Homicide

This case study examines the importance of rituals in understanding illegal behavior. Particular attention is given to the impact of stress-based symbolically ritualized events on individuals which may lead to mass homicide.

For a more lengthy abstract see the paper, i.e., Chapter.

The aim of this study was to investigate the number and type of brain abnormalities and their influence on psychosocial development, criminal history and paraphilias in sexual murderers. We analyzed psychiatric court reports of 166 sexual murderers and compared a group with notable signs of brain abnormalities (N = 50) with those without any signs (N = 116). Sexual murderers with brain abnormalities suffered more from early behavior problems. They were less likely to cohabitate with the victim at the time of the homicide and had more victims at the age of six years or younger. Psychiatric diagnoses revealed a higher total number of paraphilias: Transvestic fetishism and paraphilias not otherwise specified were more frequent in offenders with brain abnormalities. A binary logistic regression identified five predictors that accounted for 46.8% of the variance explaining the presence of brain abnormalities. Our results suggest the importance of a comprehensive neurological and psychological examination of this special offender group.

Asphyxial deaths utilising plastic bags or wrappings occurring over a 20-year period from March 1984 to February 2004 were reviewed at Forensic Science SA, Australia. A total of 45 cases were identified, with three occurring in infants and children (one accidental asphyxia; two homicides). Of the remaining 42 adults the male to female ratio was approximately 1:1 (23 and 19 cases, respectively), with all deaths attributed to suicide. The 42 adult cases represented 1.2% of the 3569 suicides autopsied at the centre over the time period of the study. The age ranges of the adult victims were 19-88 years (mean = 47.1 years) for the males, and 32-89 years (mean = 60.5 years) for the females. The adult female victims were significantly older than the males (p < 0.001). A number of victims had histories of depression and had taken prescription medications. A significant difference was found in the temporal occurrence of the adult deaths, with six cases occurring between 1984 and 1989, nine between 1989 and 1994, 11 between 1994 and 1999, and 16 between 1999 and 2004 (p < 0.001). Plastic bag asphyxial deaths were rare and in adults were due to suicide involving either older females or younger males. A significant increase in cases in South Australia in recent years was demonstrated, possibly related to publicity surrounding assisted suicides, and the ready availability of suicide manuals and information on suicide techniques from the internet.

The Fosse Ardeatine massacre was a mass execution carried out in Rome on March 24, 1944 by Nazi German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for a partisan attack conducted on the previous day in central Rome. The 335 civilians were taken to the ''Cave Ardeatine'' and they were shot. Only 323 corpses out of 335 have been identified. The aim of this work is the genetic and anthropological analysis of the remains exhumed from grave number 329 of Fosse Ardeatine's Shrine to assess their identity. So far, such remains have been supposed to belong to MM but mitochondrial analysis excluded a biological relationship to two living maternal relatives. Our analysis indicated that remains recovered in grave number 329 do not belong to MM. This result suggests that genetic analysis of the remains should be also applied to the other 12 unknown corpses to elucidate their identity.

A nine-year old boy was placed in a foster family--allegedly because of neglect after his mother had died in a car accident. Abnormal behaviour and the discovery of a photograph showing the boy naked from the waist down made the foster mother suspect sexual abuse. When she asked the boy to tell her the truth, the boy dictated a shocking story into her dictating machine. He described in detail how his mother had been killed and dismembered by her life partner in the bathtub with a saw before his eyes. Police investigations showed that the mother was not registered as deceased and that a suspicious neighbour had actually filed reports with the police months before because the man had given different versions on the alleged fatal accident of the mother. When the apartment was searched and evidence was collected, a bow saw with blood stains was found along with dental crowns in the bathtub drain. In spite of the boy&#39;s detailed statement where his mother&#39;s partner had allegedly d...

Feminist philosophy can make an important contribution to the field of genocide studies, and issues relating to gender and war are gaining new attention. In this article I trace legal and philosophical analyses of sexual violence against women in war. I analyze the strengths and limitations of the concept of social death—introduced into this field by Claudia Card—for understanding the genocidal features of war rape, and draw on the work of Hannah Arendt to understand the central harm of genocide as an assault on natality. The threat to natality posed by the harms of rape, forced pregnancy and forced maternity lie in the potential expulsion from the public world of certain groups—including women who are victims, members of the &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;enemy&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; group, and children born of forced birth.

