Term
| In general, do serial homicide offenders engage in ritualistic behavior? |
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Definition
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Term
| Over time, rituals tend to become ____ elaborate |
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Definition
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Term
| There is more ____ violence in sexually motivated crimes |
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Definition
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Term
| Define the term "undoing" with regards to homicide |
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Definition
| When the victim and offender have a close relationship, the offender will sometimes alter crime scene in order to "undo" the act |
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Term
| Crime scene staging is most common in _______ homicides. It occurs in ___% of cases. |
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Definition
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Term
| What is the purpose of crime scene staging? Are there any exceptions to this? |
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Definition
| To redirect the investigation and mislead police; Cases of auto erotic asphyxiation may be staged to look like suicides to protect the victim or victim's family |
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Term
| A person's modus operandi is a way for them to inject their _____ into a crime scene |
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Definition
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Term
| Define "scripting" as it relates to modus operandi |
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Definition
| A verbal signature where the offender makes the victim say something (e.g. "Tell me you love me") |
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Term
| What is the main difference between modus operandi and signature? |
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Definition
| Modus operandi is a way of getting things done and are necessary to successfully complete the crime. SIGNATURE involves actions beyond this |
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Term
| When first looking at a murder, what should one consider? |
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Definition
-How many crime scenes? Abduction vs dump sites
-Weapon of choice vs weapon of opportunity
-Body disposition: open to discovery, hidden, posed etc
-Pre crime behavior context
-The offense itself
-Post crime behavior: wash or change victim's clothes, go out to eat, return to the crime scene or attend the funeral etc |
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Lives far from the crime scene
-Transports or hides body
-Follows the case in the media |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Torture/mutilation occurs prior to death
-Kills slowly
-Takes a murder weapon or kit with him |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Penis penetration/necrophilia
-Less physical evidence
-May insert himself into the investigation |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Would be described in high school as a troublemaker and manipulative
-Problems with authority
-Lots of externalized anger |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Doesn't reach his potential because he can't work with others
-Has a wife/partner
-Prefers a low risk abduction |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Stable family background
-More physically attractive
-Pre-crime stress is a trigger (losing a job or girlfriend breaking up with him) |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Superior, narcissistic
-Easily attracts members of the opposite sex
-Victimology: Attacks female, single, employed, living alone |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Differentiated fantasies
-Moves out of comfort zone, will attack strangers
-Restraint, choking, demanding victim be compliant (considered erotic to him) |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Controlled conversation with victim to gain confidence
-If victim misbehaves, offender will increase aggression
-During crime, mood is controlled
-Post offense, demeanor and behavior don't change very much (resume daily life) |
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Definition
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Term
| Describe Cleckley's psychopath |
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Definition
-Emotionally blunted, usually has an entourage, normal facade hiding the
insanity within. The disturbance is so profound that it is akin to a psychosis. It is very difficult to detect unless you know what you're looking for
-Organized scenes are left by psychopaths because of the lack of emotions that cloud judgement |
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Term
Organized or disorganized? -Lives or works near the crime scene
-Confronts, kills, and leaves body all in same location
-Doesn't follow the media coverage because they're not that plugged into reality |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Torture and mutilation will occur after death
-Kills quickly
-Weapon of opportunity |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Difficult to predict
-Foreign object insertion,
-Ejaculation on or near victim (not necessarily in) |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-In high school would be described as quiet, weird, outcast, mentally disturbed; internalized anger
-Poor self image
-Suicide attempts |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Any relations with females are usually with prostitutes; lives with mother
-High risk abduction, impulsive
-Abusive, unstable family |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Physically unattractive
-Opportunity is a trigger
-Difficulty attracting women |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Schizotypal
-Victimology: somebody that he happens across, greater variation in victims than organized
-Undifferentiated fantasies, so wide variety of victims |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-Doesn't leave comfort zone, usually knows victim in some way
-Sudden violence, blitz attack so he doesn't have to socially interact. Overkill common
-Mood is anxious during crime
-Post offense, behavior does change: drinks more, talks inadvertently about the crime and bring attention to himself |
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Definition
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Term
Organized or disorganized?
