Oklahoma woman charged with removing body parts from rival's corpse

[May 18, 2015]  By Jon Herskovitz
 
 (Reuters) - An Oklahoma woman accused of slashing the face and cutting body parts off the corpse of a romantic rival was due to appear in a Tulsa court on Monday for a hearing on increasing her bail, law enforcement officials said on Friday.

Shaynna Sims was charged this week with the "unlawful removal of body part from deceased" for cutting off the toe and breasts from the body of the other woman as it was awaiting cremation at a funeral home, the Tulsa District Attorney's Office said.

A court appearance planned for Friday has been pushed back to Monday, prosecutors said.

Sims, also known as Shaynna Smith, had already been charged with crimes including interrupting a funeral, stealing shoes meant for the woman and unauthorized dissection for slashing the face of her former boyfriend's lover as it laid in a casket.

Lawyers for Sims were not immediately available for comment. She posted $43,750 bond on Monday and was released from the Tulsa Jail, the Tulsa World reported.

The deceased woman died of natural causes relating to a long illness, local broadcaster News on 6 reported.

Prosecutors said that before the body was set to be cremated, Sims "crudely cut and removed a toe for the dead body and crudely cut out and removed the breasts from the dead body," according to papers filed in a state district court on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said it was too early to say what sort of sentence they are seeking in the case.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Lisa Lambert and Eric Beech)

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