“Prosecution of a case involving alleged sexual contact with a dead deer may hinge on the legal definition of the word ‘animal.’ Bryan James Hathaway, 20, of Superior, Wis., faces a misdemeanor charge of sexual gratification with an animal. He is accused of having sex with a dead deer he saw beside a road on Oct. 11. A motion filed last week by his attorney, public defender Fredric Anderson, argued that since the deer was dead, it was not considered an animal and the charge should be dismissed. ‘The statute does not prohibit one from having sex with a carcass,’ Anderson wrote… The Webster’s dictionary defines ‘animal’ as ‘any of a kingdom of living beings,’ Anderson said. If you include carcasses in that definition, he said, ‘you really go down a slippery slope with absurd results.’” — Star Tribune (US)

(Thanks to Furpo for the link.)

Just when you thought the endless parade of bestiality cases was becoming tiresome — and lordy, there has been a nonstop flow of them in the last few years — along came the man arrested for fucking a dead dog. That certainly put a new twist on the matter, combining necrophilia and bestiality into some mutant necrobestiality or zoonecrophilia or something.

It seemed like a one-off thing, though. How often do you hear of guys trying to get their rocks off with roadkill? Almost never, right? Well, think again, because here comes Mr. Hathaway. Less than a month after the dead dog fucker, Mr. Hathaway was driving down the road, saw a dead deer, and experienced uncontrollable urges. If you want the details, The Smoking Gun has his arrest warrant.

The weird thing — as if wanting to screw a dead deer isn’t bad enough — is that this is not the first time Mr. Hathaway’s lust for dead animals has brought him face-to-face with the law. In December 2004, he was charged with shooting an old horse named Bambrick. Why? He told detectives that he “wanted to have sex with the horse.” It’s unclear whether he shot the horse because it resisted his advances or because he preferred it dead. Either way, it’s probably safe to say that Mr. Hathaway suffers from some sort of fetish in which the death and the desirability of animals is all mixed up.

Even weirder is the fact that, philosophically speaking, his lawyer has a point. Can you charge a guy with endangering animals when they’re already dead? Are they even animals anymore? It’s amazing to see lawyers use language that you usually find in neoplatonism: “It did not lose its essence as a deer, an animal, when it died,” said the district attorney, trying to maintain that the “victim” was still capable of being victimized according to the law. He also pointed out, with an unspoken nod to Mr. Hathaway’s previous arrest, that it was necessary to interpret the law in this way else people could kill animals to have sex with them.

In spite of the irony that it’s ok to kill animals in order to eat them, you can understand the district attorney’s point. But still, however repellent it may be, if hard-up creeps want to have coitus with roadkill, is it a crime? Provided they keep it out of the public eye — unlike the dead dog fucker, who acted on his lust near a school — is there any harm?

UPDATE 24 Nov 2006: The judge presiding over the case has rejected the defense attorney’s motion to void the case on the grounds that the deer carcass was no longer an animal. What this means is that legally the judge considers the carcass an animal and the perp’s behavior bestiality. The decision is available on The Smoking Gun. (Thanks Angela for the update!)

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