-No gun, manual strangulation, blunt force, or sharp objects
-Will return to crime scene |
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Definition
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Term
| Is a person's physical appearance important to his or her psychological makeup? |
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Definition
| Yes. Less attractive or deformed people have major negative impacts (constant teasing leads to intense anger, etc) |
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Term
| Both organized and disorganized offenders will return to a crime scene, but for different reasons. What are they? |
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Definition
Organized: to check on the progress of the investigation
Disorganized: to relive the crime |
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Term
| Define and describe geographic profiling |
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Definition
-Taking the locations of the crime and trying to link them together
-aka Environmental criminology, hot spots, crime mapping
-Theory is that criminals are routine in crime like everything else, and have behavior patterns
-Offenders victimize areas they know best
-Usually a buffer zone around their home, won't commit crimes in it
-Home is usually the central point, could be work
-"Criminals don't commute to commit crimes" |
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Term
| Manfried Guttmacher had 6 categories of murderers. Name them. |
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Definition
1- "Normal murderer" (without
psychopathology)
2- "Sociopathetic"
3- "Alcoholic"
4- "Avenging"
5- "Sexual"
6- "Sadistic" |
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Term
| Emmanuel Tanay described three types of murderers. Name them. |
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Definition
1- "Egosyntonic"
2- "Egodystonic or dissociative"
3- "Psychotic." |
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Term
Tanay wrote that many murderers were morally _________ people pre and post homicide and extremely __ ______ (even writing that they were __________-phobic). He thought that these
people harbored a lot of _________ but projected it on the world around them. This is an example of the ________ murderer. |
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Definition
| Upstanding; law abiding; aggressive; aggression; ego dystonic |
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Term
| In the 1950s Branale wrote that there were two types of crimes. What were they? |
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Definition
Administrative (should be handled by the system)
Psychiatric crime (should be handled by psychiatrists) |
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Term
| Halleck believed there to be two types of crime. What were they? |
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Definition
| Adaptive and maladaptive (should be treated by psychology) crime |
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Term
| Crime is usually not caused by a mental disorder, but stems from which 4 factors? |
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Definition
-Inclination (they just want to)
-Opportunity
-Expectation of a reward (some sort of gain)
-Expectation of impunity (think they're going to get away with it) |
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Term
| Crimes that are caused by a mental defect fall into which three categories? |
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Definition
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Term
| Name the classifications of the homicide motivation spectrum from external to internal |
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Definition
Sociogenic, Environmental
Situational (65% of homicides)
Impulsive
Catathymic
Psychogenic, Compulsive |
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Term
| In an insanity defense, how is mens rea determined? |
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Definition
| It isn't. You eliminate the mens rea since the person couldn't form criminal intent |
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Term
| Describe conjugal paranoia |
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Definition
Revitch, 1954; when one partner is
convinced the other is unfaithful, despite the lack of evidence |
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Term
| Give an example of social murder |
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Definition
| Nazis genocide, terrorism, contract killling |
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Term
| Describe an impulsive murder |
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Definition
| The person reacts to situations in a stimulus-response fashion where there is little modulation of emotion. It is common in prisons. The person usually engages in a multiplicity of minor antisocial acts |
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Term
| Where does the term catathymic come from? |
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Definition
| Greek "kata" and "thymos" = in accordance with emotions; coined by Maier in 1912 |
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Term
| What were some of the writings of Wertham on catathymic crimes? |
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Definition
He noted that after a serious suicide attempt, his patient was no longer suicidal but in fact was relieved because of the discharge of emotion which returned the person to a "psychic homeostasis";
Wertham also wrote that sometimes people would obsess and fixate on a future victim which would build and build emotions until they exploded out into violent behavior.
