Wisconsin law makes it official…No sex with dead bodies

The Wisconsin state Supreme Court made a landmark ruling this month. They ruled that sex with a dead person is now illegal. Necrophilia seems like a no-brainer to most us of. As most of us know, laws get made after someone does something stupid. This law is no different; three men in Wisconsin did something stupid to get this law put on the Wisconsin books.

In 2006, two brothers and another man entered a cemetery in Cassville, Wisconsin. They brought shovels, condoms and a crowbar in an attempt to remove the corpse of a 20-year-old woman killed in a motorcycle crash. One of the brothers saw an obituary photo of the woman and decided to dig up her corpse so he could have sexual intercourse with it, prosecutors said.

Fortunately, the men were unable to pry open the concrete vault and left the cemetery after being spotted by a police car. The men were eventually charged with attempted sexual assault and theft. Lower court judges ruled nothing in Wisconsin state law banned necrophilia...Unbelievable.

The Supreme Court overruled the lower court and reinstated attempted sexual assault charges against the three men. The three men are facing up to 10 years of prison if convicted.

Justice Patience Roggensack, wrote a majority opinion with three other justices, saying state law bans sexual intercourse with anyone who does not give consent whether a victim is dead or alive at the time. Dead bodies obviously can't give consent, she said. "A reasonably well-informed person would understand the statute to prohibit sexual intercourse with a dead person," she wrote.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whose office represented prosecutors in the appeal, praised the decision. "Words matter and the Legislature chose its words carefully to extend the sexual assault law to those heinous circumstances where a dead person is sexually assaulted, whether or not the defendant killed the victim," he said. "Necrophilia is criminal in Wisconsin."

I was shocked after reading this story. I made an incorrect assumption that necrophilia was banned in all 50 states, it’s not. Most people can’t fathom why anyone would even consider committing such a heinous crime. This story sounds more like something straight out of a Hollywood B Frankenstein movie. 

Fortunately, this crime probably doesn’t occur enough to warrant all 50 states to actively pursue necrophilia legislation. For states not banning necrophilia, it will take some idiot digging up grandma or another loved one before legal remedy is pursued.