Sexual Homicide: a Criminological Perspective

Sexual Sadism: Its Role in the Crime-Commission Process of Sexual Homicide of Children

“…Empirical research on child SH has been non-existent and cases involving child victims were included with cases involving adult victims (for a review see Chopin & Beauregard, 2019c, 2019d). More recently, an emergence of empirical studies demonstrated that child SH constituted a specific form of offending with a distinct crime-commission process (Beauregard, Stone, Proulx, & Michaud, 2008;Chopin & Beauregard, 2019c;Firestone, Bradford, Greenberg, & Larose, 1998;Gratzer & Bradford, 1995;Proulx, Blais, & Beauregard, 2007;Proulx, James, Siwic, & Beauregard, 2018;Schmidt & Madea, 1999).…”

Lethal outcome in elderly sexual violence: Escalation or different intent?

“…Sometimes, the sexual activity is not necessary for the murder to be sexual as the act of killing itself may be sexually gratifying for the offender (5)(6)(7). Although sexual homicide is a rare offense, research has evolved to become especially dynamic as the understanding and management of sexual homicide offenders presents several challenges for public safety (8). However, access to sexual homicide data presents many barriers as it is often difficult to collect large and representative samples.…”

“…However, access to sexual homicide data presents many barriers as it is often difficult to collect large and representative samples. As a result, most studies used mixed samples (i.e., offenders who killed women, children, men) of sexual homicide offenders (SHOs) and considered this type of offender as a homogeneous population (8,9). Unlike most other crimes, juveniles involved in sexual homicides have often been ignored.…”

Factors influencing the use of forensic awareness strategies in sexual homicide

“…This result is congruent with findings of previous studies focusing on the use of FAS by sadistic SHs (Reale and colleagues, 2020). Previous studies suggested that SHOs were less likely to use alcohol while they were more likely to have sexual convictions, to commit multiple offenses, to fantasize about their offenses (use pornography), to commit more intrusive and prolonged offenses, and to follow an organized crime-commission process (see Brittain, 1970;Chopin & Beauregard, 2019c;Hill, Habermann, Berner, & Briken, 2006;MacCulloch, Gray, & Watt, 2000;MacCulloch, Snowden, Wood, & Mills, 1983;Ressler & Burgess, 1985;Warren, Hazelwood, & Dietz, 1996). We may hypothesize that the sadistic SHOs use more often FAS as part of their planning and fantasy, as their personality traits lead to a more meticulous and controlled approach, or because they have to due to the nature of their crimes.…”