Police have charged a funeral home worker from Houston, Texas, with castrating a corpse. Authorities allege the embalmer mutilated the body of a sex offender.
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According to a
press release by the Office of Constable Alan Rosen, Police accuse Amber Paige Laudermilk, 34, of 'mutilating the body of a dead sex offender.'Authorities are charging Laudermilk with 'Abuse of a Corpse,' which is a State Jail Felony. She has since turned herself in and has a bond of $5000 set. The press release accuses Laudermilk of using a scalpel knife to savage the body of Charles Roy Rodriguez, 58. He was a registered sex offender serving 10 years of Deferred Adjudication after police charged him with Sexual Assault in 2001.
Police explain that Rodriguez died of natural causes back in January at a Houston Hospital. Authorities had him listed on the Texas Department of Public Safety sex offender registry.
A charging document reportedly states that Laudermilk 'stabbed and castrated' Rodriguez's body and carried out additional abuses. Per Fox 26, she allegedly cut off Rodriguez's genitals and placed them in his mouth.
The Funeral Home Worker Was Reportedly Teaching At The Time
Constable Alan Rosen told Fox 26 that Laudermilk performed the alleged mutilation in front of students at the funeral home. "There were people present. This defendant was an instructor on embalming and was teaching a class and did this in front of the class. She threatened them not to say anything," Rosen Explained. "That's what makes it more bizarre. She didn't do it in private; she did it in front of other people," he added.
In the press release, Rosen says, "This case is about two troubled people: the victim, who was a registered sex offender, and the defendant, who is accused of viciously attacking his dead body. No matter what one thinks of his life, the law requires that he be treated with dignity in death."
When pressed by Fox 26 about Laudermilk's motive, Rosen said she did not know Rodriguez. "I'm not 100% sure; she may have had some kind of issue in her past relative to a sexual assault. I do not know." If convicted, Laudermilk faces up to two years in prison.