School shootings tear the fabric of society. In the wake of a school shooting, parents, pediatricians, policymakers, politicians, and the public search for "the" cause of the shooting. But there is no single cause. The causes of school shootings are extremely complex. After the Sandy Hook Elementary School rampage shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, we wrote a report for the National Science Foundation on what is known and not known about youth violence. This article summarizes and updates that report. After distinguishing violent behavior from aggressive behavior, we describe the prevalence of gun violence in the United States and age-related risks for violence. We delineate important differences between violence in the context of rare rampage school shootings, and much more common urban street violence. Acts of violence are influenced by multiple factors, often acting together. We summarize evidence on some major risk factors and protective factors for youth violence, highlighting individual and contextual factors, which often interact. We consider new quantitative "data mining" procedures that can be used to predict youth violence perpetrated by groups and individuals, recognizing critical issues of privacy and ethical concerns that arise in the prediction of violence. We also discuss implications of the current evidence for reducing youth violence, and we offer suggestions for future research. We conclude by arguing that the prevention of youth violence should be a national priority.

Understanding global variation in firearm mortality rates could guide prevention policies and interventions. To estimate mortality due to firearm injury deaths from 1990 to 2016 in 195 countries and territories. This study used deidentified aggregated data including 13 812 location-years of vital registration data to generate estimates of levels and rates of death by age-sex-year-location. The proportion of suicides in which a firearm was the lethal means was combined with an estimate of per capita gun ownership in a revised proxy measure used to evaluate the relationship between availability or access to firearms and firearm injury deaths. Firearm ownership and access. Cause-specific deaths by age, sex, location, and year. Worldwide, it was estimated that 251 000 (95% uncertainty interval [UI], 195 000-276 000) people died from firearm injuries in 2016, with 6 countries (Brazil, United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Guatemala) accounting for 50.5% (95% UI, 42.2%-54.8%) of...

Who killed whom?: victimization and culpability in the social construction of murder ABSTRACT Based on in-depth interviews with relatives of people convicted of murder, this article examines the ways in which everyday understandings of 'murder' are socially constructed, as revealed by the narratives of murderers' relatives. To this end, interviewees' explanations of the killings are analysed and a distinction is drawn between interviewees who understood the killings committed by their relatives as manslaughter and those who accepted the murder verdict. In de ning the offences in this way, interviewees identi ed the signi cance of victimization and culpability to understandings of interpersonal violence. Through the analysis of interview data, it is possible to examine the ways in which 'murder' is seen to have occurred only when particular criteria of victimization and culpability are met.

From a sample of 1,956 adolescent delinquents referred to us by the court for physical, psychological, psychiatric, educational, and social examinations, 71 delinquents convicted of homicide were matched with 71 nonviolent delinquents by age, race, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES). These two groups were compared on the basis of these evaluations by stepwise discriminant analysis, matched pairs, two-tailed t-tests, and nonparametric tests. Adolescents who kill have a tetrad of symptoms: (1) criminally violent family members; (2) gang membership; (3) severe educational difficulties; and (4) alcohol abuse.

To establish changes over time in the frequency of homicides committed by strangers, and to describe the personal and clinical characteristics of perpetrators of stranger homicides. Design Longitudinal study and national clinical survey. Participants People convicted of homicide in England and Wales between 1996 and 1999 and whether the victim was known to the perpetrator. Setting England and Wales. Main outcome measure Characteristics of perpetrators of homicides according to whether victims were strangers or not. Results Stranger homicides increased between 1967 and 1997, both in number and as a proportion of all homicides. No increase was found, however, in the number of perpetrators placed under a hospital order after homicide, whether all homicides or stranger homicides only. 358 of 1594 (22%) homicides were stranger homicides. In these cases the perpetrator was more likely to be male and young. The method of killing was more likely to be by hitting, kicking, or pushing (36% (130 of 358) for victims who were strangers to the perpetrator compared with 14% (145 of 1074) for victims who were known). Perpetrators were less likely to have a history of mental disorder (34%, n = 80 v 50%, n = 142), a history of contact with mental health services (16%, 37 of 234 v 24%, 200 of 824), and psychiatric symptoms at the time of the offence (6%, n = 14 v 18%, n = 143). They were more likely to have a history of drug misuse (47%, n = 93 v 37%, n = 272); alcohol (56%, n = 94 v 41%, n = 285) or drugs (24% n = 44 v 12%, n = 86) were more likely to have contributed to the offence. Conclusions Stranger homicides have increased, but the increase is not the result of homicides by mentally ill people and therefore the "care in the community" policy. Stranger homicides are more likely to be related to alcohol or drug misuse by young men.

