From the Cincinnat Enquirer www.enquirer.com
Shocking Twist to Murder, Rape
By Kimball Perry • {email address removed} • July 28, 2008
Hamilton County law enforcement officials knew that David Steffen killed 19-year-old Karen Range in 1982 but he insisted for 26 years he never raped the teen.
Prosecutors won murder and rape convictions against Steffen to send him to death row – the first Hamilton County inmate to receive a death sentence after it was reinstated in Ohio.
Now, authorities have the man they believe responsible for the sexual attack.
A grand jury indicted a former Hamilton County Coroner Office's employee Monday for having sex with the teen’s body in the morgue.
Kenneth Douglas, 55, of Westwood, was arrested Friday for violating his probation for drug trafficking and his DNA matched the DNA in the girl’s body.
“There are no words to describe the disgust everyone associated with the case feels,” Deters said Monday as he outlined the twists in the bizarre case that dates back a quarter century.
From 1976-1992, Douglas was an attendant at the Hamilton County morgue.
That’s where he is accused of having sex with Range’s unwashed body after it had been stored in the morgue cooler for about four hours.
“Now we know what happened. As horrific as it is, now we know,” Deters said Monday.
Deters said it would be unethical for him to reveal if Douglas confessed but he admitted Douglas has spoken to authorities.
“This was a scenario no one imagined in this office,” Deters said. “It was so bizarre that no one could even comprehend it. I can’t explain this at all.”
Deters expects Douglas to be charged with violating other corpses based on “overwhelming evidence” from those discussions with the suspect.
“Our initial indication is it’s less than five (victims) but we don’t know,” Deters said.
Because of the allegation against Douglas – and the hint of more charges to come – Deters said his office and the coroner’s office are “obligated” to review all of the cases Douglas was involved in during his 16 years with the Coroner’s office.
The government will use DNA evidence to see if Douglas has committed other crimes against corpses.
“There’s people who had loved ones in this county who deserve to know,” Deters said.
Gross abuse of a corpse is the lowest-level felony and carries a maximum prison sentence of 12 months.
Coroner O’dell Owens refused comment.
Deters sent two of his employees to Florida to tell Range’s mother, Laurie Rockel Range, of Douglas’ indictment.
The mother was ecstatic at the news.
She insisted her daughter was a virgin when she died and fumed at the suggestion during Steffen’s murder trial that the daughter had been sexually active.
“I am jumping for joy. I’m going out dancing tonight,” the 76-year-old mother said Monday from her Florida home.
For 26 years, her daughter has come to her in dreams. She never sees her daughter’s face in the dreams but her daughter was always washing the dishes or shoveling snow. “That showed she was trying to help me deal with all of this,” the mother said.
When she found out that her daughter was correct that she hadn’t had sex, the mother said she was vindicated.
“I felt like ‘Ha ha ha ha HA!” she said. “This is the most wonderful news other than winning the lottery I could hear. I’m the happiest person in the world right now.”
She was stunned, though, to find out who was accused of abusing her daughter’s corpse.
“Who’s going to rape a dead body? Well. A morgue attendant (apparently),” she said. “I was shocked. It was just” and she stopped talking but shuddered in disgust.
Douglas’ indictment also will strengthen prosecutors’ case to keep Steffen on death row, Deters said.
Steffen was convicted in 1983 of aggravated murder, rape and aggravated burglary of Range, 19.
Steffen was a door-to-door soap salesman who knocked on the door of the Ranges' Roselawn home and then stabbed the teen to death, almost severing her head.
Steffen, 48, was sent to death row after admitting he killed Range but he always maintained he never raped her.
Last year, DNA tests showed the body fluid inside Range was not Steffen’s.
In Ohio, defendants are eligible for the death penalty only if they are convicted of murder and another crime – rape, kidnapping, burglary, another murder, etc.
Steffen’s attorneys have argued that because the body fluid of someone other than Steffen was found in of Range, prosecutors can’t prove he raped her.
That means, Steffen’s lawyers argue, Steffen isn’t eligible for the death penalty.
Prosecutors have countered that Steffen – who admitted stabbing Range to death – should remain on death row because he was convicted of aggravated burglary and that still makes him eligible for execution. They also contend that Steffen tried to rape Range but couldn’t.
An attempted rape conviction along with the murder also would qualify him for the death penalty.
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