Sexual Homicide Lecture Flashcards
What are (4) ways forensic psychology can help us understand complex offending behaviours such as sexual homicide?
1. Conceptualizing and understanding the
behaviour
a. To understand the niche subgroup of
offenders who engage in violent and
sexual behaviours such as sexual
homicide.
- Investigating:
a. Help with profiling and policing. - Assessing and risk assessment
a. Risk assessment for parole, sentencing
and treatment. - Treating and rehabilitating
a. To identify treatment targets, eligibility and
administration of treatment.
Media and Sexual Homicide:
The media tends to sensationalize sexual
homicide in their portrayals in horror
movies such as buffalo bill in the silence of
the lambs.
It focuses on a really small subgroup of the
offender populations, exaggerates the
psychopathy, fetishism and sadism in
sexual homicide that causes the public to
overestimate the frequency of the
population and believe myths about their
behaviour pattern.
Prevalence of Sexual Homicide and Serial Sexual Homicide:
There are variations in the prevalence
rates found of sexual homicide across
cultures:
o 1% of all homicides (USA)
o 4% of all homicides (Canada)
o 6% of all homicides (England & Wales)
o Unknown (NZ)
This illustrates that sexually motivates
homicide is a very small proportion of an
already small subgroup of offenders!
Serial sexual homicide is even rarer
subgroup (i.e., 2% of the 1% of all
homicides)
Issues with defining and Identifying sexual homicide:
Issues with defining sexual homicide:
o Profiling and Investigation:
FBI Quantico work has predominantly
focused on behaviour analysis and
building offender profiles of high-profile
serial offenders and have more sadistic
and ritualistic offenders.
o Legal and Criminal:
There are a lot of legal issues which make
defining sexual homicide hard:
• Most jurisdictions do not have a specific
offence categorisation for sexual homicide,
• some of these offences may be dual
convicted with murder and specific sexual
offences (i.e. unlawful sexual connection),
but many convictions do not carry both.
• The offender can enter the correctional
setting with little/no information on the
sexual nature of their offending. This can
significantly impact on how they are dealt
with in prison, how they respond and in
general, clinical practise and subsequent
understanding of this wider group.
This is why we need to draw on clinical
research (i.e., psychiatric and
psychological research).
Problems with Identifying Sexual Homicide:
Sexual intent or behaviours may not be
immediately obvious, overlooked or lost
through crime scene degradation.
Murder is often the only conviction they
receive because proving sexual motivation
can be hard to do or lost throughout the
course of the trial (i.e., consent issues,
sexual element overlook if homicide of a
prostitute).
Sexual homicide is not a legally defined
offense in majority of Canadian and UK
cases.
An accepted definition of sexual homicide:
Is finding a universal definition hard?
Is there flexibility in the Definition?
Ressler, Burgess & Douglas (1988)
Sexual homicide describes murders with
evidence or observations that indicate that
the murder was sexual in nature.
These include:
o victim attire or lack of attire;
o exposure of sexual parts of the victim’s
body;
o sexual positioning of the victim’s body;
o insertion of foreign objects into the victim’s
body cavities;
o evidence of sexual intercourse (oral, anal,
vaginal);
o and evidence of substitute sexual activity,
o interest or sadistic fantasy.
*finding a universally accepted definition is incredibly difficult to apply for cross-cultural
differences and the heterogeneity of the group!
Flexibility in the Definition Based on Casework:
instances where a sexual motivation for the homicide was not identified throughout the course of the legal process but the offender discloses a sexual intent during treatment.
Does not only include murder convictions!
Also includes manslaughter, diminished
responsibility, and GBH where the victim
later dies from their injuries.
*therefore, as a practitioner we need to be open to accidental and intentional killing (i.e., murder vs. manslaughter or GHB).
Burgess et al. (1986) Motivational Model of Sexual Murder
(FBI Model)
what are the five factors which lead to sexual murder?
