Necrophilia is a term that sends shivers down my spine. This is when a person has a sexual attraction towards corpses.
Stewart Wilken, aka Boetie Boer, admitted to Dr Gérard Labuschagne in an interview that he committed acts of necrophilia after killing his victims.
Dr Henry Lerm, who completed his master’s degree in necrophilia, said this happens more often than we realise.
Lerm further states that because the cadavers cannot protest or complain afterwards, these types of cases often go through undetected.
A 47-year-old mortuary worker was arrested after a pathologist noticed that the body of a little girl who had died in a car accident had been sexually defiled.
This man was married and a father of two. What could compel a person to commit such a crime?
I’ve read a couple of cases where necrophilia takes place in a mortuary. It makes sense – easy hunting ground, I suppose.
However, according to the health department, this should not be the case.
All mortuary employees are thoroughly screened. They are also not supposed to work alone with a body; they should work in pairs at all times.
So, why does this even happen at all?
When we are in the unfortunate position of having a loved one in a mortuary, we trust that their body will be treated with respect and not violated.
When a corpse is raped, the accused cannot be charged with rape but only with violation of a corpse. There is no set minimum sentence.
The magistrate can use his or her discretion when sentencing.
It would seem that necrophilia is not a new crime.
Dr Herm states that the ancient Egyptians took precautions against necrophilia by prohibiting the corpses of the wives of men of rank from being immediately embalmed for fear that the embalmers would violate them.
In some other strange cases, a suicide victim was found to have been sodomised at a Cape Town mortuary. Another victim’s foot was cut off, never to be seen again. This was just the tip of the iceberg.
It would seem that, even after death, we are still unsafe.
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