Is Investigative Awareness a Distinctive Feature of Sadism?

• In Event: Posters I

Abstract

Sadistic sexual homicide offenders (SSHOs) often receive other labels, such as organized sexual murderer (Ressler, Burgess & Douglas, 1988) or murderer motivated to carry out fantasies (Beech et al., 2005). This highlights the fact that sadistic offenders carefully plan their offenses, pre-select the location of their crime, and prepare a rape-kit. Despite this emphasis on careful planning of the offense and considerations to evade police detection, no study has specifically examined whether this behavior or trait was specific to sadistic offenders. In the current study, we test for the presence of investigative awareness as a distinctive feature of sadism. Utilizing a sample of 350 cases of sexual homicide from Canada, regression analyses are used to identify crime characteristics associated to sadism, using the SADSEX-SH-R (Myers, Beauregard, & Menard, 2013), an 8-item sexual sadism scale for sexual homicide. Results show that SSHOs are more likely to use various precautions to avoid detection and select a deserted location, in comparison to non-sadistic offenders. Additionally, SSHOs, despite having a lesser time to body recovery than non-sadistic offenders, are more likely to have an unsolved case status. Implications for the assessment of sexual sadism as well as for the police investigations will be discussed.

Authors

• Kylie Sarah Reale, Simon Fraser University

• Eric Beauregard, Simon Fraser University