Man gets prison in assault on corpse

A man who avoided prison time for having sex with the corpse of a 4-year-old girl is behind bars after pleading no contest to an unrelated animal cruelty charge, authorities said.

Earlier this month, sheriff’s deputies were called to a feces-stained, urine-soaked Hesperia home where Donald Luis Cooper, 32, lived with three other adults, seven children and 31 animals. As a result of that visit, Cooper pleaded no contest to a single count of animal cruelty, which amounted to a violation of his probation. He now must serve a previously suspended two-year prison sentence for mutilating grave remains.

In 2003, Cooper worked for a firm transporting bodies from Victor Valley Community Hospital to the San Bernardino County coroner’s office. He was arrested after a morgue security camera recorded him sexually assaulting the body of a preschooler who had died of the flu.

Cooper wasn’t charged with necrophilia because it wasn’t illegal in California at the time.