He often brought drugs or fire-water to opus and now and again had coition with women. At least three of those women were dead, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Thursday. But if Douglas is to be believed, he could have had copulation with as many as "over a hundred" bodies in the 16 years he worked as end of day assistant at the Hamilton County morgue. "I am unflinching there are more (victims).
I'm unfluctuating of it," Deters said Thursday in announcing late indictments against Douglas. "This guy's just a pig. I can't simplify why someone would do something twin this. … This is off-the-charts weird.
" • Douglas, 55, of Westwood, already is serving a brig verdict after he pleaded sorrowful concluding year to upbraiding of a corpse. He admitted he had going to bed with the nearly beheaded body of 19-year-old regicide patsy Karen Range in 1982. Thursday, Douglas was indicted on two more counts of deprecate of a carcass after DNA evidence, Deters said, showed Douglas' semen was in the bodies of two women who were killed in 1991 and stored at the morgue awaiting autopsies: Charlene Edwards, also known as Charlene Apling, who was six months pregnant. She was strangled to downfall Oct. 1, 1991, by Mark Chambers, now 47, in Chambers' Avondale home.
Chambers from the first was charged with patricide but accepted a pretext transaction and was convicted of unasked manslaughter and sent to hoosegow for 10-25 years. He was paroled in 2000. Angel Hicks, 24, of Westwood.
Tyrone Williams, 59, was charged with massacre in the December 1991 end of Hicks. He was acquitted months later at trial. There was a difficulty whether Hicks was killed or committed suicide. Deters said he was stunned by so many aspects of the case: coupling with a corpse, shafting with violently mutilated or damaged bodies, making love with dozens of bodies. "Frankly, it's frightening.
His numbers when he's (talked to authorities) go from one to three or four to 'a lot' to possibly over a hundred," Deters said, quoting Douglas. "I expect it's pleasant to gamble that he's been doing this all the time, when he's able and had the opportunity." After Douglas admitted abusing Range's remains terminating year, prosecutors said they suspected there were other victims. They called precinct proposition enforcement agencies asking for cases to investigate.
That manifest was mostly vaginal swabs infatuated from the bodies during autopsies. Officials came up with 15 cases they accept could have implicated Douglas. DNA could be found on 12 of them.
Of those, two showed the semen belonged to Douglas. "We'll never know" how many victims there are, Deters said, "because (Douglas) doesn't know. We possibly won't (ever) grasp the latitude of his abuse.
" "It doesn't floor me there are other victims. What's surprising is we were able to picket it," Deters said. Eighteen years ago DNA was in its emergence as an investigative tool.
Deters' offices contacted the brood members of Edwards and Hicks to explain them of the different accusations against Douglas. "It's halcyon to respond they were devastated by this news," Deters said. "I endure viciously for the families who are never prevalent to know.
" Douglas, Deters added, told officials he remembered having congress with Range but didn't deny Edwards or Hicks. "No one ever catch-phrase this male do anything," Deters said. The closest, he believes, was an to-do in which an helpmeet coroner tried to get into a office with bodies and found it locked. A few minutes after the cut knocked, Deters said, "Douglas walked out.
" Deters supports a in a holding pattern check that increases the wrong of misuse of a stiff - specifically having coitus with a cadaver - from one year in can to five years in prison. The lawlessness at the tempo of the hypothetical 1991 incidents called for a climactic also gaol decision of 18 months. That means the charges filed against Douglas on Thursday support a apogee reform school punishment of three years. Douglas was caught when he violated his probation on a quondam conviction, and his DNA was entranced by officials and placed in a database.
The database showed Douglas' DNA matched that of the semen port in Range's body.
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