Among funeral workers, there have been a few females who performed their own erotic rituals, and one of the most famous is Karen Greenlee.  She didn’t kill men to get the corpses, but she certainly had an attraction to them once they were dead.

In 1979 in California, Greenlee was to deliver the body of a 33-year-old man to a cemetery for a funeral, but instead she drove off in the hearse, abducting the corpse to keep for herself.  She was found and charged with stealing a hearse and interfering with a funeral, and apparently it wasn’t the first time she’d felt such a sexual attraction to the dead.  Into this casket she had put a long letter that detailed her erotic episodes with what she estimated had been over 20 male corpses.  Calling herself a “morgue rat,” she didn’t understand why she felt so compelled to touch dead bodies, but it was an addiction she couldn’t seem to break. 

Because the letter was found, Greenlee was kicked out of the profession.  In an interview later with Jim Morton, she told him that the erotic moment involved the entire atmosphere: the aura of death, the smell, the funeral home, the mourning, and all the trappings.  It wasn’t just about sexual stimulation, it was about a complete mindset.  She enjoyed the odor of the freshly embalmed corpse of a male in his twenties, and even the blood that might come out of his mouth as she got on top of him.  She admitted having broken into some mortuaries and tombs in order to pursue her habit, and once she was nearly caught with the goods. Ashamed at first, she’d later accepted her desires.

“That’s my nature,” she said, “and I might as well enjoy it.”

Karen Greenlee is a necrophiliac. She made national headlines when she drove off in a hearse and wasn’t heard from for two days. Instead of delivering the body to the cemetery she decided to spend some time alone with the corpse. Eventually, the police found her in the next county, overdosed on codeine Tylenol. She was charged with illegally driving a hearse and interfering with the burial (there is no law in California against necrophilia). In the casket with the body Karen left a four-and-a-half page letter confessing to amorous episodes with between twenty to forty dead men. The letter was filled with remorse over her sexual desires: “Why do I do it? Why? Why? Fear of love, relationships. No romance ever hurt like this … It’s the pits. I’m a morgue rat. This is my rathole, perhaps my grave.”

The letter proved to be her downfall. For stealing the body and the hearse, she got eleven days in jail, a $255 fine, and was placed on two years probation with medical treatment recommended. Meanwhile, the mother of the dead man sued, claiming the incident scarred her psyche. She asked for $1 million, but settled for $117, 000 in general and punitive damages.

The press had a field day, the lawyers got rich, and Karen lost her career and source of sexual satisfaction. Karen is now more comfortable with her sexuality. “When I wrote that letter I was still listening to society. Everyone said necrophilia was wrong, so I must be doing something wrong. But the more people tried to convince me I was crazy, the more sure of my desires I became.”

Karen Greenlee