultaneously at his home.

Double ewwwww!

Stewart called it “homework.” And he would ask her if she did her “homework.”

On March 24, 2010, after two months of these intensely suggestive discussions, Stewart approached her in the classroom, in the presence of another student even, and slid his hand over her breast and down her body.

His version: he’d stumbled and fallen. Thank goodness her young firm breast was there to cushion his fall, right? No, thank goodness they weren’t alone for who knows how many more liberties he’d have taken if that other student hadn’t been there.

He apologized to the girl later.

Stewart – “Sorry about this morning.”

Victim – “That’s kind of weird. I’m a 14-year-old. That’s wrong.”

Stewart – “I know.

Stewart – Can I do it again?”

Stewart – “Please?”

What kind of fall was that again? A fall from grace maybe?

He continued to talk to her about masturbation, and told her to use a banana or candle as a sexual aid. The next day, the girl told another teacher what had gone on. Good for her! It isn’t easy to accuse a much loved, much respected teacher.

The teacher confronted Stewart, who asked to apologize to his victim.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was making you uncomfortable. I’ve had a good career here, I don’t want it to end now.”

The young victim’s reply?

“I sat there and looked down and said I’d think about it,” she told police.

Stewart was arrested that night.

Now Stewart didn’t commit the most heinous of crimes. Nobody was murdered, raped, kidnapped or beaten – praise be – and touching a girl’s breast is not exactly hell-worthy, even it you are 41 years older. Still, he should be condemned to hell for not manning up and admitting what he did right away.

By hiding behind his stellar reputation Stewart caused a lot of psychological damage and torture to be inflicted upon this girl. A lot of people in the community believed in him and took steps to punish her for speaking out.

The girl told Ontario Court Justice John Skowronski:

“I felt like I don’t belong anywhere. My friends rejected me and my parents thought of me differently.”

“I was scared of going into Grade 9. I was bullied. People wrote terrible things about me on Facebook and carved things onto my locker. I didn’t do anything wrong . . . Even my teachers gave me the cold shoulder.”

Her grades dropped, she became depressed and her relationship with family members became strained. She endured months of ridicule and scorn from those who believed Stewart was innocent. That is a horrible, horrible load for a 14-year-old girl to bear. And very likely there are still morons in the community who are continuing to torment her.

On April 16th, 2010, Greg Stewart, originally charged with invitation to sexual touching, sexual interference and sexual assault, pled guilty to sexual assault. I repeat, he PLED GUILTY. That means his victim was telling the truth! And to the morons out there who still believe in his innocence, what innocent person would EVER plead guilty to being a sex offender? It is not a coveted title!

Before sentencing Stewart to six months in jail for sexually assault, Justice Skowronki said the former Orchard Park teacher “lost everything he stood for” and “demolished his life.”

“His legacy, which should have been a proud one, is now tarnished by his own criminal actions.”

“You have no shame in this matter and only the people who addressed you have shame.”

Justice Skowronski addressed the fact that the girl felt ostracized by teachers and peers.

“Fingers of blame should not be pointed at the complainant, either by immature high school students and least of all by adults. If there’s someone who thinks that there’s a set-up here, they’re not dealing in the same reality as I am.”

Justice Skowronski also ordered a year-long probation for Stewart and that he be added to the sex offender registry for 10 years.

The victim’s sister, 13, said she wasn’t happy with the sentence.

“I don’t think he’ll learn much in six months.”

Her sister, she said, was depressed and had many sleepless nights.

“Grade 8 is supposed to be your year to remember, your last year of elementary school. You want to make it one to remember but he screwed it up and made it worse.”

Stewart is already being taught lessons while in custody. He was attacked twice by fellow prisoners. He suffered a broken nose, mild concussion, cuts, and a possible broken orbital bone. At least one assailant has been charged.

Editor’s Note: I’d like to expand on the last paragraph of Cleo’s story, mostly because I know how much some of you (OK, me too) enjoy hearing about a guy like Greg Stewart getting what they deserve.