He defined catathymia as a
"transformation of the stream of thought as a result of complexes of ideas that are charged with a strong affect" and can be sexually motivated |
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Term
| What motivation lies at the core of acute catathymia? |
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Definition
| Intense feelings of sexual inadequacy |
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Term
| What are the three stages of chronic catathymia? |
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Definition
1- Incubation (development of the idea that the death of the victim is
the solution to their problem)
2- Violence
3- Then relief |
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Term
| In regards to catathymic homicide, does the amount of violence inflicted on the victim matter? |
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Definition
| Yes: Victims killed with multiple stab or gunshot wound will satisfy catathymic killers, but if there is less violence, the offender will often kill themselves. There has to be enough violence to satisfy the offender, to relieve the build up of emotions |
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Term
| Fully internally motivated crimes are ________ and often _______ motivated |
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Definition
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Term
| With regards to fully internally motivated crimes, how much of the motivation lies with the interaction with the victim? |
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Definition
None. It is not as a result of interaction between offender and victim but of the offender's inner fantasy life
coming to reality. The fantasy begins many years before it happens and is part of the sexual arousal pattern |
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Term
| How much weight does the theory of displaced matricide hold in the modern forensic paradigm? |
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Definition
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Term
| With regards to sexual murderers, there usually isn't a history of interpersonal violence or threats to kill. What signs, then, may indicate a future risk for sexual murder? |
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Definition
From least to most important:
1- Childhood abuse (very prevalent though not predictive on it's own)
2- Inappropriate maternal sexual conduct
3- Pathological lying (not to escape wrongdoing but to achieve mastery over others) and
manipulation
4- Sadistic fantasy with the compulsion to act (themes of domination, control, revenge)
5- Animal cruelty (particularly against cats)
6- Need to control others (control is the basis for sadism)
7- Repetitive fire setting (not overt sexual motivation; goes back to control)
8- Voyeurism, fetishism, and sexual burglary (burglary is a combination of the two)
9- Unprovoked attacks on females associated with misogynistic motivations
10- Evidence of ritualistic behavior |
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Term
| Is it normal for a sexually motivated murder to not appear to PHYSICALLY arouse the offender? |
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Definition
Yes: the violence itself is
eroticized and takes the place of the physical expression |
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Term
| What are some examples of organically motivated crime? |
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Definition
-Brain injuries (weaken inhibitory controls)
-Brain tumors (put pressure on the brain)
-Encephalopathies: individuals who survived encehpalitis had damage
in the brain areas responsible for impulse control, thus became more criminal |
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Term
| Toxic crimes are those committed by persons under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Describe some features of this type of crime. |
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Definition
-Aggression occurs at .1 and .35% BAC
-Wolfgang '58: 50% of victims and offenders had alcohol in their systems at the time
-Stimulant drugs are directly related to violent crimes, but not depressant
-Marijuana can sometimes trigger a psychosis, which can lead to violent behavior, but this is rare |
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Term
| Define Pathological (idiosyncratic) intoxication |
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Definition
When a person has a tiny bit of alcohol but then gets extremely violent, with little memory of the event; rare, controversial disorder (described as like
an allergic reaction to alcohol. The problem is this behavior is not consistent or replicable in labs) |
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Term
| Name some characteristics of the class of paranoid homicides |
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Definition
-Significant risk for violence with paranoids since they'll act in a protective way
-Langstrom: 57% of mental patients had mental delusions (most political assassins are afflicted with paranoia)
-Urologists and proctologists are the most likely professions to be killed by their patients
-Many mass murderers are paranoid |
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Term
| Do depressed people become homicidal? |
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Definition
| Yes, especially delusional depression with ideas of sexual infidelity |
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Term
| Describe a few characteristics of anonymous letter writing |
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Definition
-Usually threatening or obscene, sometimes extortion demands.
-To determine if it's serious, you need to figure out if it is staged in an attempt to put you off in the
wrong direction. Don't be overly specific, it's an overall impression
-Often you never find out who wrote it |
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Term
| What are the three types of contract murderers? |
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Definition
| Professional, semi-professional, and amateur |
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Term
| Describe the professional contract murderer |
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Definition
-Direct member of organized crime
or
-Subcontracted by organized crime
-Perfectly planned
-No evidence remaining
-Target/motivation is in organized crime
-Little overt personality disturbance |
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Term
| Describe the characteristics of the semi-professional contract murderer |
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Definition
-Lots of antisocial behavior
-Criminally sophisticated
-Well planned
-Little evidence remaining
-Target/motivation is business related (sometimes criminally related)
-Less unstable personality |
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Term
| Describe some characteristics of the amateur contract murderer |
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Definition
-Usually hires someone they think might do it since they don't know how to get a hold of a professional
-Target is typically a no-longer-loved one.
-Poorly planned
-Some evidence left behind
-Personally motivated
-Unstable personality |
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Term
| If there is a sexual element to a crime (like burglary), is it likely to happen again? |
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Definition
| Yes, as it is part of the offender's psychology |
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Term
| What are the 5 types of mass murder? |
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Definition
1- Familicide
2- Disgruntled employee/student
3- Set and run killer (e.g. Timoth McVeigh)
4- Psuedo commando (e.g. dressed in camo)
5- Disturbed person who gets set off |
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Term
| What are some problems one encounters when researching sexual murder? |
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Definition
-No agreed upon definition for sexual murder
-Doesn't necessarily involve overt sexuality
-Distinction between sexual murder and murder involving sex is often confused (sexual murder is where sex is the motivation)
-No national crime statistics on the number of sexual murders
-Murderers aren't sub categorized into sexual murderers
-Practical problems:
--Incomplete/inaccurate backgrounds and histories of offenders
--low base rate
--Lack of interdisciplinary cooperation |
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