Sexual Murder - Justicia Forense

project involving 48 “homicidal sex offenders,” they used various diagnostictools, including phallometric readings, to help them understand their subjects.However, the circumstances surrounding the homicides are not exactlyclear. Many of the offenders seem to have been motivated by one of thescenarios outlined by Grubin (1994). It is not known whether any of themurders were actually sexually motivated and to what group of offenders theresults apply.Meloy (2000) also notes the distinction between sexual murder andmurder associated with sexual activity. Nevertheless, he attempted to estimatethe incidence of sexual homicides by examining reported homicides that theUCR categorize as murders associated with rape, other sex, or prostitution.He points out that these may be sexual homicides, since sexual murderersoften do kill prostitutes or rape and then kill their victims. However, thereis an equal probability that many of these crimes were not sexual homicides.All that we can say about these cases is that homicide and sex were related;we cannot say with certainty that the homicide was sexually motivated.1.5 Absence of National Crime Statistics on Sexual MurderThe actual base rate for sexual homicide is uncertain. The UCR do not collectdata on the number of sexual murders in the U.S., nor does any state databaseexist. The FBI Behavioral Science Unit has never officially estimated thenumber of sexual (or serial) homicides occurring within the U.S., despitehearsay to the contrary (Wilson, 2000). The only country that collects dataon sexual murder is Canada, under the auspices of the Centre for JusticeStatistics, a part of Statistics Canada. However, their definition of sexualmurder is a homicide occurring during the commission of a sexual offense.However, these homicides are not always sexually motivated; rather, they aremurders (as Grubin [1994] pointed out) that occur in connection with a sexcrime. In fact, the Canadian definition would exclude numerous cases ofhomicide that are sexually motivated — such as those involving strangulation,or multiple stab wounds, without an overt expression of genitality —because of the absence of a sex offense. The prevalence of sexual murder inCanada is about 4% of all homicides — which amounts to about 20 casesper year — and has been fairly consistent over time. The number of sexuallymotivated homicides still remains unknown. Given the multiple complexproblems with definition, it is easy to understand why accurate statistics onthe incidence of sexual murder would be very difficult to calculate.In an attempt to estimate the incidence of sexual homicide in the U.S.,some researchers have made use of indirect data sources — with theirinherent problems. For example, Ressler et al. (1988) reviewed available