Name three motivations and provide an example of each:
Ineffective Social Environment:
a. Lack of adequate care in childhood which
lead to poor attachment to parental
caregiver.
(B) Formative Events in Childhood or
Adolescence:
a. Trauma (normative and non-normative)
make children develop a poor self-
concept due to feelings of mistrust, hurt,
worthlessness and helplessness.
(C) Critical Personal Traits and Cognitive
Mapping:
a. Act as patterns of responses to formative
events.
b. For example, unresolved trauma causes
children to develop negative personality
traits, poor social skills lead to negative
self-worth and self-isolation.
c. Fantasy is used as their primary coping
mechanism to cope with stress or
negative life events and provide an
illusionary source of control.
d. Masturbate to fantasies reinforces the
behaviour, makes it more frequent and
when habituation occurs, and fantasies
are no longer satisfying then they are
more likely to enact aspects of their
behaviour fantasy or engage in sexual
murder for sexual gratification.
(D) Action Towards Others and Self:
(E) Feedback Filter:
a. Fantasies act as an escape to cope with
life stressors and substance use, drug use
and pornography behaviours become and
addiction and facilitate sexual fantasies
which increases their frequency and
violent nature which increases risk of
fantasies being enacted in real life.
*includes (3) broad motivations of deviant sexual interests developing (i.e., biological, psychological and sociology) and escalating towards sexual homicide.
Biological:
Sexually sadistic behaviour stemming from
minute lesions in the limbic system
occurring from tumour or trauma.
This causing damage to the area of the
brain controlling sexual and attack
behaviours. Endocrinological and genetic
factors were also considered important as
were testosterone deficits.
This combined with early history of sexual
abuse and dysfunctional family history
were seen to increase the likelihood of
sexually sadistic behaviour.
Psychological:
Posits that sexual arousal in sexual
murderers is classically conditioned
response to the conditioned stimuli of
coercion and violence.
MacCulloch et al indicate that the
escalatory nature of sexually pleasing
deviant sexual fantasies occurs through
habituation, this drives the fantasies to
more violent extremes.
MacCulloch et al also indicated that
sadistic sexual fantasies constitute operant
behaviours that diminish feelings of
incompetence (with relationships with
women for example) and therefore
increase the feelings of power and control
attained through sexually sadistic fantasies.
Sociological:
Leyton posits a class struggle theory for
sexual homicide stemming from feudal
times where sexual homicide develops as
a tool for regaining power and control by
the nobility over the working and peasant
classes.
FBI Casework also Identified (2) Offender Dichotomy’s
- The Organized Offender:
a. The crime scene is organized and clean
indicating that it was planned, and the
offender has forensic awareness.
b. Evidence that the offender controlled the
scene such as they used restraints.
c. Sadistic elements are present such as
torture or extensive assault.
d. Offender used strangulation or ligature
marks are present (i.e., indicate kill is for
sexual gratification).
e. Fantasy or ritualistic behaviours are
present and evident in the crime scene. - The Disorganized Offender:
a. Chaotic crime scene indicating the crime
was sudden and not planned.
b. No evidence that the offender to forensic
counter measures to avoid detection.
c. Death often sudden and not drawn out.
d. Certain body parts or areas may be the
focus of attack.
e. Overkill or excessive assault evident.
f. Body positioning may occur and no
attempt to hide the body is made.
*emotionally driven and impulsive!
- Paraphillic Model (Arrgio and Purcell, 2001)
An Integrated Model
(A) Formative Development:
a. Lack of parental care or nurturance leads
to poor attachment to parental caregiver.
b. Includes experience of trauma impacting
the construction of self as worthless and
leads to poor interpersonal skills and
attachment to peers.
(B) Low Self-Esteem:
a. Negative developmental context and
experience of trauma leads to the
development of poor self-concept,
feelings of worthlessness and
helplessness.
b. This impacts their empathetic skills,
relations to peers and causes them to
become self-isolated.
