Wisconsin- Three men charged with attempting to rob a grave Saturday in Cassville were doing so because one of the men had seen the dead woman’s obituary photo and wanted to have sex with her body, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Grant County Circuit Court.
The men had stopped at a Wal-Mart and bought condoms before heading to the cemetery, police said.
“One of the crimes we study in abnormal criminal behavior is necrophilia. I guess that would be the motive,” Grant County Sheriff Keith Govier said Tuesday, adding that he had never before dealt with such a case.
Govier said the men apparently didn’t know the dead woman.
“They just saw her obituary picture in the newspaper,” he said.
Cassville Police Officer Brent McDonald was sent to St. Charles Cemetery in Cassville about 11 p.m. Saturday on a citizen’s report of a suspicious vehicle.
McDonald found Alex Grunke, 20, of Ridgeway, dressed in black.
Grunke was “extremely nervous” and “sweating on a very cool night,” McDonald said in an interview. Grunke told McDonald that two other men were in the cemetery digging up the grave of Laura Tennessen, 20, [pictured] who died Aug. 27 after being thrown from the back of a motorcycle.
At Tennessen’s grave, officers found a hole that uncovered the concrete vault that encases the coffin. The two men were gone.
Sunday morning, Nicholas Grunke, 20, of Ridgeway, and Dustin Radke, 20, of Dodgeville, were found walking along Highway 81 in Beetown, about eight miles from the cemetery. The Grunkes are twin brothers.
Each man was charged with being party to attempted third- degree sexual assault and being party to attempted misdemeanor theft. Bond was set at $1,000 each for the Grunke brothers and $1,500 for Radke.
According to the complaint, Radke told police that Nicholas Grunke asked him to help dig up the grave so that Grunke could take the corpse behind his house in Ridgeway and have sexual intercourse with the body. On the way to the cemetery, the men stopped at the Dodgeville Wal-Mart and bought condoms, Radke told police.
Govier said he spoke with members of the Tennessen family about the incident.
“I can’t come to the word to describe (what they’re going through),” he said. “Having to put their daughter to rest, and then having to deal with this. It opens up wounds that I don’t know anybody could experience.”
The Rev. John Norder, Laura Tennessen’s priest at St. Charles Catholic Church, said she was the type of person who was always smiling and never judged others.
“She always said, ‘You know, you never know what people have been through in their lives.’ (She was) a really good kid.”