This statement might have meant something back on April or May, but releasing it now makes it sound weak and meaningless.

Nothing’s changed. It’s always been about what he wants. It’s especially true of the week of Aug. 2, 1982. That’s the week David William Shearing destroyed an entire family. Six loved and loving people dead because he wanted them to be dead.

David William Shearing, then 23, didn’t know George and Edith Bentley, a very nice retired couple who had decided to join their daughter Jackie Johnson and her family for a nice camping trip in British Columbia’s beautiful Wells Gray National Park. Wilderness, mountains and waterfalls — the perfect setting for camping out. Jackie and her husband Bob brought along their two lovely girls, Janet, 13 and Karen, 11 for what should have been a great holiday with the grandparents.

David William Shearing didn’t want to know George and Edith, or Jackie and Bob. Ever. He knew that as he stalked them for 24 hours. He knew that even as he crawled on his belly through the undergrowth in the darkness toward the campfire where they were sitting. He knew without meeting them that he wanted them dead. That’s why he had a .22 calibre weapon with him.

There were two reasons he wanted the four adults dead — the two young girls sleeping in the tent. When he’d spotted them earlier, he decided he particularly wanted Janet, the pretty blonde 13-year-old, for his monstrous and twisted sadistic sexual fantasies, and if he had to kill to get her, so be it. Little Karen, I guess, was a bonus.

I don’t know whom David William Shearing shot first. I don’t know if the other three knew what was happening right away before the second victim was shot. But one by one he picked them off until he was the only adult standing. There was now nothing and nobody to come between him and the girls.

David William Shearing has said he told the girls a biker gang had killed their family. But then he has said a lot of things that aren’t true. There was no mention of a silencer on that .22 — I kinda have my doubts the girls slept peacefully through all four murders. And I’m thinking they woke up to reality really fast when this six foot tall sick sadistic hell beast crawled into their tent, tied up Karen and ordered Janet to undress.

David William Shearing said that Janet’s weeping made him lose the urge to be sadistic. Oh, yeah, a lot of sadistic hell beasts get turned off by the tears and screams of their victims. It makes them go all soft. So all he did was diddle with her a little (four times only) — no rape he says. Sure. And he didn’t touch Karen. Sure.

David William Shearing, he’d just murdered four people so he could spend some quality time with the girls. I’m sure they sang songs and told stories around the campfire. Maybe he told them about his arrests for assault, drug possession, DWI. Hey, maybe he told them about that hit and run accident the year before where he killed a guy and beat the rap.

No matter what he did with the girls (and he’s the only one who truly knows), David William Shearing took his time. He took several days in fact. Not that they hung around the dead people all that time. No, he took them to his parents’ ranch and then to a small fishing cabin beside Clearwater River, then back to the ranch.

And the time came when it was time to part. According to David William Shearing, he thoughtfully took one of the sisters into the woods, asked her to turn around because he had to piss, then shot her in the head. No muss, no fuss. And then he went back for the other girl, and ditto, same thing. I personally don’t believe him but I hate to dwell on the more likely horrific scenarios.

So now David William Shearing had six dead people on his hands. He piled the four adult corpses into the Johnson’s car, and tucked the two children’s bodies into the trunk, drove someplace more remote than the campsite, and set the whole thing ablaze. The next day he drove the Bentley’s camper to Trophy Mountain and set it on fire after looting it first of any valuables.

Bob Johnson had never missed a day’s work in 20 years, so when he didn’t return from his holiday, the search in Wells Gray Park began immediately. But unhappily David William Shearing chose his hiding places well because the burnt out vehicles remained undiscovered for ages.

It wasn’t until September 13th that a mushroom picker stumbled upon what was left of Bob Johnson’s incinerated car and the remains of the Johnsons and Bentleys. And 14 months later the camper was discovered, 20 km from the murder site and 30 km from the Johnson’s car.