(C) Early Fantasy and Paraphilic
Development:
a. Combination of negative events in
formative development, low self-esteem,
self-isolation leads to children developing
deviant sexual interests (i.e., paraphilia)
and daydreaming to escape their life,
substitute it for social connection and gain
a sense of control.
b. The paraphilic interest developed tends
to be associated to sexual abuse
experienced or witnessed in early
childhood.
(D) Paraphilic Process:
a. Stressors (i.e., rejection, negative life
events) lead to the dependence on drug,
alcohol and pornography which
exacerbate the use of engaging in deviant
sexual fantasies as a form of escape and
to derive sexual gratification.
b. This increase in use of sexual fantasizes
disconnects them from reality, makes
them more likely to enact aspects of their
fantasies or commit sexual homicide
which only further expands their fantasies
as they become more frequent, intense,
longer in duration and more violent.
Criminal Events Perspective Model
(Mieczkowski and Beuregard, 2010)
- Victim characteristics
- Situational factor
- Crime characteristics
Victim Characteristics:
o Victims that are under (14) years of age
and above the age of (60) are more likely
to be killed during a sexual offense (i.e.,
high levels of violence on frail victims
leads to unintentional death).
o Victims who are familiar with crime,
criminals themselves or witness to crime,
are less likely to be killed during a sexual
offense (i.e., because they are better able
to notice signs, respond to threat and
deescalate the situation).
Situational Factors:
o Sexual offenses which occur during
daylight time tend to be more likely to
result in death (i.e., to get rid of witnesses
who can identify you).
Crime Characteristics:
o Sexual offenses involving weapons have
greater chance of resulting in death.
o Sexual offenses which last longer than 30
minuets tend to be more likely to result in
death (i.e., because it is less planned and
they need to eliminate witnesses).
- Routine Activity Model (Chan, Heide, and Beuregard, 2011)
Social Learning
(A) Predispositional Factors:
a. Poor attachment to parental caregiver,
trauma (i.e., predispositional factors) which
lead to deviant sexual interests to develop
and motivate them to offend.
(B) Situational Factors:
a. Modelling of behaviour, fantasies develop
and are masturbated to the point where
they’re no longer sexually gratifying and
leads individuals to enact aspects of their
fantasies and engage in sexual offending
which can escalate to sexual homicide.
(C) Pre-Crime Precipitators:
a. Drugs, alcohol, interpersonal conflict and
pornography which increases the
likelihood that fantasies lead to sexual
homicide.
What is the Relationship Between Sexual Motivations (i.e., paraphilia etc.) and Murder?
Sexual homicide offenders are a
heterogenous group so the relationship
between sexual motivations and murder is
not binary!
Most research focuses on sexual sadism
where there is a direct association
between sexual motivation and murder
(i.e., vital connection between sex and
violence, killing is like an orgasm and
replaces sex) and neglect other types of
sexual homicide where the link is less
clear or indirect (i.e., rape killings, murder
takes place in the pursuit of rape, death is
not the goal nor is it ritualised).
When the act of killing is a substitute for
sex, the presence of sexual behaviour or
evidence of can be lacking. Possibly
evident through proxy behaviours such as
strangulation or mutilation.
Sadism is stereotypically associated with
Lust Killers but is also present in PMSIO’s
(post-mortem sexual interference
offender).
Gubin (1994)
Argues that when sexual motivation and
murder are closely bound the act is one of
a sadistic killer.
However, the association between sexual
motivations and murder are not always
closely linked because the group is
heterogenous.
Most sexual homicides are not by sexual
sadists.
Labels for Sexual Homicide Offenders:
The literature has many terms for sexual
killers with many of these aiming to
describe what would be collectively
considered to be the sadistic sexual killer.
This gives a misleading impression of
sexual killers who are actually a very
heterogeneous group.
