Expert: Clinton's a 'sexual sadist'

Accused murderer and rapist Curtis Clinton fits the profile of someone with an undiagnosed sexual disorder that drives him to commit horrific crimes."He's not very much aroused by having sex in a consenting, loving, caring way," said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic in Baltimore and founder and director of the National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma."Instead, he enjoys the pain, suffering, terror, even death of another person," Berlin said.Clinton, 41, has allegedly sexually assaulted at least six victims since 1997, when he killed an 18-year-old Fostoria woman, Misty Keckler.Clinton claimed he accidentally strangled Keckler when the two were having consensual sex. Two years after he was charged, Wood County prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter.He was sentenced to the maximum: 10 years in prison.He was also convicted on two assault charges after attacking corrections officers while awaiting trial in Keckler's death. That tacked another three years onto his sentence.Before that, Clinton served 16 months behind bars for having sex with a 14-year-old girl, when he was 27 years old.Wood County prosecutors who handled the Keckler case said two other women were prepared to testify that Clinton had, on more than one occasion, choked them during sex or when they refused to have sex with him.The night Keckler was killed, witnesses said he choked a 14-year-old whom he claimed was his girlfriend, according to Fostoria police records.The descriptions of these past assaults -- combined with new accusations that Clinton has sexually assaulted at least one other victim in Sandusky since his release from prison in February -- strongly suggest he is sexual sadist, Berlin said."When someone's walking around with that kind of sexual makeup, it doesn't take a psychiatric expert to appreciate just how dangerous that can be," Berlin said.Clinton is accused of raping a 17-year-old girl Sept. 3 at his Campbell Street apartment.He's also charged with three counts of aggravated murder in the the Sept. 8 strangulation deaths of Heather Jackson, 23, and her two children, Celina, 3, and Wayne, 18 months.The 17-year-old sexual assault victim told Sandusky police Clinton choked her during the rape.While an autopsy offered no indication that Clinton sexually assaulted Jackson, coroners did find evidence he may have sexually assaulted her 3-year-old daughter.In the murder 15 years ago, Clinton tied Keckler's hands and feet behind her back after killing her, then left her nude body face-down in a filled bathtub.In the murders last weekend, Jackson's nude body was found between the mattress and boxspring of her bed; her children were found dead in a closet."Just the description of the first assault, he was probably once again choking an individual because that's what was turning him on," Berlin said. "It's a powerfully, vigorous sex drive that has to be satisfied in a sadistic fashion."Each time Clinton allegedly commits such an act, his sexual desire likely intensifies, creating a high risk he will continue to attack women in violent ways, Berlin said.When Clinton went to prison, he may have successfully convinced the courts and prison staff that he did not have a sexual disorder, and that Keckler's death had merely been an accident."It may not have been clear to folks at that time that he needed to be treated for a sexual disorder," Berlin said. "Then when he's in prison, he's not able to express those sexual needs. He may even have been a fairly model prisoner."Clinton allegedly killed not just Jackson, but her two toddlers, who would have been far too young to even testify against him in court."That's the part that's hard to fit in," Berlin said. "One option is that he simply did it to cover his tracks. The other part is that he may have done this -- and one hates to even think of that -- he may have done it with the mother seeing."Killing the toddlers may have been part of Clinton's intense need for sexual gratification, he said."My suspicion is very high that this wasn't done for reasons independent of what was driving him to do this in the first place," Berlin said.