Kenneth Douglas Pleads Guilty to Sexually Abusing Two Corpses

October 23, 2009

In the 30 years that I've been researching criminal cases and writing about them I have, almost needless to say, come across some pretty sick and demented individuals.  The case you are about to read about surely has to fall somewhere on my Top 20 list, making it a contender for the grand prize winner as the sickest of the sickest.  It was covered thoroughly by my colleague, David Lohr, on his Criminal Report Daily blog, and I am thankfully merely updating this ghastly case here without having to go into a lot of detail.  Having said that, readers beware—this case is disturbing.

To recap this sordid affair, nearly 27 years ago, in 1982, 19-year-old Karen Range opened her door to salesman David Steffen, who beat her and slashed her throat so severely that he nearly decapitated her.  Because of the presence of semen found inside Range's body, police at the time believed that Steffen had also raped her.  Steffen was originally convicted of Range's rape and murder and was sentenced to death.  Steffen was cleared of Range's rape, however, because of DNA analysis that was completed later on (please see Accused Necrophiliac May Have Violated Other Corpses as well as Convicted Necrophiliac Charged in Two Additional Cases) criminal issues involving Kenneth Douglas.  Douglas, it turned out, had been convicted of drug trafficking in 2008 and had been ordered to provide a DNA sample which was then matched to the semen found inside Range's body.

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Bizarre Rape-Murder Case of Yong Orellana Bonilla Going to Trial

October 16, 2009

Although Yong Orellana Bonilla, 34, from Honduras, was arrested in Kleberg County, Texas in August 2007 and charged with crimes that allegedly occurred on February 5, 1997 in Dunn, North Carolina, his trial on rape and murder charges had been set to begin this week but was continued until December 7, 2009 following motions filed by the defense.  At the time of his capture, U.S. border patrol agents found him walking along railroad tracks near the south Texas town of Sarita, and when he was unable to show evidence that he was in the U.S. legally they suspected that he may have been planning to cross the border into Mexico.

When they arrested him, he was using the alias Yonis Orellana, but his fingerprints turned up in a national database and the agents learned that he was wanted by the Dunn Police Department on murder, kidnapping and sexual offense charges.  Bonilla and another man, Salramon Gonzalez, were accused of tying up, torturing and sexually assaulting two men, Tomas Cabrera and Caudencio Martinez Aguierre in Dunn on February 5, 1997.  Cabrera died at the scene, but Aguierre managed to escape.

Both suspects fled the scene, but Gonzalez was captured in Florida in January 2001 using the alias Juan Miraz and was convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault in May 2002 in connection with the crimes committed against Aguierre.  Bonilla, in the meantime, remained on the lam using the following aliases:  Johnny Bonilla, Johnny Orellana, Yong Orellana, Yony Bonilla, and Yony Orellana.

Police believe that Bonilla and Gonzales had attended a party at an apartment complex on the night of the crimes, and have alleged that they gagged, bound and sodomized their victims with a bottle.  A portion of Bonilla's defense may include arguments that the alleged sexual acts were consensual.

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Dennis Bradford Arrested for Rape and Attempted Murder of 8-Year-Old Girl

October 14, 2009

Jennifer Schuett was only 8-years-old on August 10, 1990, the day that she was kidnapped, raped, and left for dead in a field with her throat slit, unable to cry out for help because of her life-threatening injuries.  Dennis Earl Bradford, 40, was finally arrested on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 in North Little Rock, Arkansas, where he has resided for the past seven years, by North Little Rock police, Texas police, and FBI agents.  DNA evidence tested last year led to Bradford's arrest.

At the time of the 1990 attack, Bradford lived in Dickinson, Texas, only a short distance from where Jennifer was kidnapped from her parents' apartment.  According to details contained in an arrest affidavit and other police documents, Jennifer, while lying in a hospital bed recovering from her injuries in 1990, told detectives what had happened to her by writing notes to them.  She explained that she was asleep in her bedroom when a man opened her window, identified himself as "Dennis," literally snatched her out of her bed and drove her to a wooded area.  Along the way, he choked her four times.  When they arrived at the wooded area, he took her clothes off of her, sexually assaulted her, and slashed her throat with a pocket knife.

It was a miracle she survived.  A group of children found her approximately 14 hours later.

"After the attack, Jennifer remembers laying naked in the field and being unable to yell for help and unable to get up or move," stated a portion of the police affidavit.  "Jennifer said that as she was lying in the field, she knew she was going to die."

"That little 8-year-old girl defied all the odds," Dickinson Police Chief Ron Morales said.  "She miraculously survived this brutal attack."

Jennifer helped police put together a sketch of the suspect which turned out to be strikingly similar to Bradford's photo on his driver's license at the time of the attack—recovered from motor vehicle records only recently, and told them that he had been driving an old blue car.  Not a lot to go on at the time, but it would all fit later.

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