Use of case study work uses clinical
impressions of a skewed group which
tends to focus on the more extreme ends
of the scale (i.e., serial sexual sadists).
Three Main Sub-groups of Sexual Homicide:
and two others
Sadistic Murderer:
More research done on this subgroup.
Other names for sadist murderer are:
o Lust Killer,
o Sadistic Killer,
o Lust Murderer,
o Sadistic Lust Murder,
o Erotophonophilia,
o Sexual Murderer.
This subgroup is driven by sexually deviant
erotic fantasies, sexual motivations and
murder are intertwined meaning that
murder is done for organism, organised
killer with premeditation and planning,
more likely to be serial murderers, more
extreme end of the continuum of sexual
homicide.
Rape Killer:
Other wised called a sexually driven killer.
This sub-group is characterised by rape or
sexual assault being the primary goal and
murder is unintentional, murder is done to
eliminate witnesses, sexual offense is
planned but the murder was not
premeditated.
Anger Killer:
Otherwise called a grievance murderer.
This subgroup is characterized by anger or
grievance driving killing is revengeful or
vindictive, often in a drug induced or
alcohol fuelled state, often unplanned and
opportunistic (i.e., unorganized), mutilation.
Post Mortem Sexual Interference Offender (PMSIO)
Goal is to rape but opportunity arises after
the murder to sexually interact with the
body, sadism elements arise post-mortem.
Psychiatric/pathologically driven
Sexual homicide which occurs due to
mental health issues (i.e., psychosis).
Argued not to be a sexual murder due to its
ties to delusions but should be considered
as an important sub-group.
Proullx, Cusson and Beauregard (2007)
Montreal Study
Compared non-serial sexual killers and
non-serial sexual offenders from a
Canadian correctional facility.
Psychotic disorders are rare among these groups because these samples were drawn from prisons and not special hospitals where they have generally low levels of mental illness. Important caveat!
Sexual sadism is relatively low in these samples! supports sadistic lust murder is an extreme and rare form of sexual murder.
Predictors of sexual assault turning to
murder
o Alcohol consumption before offense.
o Absence of familial or intimate assailant/
victim relationship (i.e., victim is a
stranger).
o Use of a blunt object (i.e., weapon
present).
o Pre crime anger (does not affect the
offense severity)
Predictors of attack severity (not outcome)
o Verbal/physical humiliation,
verbal/physical resistance between the
victim and offender are more likely to end
in homicide.
Key Differences: o Social isolation. o Pre-crime anger o Deviant sexual fantasies o Paraphilia *are all more common in sexual murderers relative to sexual offenders.
Surprise that this group is socially isolated and lonely when the media portrays them
as being charismatic, charming with great interpersonal skills (i.e., Ted Bundy, Hannibal).
Sexual Homicide Recidivism:
Hill et al (2007)
Sexual reoffense Murder reoffense (sexual and non-sexual)
Factors associated with increased risk of recidivism:
- Homicide (1)
- Non sexual violent offense (3)
- Violent offense (4)
The base rate of recidivism is largely
unknown.
o Serial and non-serial sexual homicide
offenders.
o Sexual recidivism rates similar to sexual
offenders and murder recidivism rates
similar to murders.
o Majority of violence recidivism occurred
within first 5 years.
Homicide recidivism 3% 2 sexual murders, 1 non sexual murder) Sexual reoffence 15.6% Non sexual violence 16.7% No violent reoffence 47.8%
o Only young age at sexual homicide was
related to higher recidivism.
o Increased nonsexual violent recidivism
was related to previous sexual and
nonsexual delinquency, psychopathic
symptoms, and higher scores in risk
assessment instruments.
o Increased recidivism with any violent
reoffence was associated with age-related
factors: young age at first sexual offence,
at homicide, and at release and duration
of detention
o Base rates for recidivism guessed at being
lower than that of sexual offenders but
actual rates are unknown.