Youth violence is an important public health problem. During the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, the United States witnessed unprecedented levels of violence among the nation's youths. Homicide remains one of the leading causes of death for young people aged 10 to 24 years. This paper reviews the major trends in homicide victimization and perpetration among youths during the past decade, the developmental pathways of delinquent and violent behavior and the context in which these behaviors occur, and some of the challenges associated with disrupting these pathways and preventing violence. Previous research reveals that multiple pathways lead toward violence and delinquency. Predicting which pathway a youth will follow, or if one will be followed at all, depends to some extent on a host of other biological, psychosocial, and environmental factors present as young people transition from early childhood to adolescence to early adulthood. Preventing violence requires a comprehensive approach that takes into account developmental needs, tasks, and supports.

Setting fire at a crime scene, either before or after another offence, has the potential to destroy evidence and increase the likelihood of the crime remaining unsolved. When deliberately lit fires are used as a weapon in violent crimes, they have the potential to cause significant damage and to injure or kill victims, including unintended victims. The associated danger to the public from firesetting is much greater than if a more controllable criminal tool is used by the offender.Despite the development of several theories of adult firesetting behaviour (Canter & Fritzon 1998; Dickens & Sugarman 2012; Doley et al. 2011 ; Fritzon 2012; Gannon & Pina 2010; Gannon et al. 2012), the topic of fire-setting as it relates to fatal fires or homicide has been the focus of little empirical investigation. This is surprising given that firesetters are often depicted in the literature as individuals with serious and versatile antisocial behaviours, and with offending histories that can run the g...

This paper reports the findings of an in-depth case study of a highly densely populated area in northwest Rwanda which has been conducted during the period 1988±1993. It demonstrates that acute competition for land in a context characterized by too slow expansion of non-agricultural income opportunities has resulted in increasingly unequal land distribution and rapid processes of land dispossession through both operation of the (illegal) land market and evolution of indigenous tenure arrangements. It is also shown that pervasive incidence of land disputes and the threat of landlessness have led to rising tensions in social relations and even within the core of family life, thus paving the way for evermore overt expressions of disharmony and violence. A connection between these ominous conditions and the civil war that broke out in 1994 is established. # 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.

Over 30 000 people die annually in the United States from injuries caused by firearms. Although most firearm laws are enacted by states, whether the laws are associated with rates of firearm deaths is uncertain. Objective: To evaluate whether more firearm laws in a state are associated with fewer firearm fatalities. Design: Using an ecological and cross-sectional method, we retrospectively analyzed all firearm-related deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System from 2007 through 2010. We used state-level firearm legislation across 5 categories of laws to create a "legislative strength score," and measured the association of the score with state mortality rates using a clustered Poisson regression. States were divided into quartiles based on their score. Setting: Fifty US states. Participants: Populations of all US states. Main Outcome Measures: The outcome measures were state-level firearm-related fatalities per 100 000 individuals per year overall, for suicide, and for homicide. In various models, we controlled for age, sex, race/ethnicity, poverty, unemployment, college education, population density, nonfirearm violence-related deaths, and household firearm ownership. Results: Over the 4-year study period, there were 121 084 firearm fatalities. The average state-based firearm fatality rates varied from a high of 17.9 (Louisiana) to a low of 2.9 (Hawaii) per 100 000 individuals per year. Annual firearm legislative strength scores ranged from 0 (Utah) to 24 (Massachusetts) of 28 possible points. States in the highest quartile of legislative strength (scores of Ն9) had a lower overall firearm fatality rate than those in the lowest quartile (scores of Յ2) (absolute rate difference, 6.64 deaths/100 000/y; age-adjusted incident rate ratio [IRR], 0.58; 95% CI, 0.37-0.92). Compared with the quartile of states with the fewest laws, the quartile with the most laws had a lower firearm suicide rate (absolute rate difference, 6.25 deaths/100 000/y; IRR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.48-0.83) and a lower firearm homicide rate (absolute rate difference, 0.40 deaths/100 000/y; IRR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.38-0.95). Conclusions and Relevance: A higher number of firearm laws in a state are associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state, overall and for suicides and homicides individually. As our study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships, further studies are necessary to define the nature of this association.

