“In a surprise move, Jonathan Lee Stephens pleaded guilty to beating a 16-year-old girl to death with a eucalyptus tree log and having sex with the corpse. Stephens, 20, will be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole… ‘I want to spare my family, the victim’s family and myself the pain of going to trial and bringing all this up again,’ Stephens said. Stephens and co-defendant Joshua Curnutte, 17, allegedly killed Christy McKendall after luring her to the foothills north of Highland on April 7, 2002, on the pretense of smoking marijuana. Police said Stephens bludgeoned the girl to death and he and Curnutte had sex with the corpse.” — TheSanDiegoChannel.com (US)

One of the peculiar things about following all the perversion in the news is that you definitely get desensitized to things after a while. Here you have the elements of a genuinely awful story: a teenage girl bludgeoned to death for no reason; two young men facing the prospect of a long life wasted in prison; families and friends experiencing untold grief and shame… And all for what? So Beavis and Butthead could poke the girl’s inert body for half an hour? The ramifications are all out of proportion to the cause.

And yet the peculiar thing about being a perversion scanner is that these human details of the story get lost in the tidal flow of sex crimes. Every story has its melodrama, its victims, its suffering — so you barely notice them. And what you remark instead is that funny detail about the eucalyptus tree. You’ve read about necrophilia before. But when was the last time you heard of somebody getting beat to death with a eucalyptus tree? What a fragrant tree to be killed with — you can imagine the two defendants coming home from the murder smelling like a can of bathroom deodorizer.

UPDATE 05 January 2005. “A teenager who admitted to the necrophilia-related beating death of a 16-year-old girl was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. Joshua Curnutte, 17, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for his role in the April 2, 2002, death of Christy McKendall, was sentenced Monday by Superior Court Judge Bob N. Krug. Curnutte, Jonathan Stephens, now 21, and Luke Miller, now 16, lured the Highland girl to a remote canyon where Miller and Curnutte held down her arms and legs while Stephens choked and beat her to death with a eucalyptus log. Stephens and Curnutte then had sex with Christy’s corpse before throwing the body down a well.” —San Francisco Chronicle (US)

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