Sgt. Michael Eastham of the RCMP led the investigation. They received 13,000 tips in all. And one of those tips told of David Shearing who had killed a guy in a hit-and-run. The Mounties uncovered Shearing’s troubled past, and since he lived in the area of the murders all his life, he was a person of interest. After all, it had to be someone local to hide those vehicles so well. The Mounties got really interested when they learned he’d asked a friend how to register a truck with a bullet hole in the door. The Bentley’s vehicle had had a bullet hole in the door.

There wasn’t much evidence to go on, but Sgt. Eastham had a bad feeling about David William Shearing. I don’t know what brilliant techniques he used, (being Canadian he probably asked politely) but the end result of the interrogation was a confession. Police later found items stolen from the camper at his parents’ ranch.
On April 16, 1984, Shearing pleaded guilty to six counts of murder. He was sentenced to six concurrent terms of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

David William Shearing had told authorities that he murdered the Bentleys and Johnsons for the stuff he stole. Sgt. Eastham didn’t believe that robbery crap, and after the trial he managed to convince the killer to ‘fess up. It was only through Sgt. Eastham’s determined efforts that we know the true motivation behind this monster’s actions.

Now retired, Sgt. Eastham said, “If ever released, he could kill again.” He’s not the only one to believe it. When Shearing/Ennis applied for parole at the ripe age of 48, thousands of people signed petitions and family members forwarded victim impact statements to the National Parole Board to make sure he stayed put. It worked, and the David William Shearing still cries in his cell.

“I still have bloody nightmares today,” said Sgt. Eastham. I can only pray that David William Shearing is living a bloody nightmare every day

But one thing I’ve never gotten used to is how easy our justice system makes it for pedophiles to re-offend. Common sense tells us that when an opportunity presents itself to identify and lock up a child molester, our courts would leap at that chance. After all, you would think that protecting children from these predators must be very high on the law’s list of priorities.

That’s what you would think.

Take the case of William Miller of Middlefield, Connecticut, a mostly farming town located right next door to my home town of Middletown. Earlier this year, Miller, 52, hired the 13-year-old daughter of a friend to do some light housecleaning for him.

Claiming his arthritis was acting up, William Miller then asked the girl if she would help him out while he took a sponge bath. Most of us can see what Billy’s real intentions were by now, but, since Miller was a friend of her family, I’ll bet our young heroine never saw it coming.

First, William Miller asked her to perform a sex act on him, telling the girl, he was “going to pay her extra.” The girl later told police she was also assaulted in the shower and shown a pornographic movie.

William Miller was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a minor and risk of injury to a minor.

It was a typical attack by a sexual predator upon a young, unsuspecting victim. Like most pedophiles, William Miller used his position of trust withing the family to set up a situation where he could satisfy his deviant desire for underage sex.

Sure, it could be just a case of he said/she said, except that Billy Miller isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks he is. In an interview with police, Miller denied the charges and said the girl may have seen him get out of the shower.

The comment about the shower was important, because William Miller made it well before police mentioned what the girl’s accusations were or where she claimed she was assaulted. According to the Middletown Press:

Police said Miller’s statement about the shower was “significant” because police had not told Miller “that the bathroom and shower were key locations in the juvenile victim’s statement.”

It’s the same as you saying you don’t smoke before the police tell you they found your DNA on a cigarette butt at the crime scene.

Granted, it’s not a case that going to get a long prison stretch, but, again, you gotta believe it’s good enough to get William Miller into the system as a sex offender.

But you’d be wrong.

Instead, William Miller was allowed to plead no contest to a charge of risk of injury to a minor in exchange for no prison time, a five-year probationary term, and, most importantly, no requirement to register as sex offender.

So basically, Billy-boy walked away with zero consequences to the attempted rape of a thirteen-year-old girl. He’s free to satisfy his sick desires with his anonymity still in tact. And to a pedophile, anonymity is everything. I mean, who in their right mind is going to let their kid near a KNOWN pedophile?

