Head Found, Teens Arrested in 'Thrill Kill' Death of Decapitated Sex Offender

Monday , November 12, 2007
Fox News, Detroit

Two teens have been charged in the brutal decapitation death of a registered sex offender in Michigan whose headless body was left to burn in a subdivision in what prosecutors are calling a "thrill kill."

Not guilty pleas were entered Monday in Romulus District Court for Jean-Pierre Orlewicz, 17, and Alexander James Letkemann, 18, on one count each of first-degree premeditated murder, felony murder and mutilation of a corpse in the death of 26-year-old Daniel Gene-Vincent Sorensen.

"A crime like this surprises us all," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said at a press conference. "Any time anyone kills just because they want to — and that's what the evidence seems to suggest here — is bone-chilling. Why anybody would want to do that, especially being 17 years old, it makes us think and ask a lot of questions about our society." [Ed: This crime is not at all surprising and the state is complicit in this violence through its inflammatory use of sex offender websites, flyers and community notification]

Prosecutors allege the men lured Sorensen to the Canton Township home of Orlewicz's grandfather.

"They lured him in the garage where they prepared a space to kill him," Worthy said.

A tarp had been spread on the garage floor, and Sorenson was stabbed multiple times in the back. His head was sawed off and his body wrapped in the tarp, authorities said.

There, on a tarp they allegedly spread out for the attack, they slit Sorensen's throat with a knife and repeatedly stabbed him before cutting off his head with a hacksaw, prosecutors said.

They allegedly used a blowtorch on his hands and feet in an attempt to remove his fingerprints, officials said.

His torso was driven in a pickup truck and dumped in a Northville Township cul-de-sac where it was set on fire with gasoline. A utility crew found it the next morning, police said.

His head was dumped in the Rouge River near the border between Dearborn Heights and Detroit. It was found Saturday.

"They made plans on how they were to clean up the blood," Worthy said. "They made plans on how they were going to dispose of the body. No matter how malicious we all think it may be, it was very thought out and very methodical."

"I want to put a face to these people," Sorensen's father, Jim, told MyFOXDetroit on Sunday. "And if it’s a friend I want to know who would call themselves friend and do this to my son."

Sorenson was convicted in Tazewell County, Ill., when he was 17 of having sex with a 14-year-old girl, said Northville Township police Lt. Greg Rhodes. His troubled past had nothing to do with the murder, Worthy said. Full Story