The biggest slap in the face to justice came from the presiding judge, Judge Patrick Clifford, who said during sentencing that the victim might not have been happy with the outcome of the case, but that a plea deal spares everyone from a trial.

Is that so Judge Clifford? And who really cares if their isn’t a trial. I always thought the point of the justice system was to ensure that shitbags like William Miller the pedophile doesn’t get to attack another young girl, and that they are punished for what they did. It sounds like the victim objected to the plea deal, but that wasn’t as important as avoiding a trial. How the hell is that in any way justice?

When my wife read this story to me last night, I ended up getting very, very pissed off. Every time I tried to speak, the only words I could get out were “Son of a bitch” for the next couple of minutes. I guess it was because William Miller lives so close to where I live.

The reason I wrote this story was so that pedophile son of a bitch would have to pay some sort of consequences for what he did to this poor girl. It’s not nearly as good as the Connecticut State sex offender registry, but William Miller, 52, of Middlefield, Connecticut may see this article, and it’s gonna make him sweat.

Or maybe a person will Google William Miller, and maybe they’ll see our article on him, and they’ll read about William Miller, 52, of Middlefield, Connecticut, and find out he is a pedophile who was charged with assaulting a 13-year-old girl, but pled guilty to a lesser charge. And maybe they’ll realize what a creep he really is. And perhaps that person will be a friend of William Miller, and that person will have a young daughter.

And I’ll have ruined William Miller’s fun. This time.

I know it’s massive long shot, but my other idea involved a .357 magnum and brains on my shoes – The odds of success were much better, but I’m not ready to go to prison for the likes of William Miller.

UPDATE: July 7th, 2010

It appears that I was unfair in my criticism of Judge Patrick Clifford. While searching for a picture of William Miller (again), I noticed an article on Miller’s case that I must have missed when I originally researched his case. According to the Hartford Courant:

When she heard that the man accused of sexually assaulting her teenage daughter would be spared a spot on the state’s sex-offender registry, the victim’s mother protested from the front row of a courtroom gallery Tuesday.

The mother’s head — shaking “no” at the fact that William Miller’s name, photograph and Middlefield address would not be included in the online database, as part of a plea bargain struck with prosecutors — caught the eye of Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford. The judge stopped the sentencing and addressed the mother from the bench.

“I hate to put it on you,” Clifford said to the mother as a courtroom, packed with defendants and spectators, looked on. But he said he needed to know if she agreed with the deal calling for Miller to plead no contest to a charge of risk of injury to a minor in exchange for no prison time, a five-year probationary term, and his absence from the sex registry.

The mother nodded “yes” as she stroked her daughter as she sat, crying, beside her.

Clifford acknowledged that the victim might not have been happy with the outcome of the case, but said that a plea deal spares everyone from a trial.

Before the sentencing, a victim’s advocate read a letter from the victim that says she has had “nonstop nightmares” since the assaults.

By pleading no contest, Miller did not admit guilt but did not plan to offer a defense.

As you can see, Judge Clifford even gave the victim’s mother a chance to reject the plea deal at the last minute, but she declined. Obviously, His Honor did everything in his power to ensure that the victim’s rights were protected, and I was wrong to demonize him as I did.

It appears to me that the 13-year-old victim was more fragile that I first thought, and the plea deal was made to protect her from the trauma of a trial. There’s not much the prosecutor could have done once Miller and his lawyer realized this.

So, the responsibility for this crime, and for the light sentence lies squarely in the laps of William Miller and hid attorney. No surprise there, since a defense attorney’s job is to get his client the best deal he can, and Billy-boy, well, we’ve already been down that road.

My apologies to Judge Patrick Clifford. The things I wrote about him were completely wrong and totally unjustified. I can offer no excuse – I need to do better next time. I can only hope these words are enough to make up for the harm I may have done.