Correlations of age, gender, and psychosocial variables with ratings of current homicidal ideation and in tent were investigated among psychiatric facility clients with schizophrenia. Multiple regression analyses revealed, irrespective of age or gender, significantly positive correlations of three psychosocial variablesmanic symptoms, psychotic symptoms, and impaired global functioningwith homicidal ideation and intent. Implications for research are discussed.

This study focuses on the relationship between the incidence of homicide, rage, suicide, and psychiatric hospitalization as violent behaviors with temperature, humidity, and air pressure as specific meteorological variables in the city of Mashhad, in the northeast of Iran. The data were obtained from Iran Meteorological Organization, official registry of Legal Medicine Organization and the local psychiatric hospital, March 2009 to Feb 2010 daily and were analyzed with SPSS-14 using Pearson correlation coefficient, ANOVA, and post hoc analysis tests. The rates of rage and psychiatric admission had a significant relationship with the daily mean air temperature, minimum relative humidity, maximum relative humidity, minimum daily pressure, and maximum daily air pressure (p < 0.0001). There was no significant correlation between homicide and suicide rates with any meteorological variables (p > 0.05). We concluded that, the possibility of nonfatal violence and psychiatric hospitalization would increase in hot and arid weather with low air pressure.

Evidence materials in a presumed suicide case were studied by a firearm examiner and a forensic chemist. The victim&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s body with double gunshot wounding in his forehead, a machine gun in the sustained fire mode with a silencer, and four cartridge cases were found. Examinations of the evidence, the case file studies, and experiments dedicated to the case were carried out. Relationships between the placement of cartridge cases and the gun were established using a fast camera. The distributions of gunshot residues on the evidence materials and within the comparative gunshot patterns were studied by means of optical and electron microscopy, X-ray microanalysis, and infrared spectroscopy. The shooting distance was assessed to be 30 cm or more, whereas the greatest distance that could have been achieved by the victim himself was about 11-13 cm. The obtained results supported the version of homicide rather than suicide.

Cases at study comprise 21 sharp force fatalities (9 suicides -7 m and 2 f; 8 homicides -5 m and 3 f; 2 accidental deaths -1 m and 1 f; 2 uncertain cases -2 m), examined from 1993 to 2002. Suicide age range was 17-75 years, mean 42.4; in seven cases the age was upper 40. Scene of death was at home in six cases, at open place in two, during hospitalisation in one. Incised wounds were pre-eminent in suicides. Homicides showed multiple stab wounds. The two accidents were caused by ''glassing''. Uncertain cases were a small stab wound to the chest and an eviration.

Determine the relative frequency with which guns in the home are used to injure or kill in self-defense, compared with the number of times these weapons are involved in an unintentional injury, suicide attempt, or criminal assault or homicide. We reviewed the police, medical examiner, emergency medical service, emergency department, and hospital records of all fatal and nonfatal shootings in three U.S. cities: Memphis, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; and Galveston, Texas. During the study interval (12 months in Memphis, 18 months in Seattle, and Galveston) 626 shootings occurred in or around a residence. This total included 54 unintentional shootings, 118 attempted or completed suicides, and 438 assaults/homicides. Thirteen shootings were legally justifiable or an act of self-defense, including three that involved law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides. Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

Key Words: homicide; domestic violence; health multisite study was to describe health care use in the care utilization. year prior to murder of women by their intimate partner in order to identify opportunities for intervention to prevent femicide. more often than nonabused women [8]. In addition to Interdisciplinary Research Training on Violence Grant supported Dr. the immediate traumatic injuries that women receive Koziol-McLain (T32 MH20014). during a violent incident, women suffer acute and 1 To whom reprint requests should be addressed at Johns Hopkins chronic pain and psychological consequences [9-12]. University, School of Nursing,

The literature on suicide survivors suggests that suicide grief is different than the grief associated with survivorship from other causes. The few studies that have compared groups of survivors from other causes, however, have often not observed as many differences as expected based on the suicide survivors literature. In this study, 230 college students who had survived the suicide (N=61), accidental (N=92), or natural deaths (N=77) of a f.mily member or close friend were asked to complete a set of questionnaires. Reactions of the survivors to the death were meaeured by a number of questions, the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief, the Impact of Event Scale, and the Revised University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale. Attitudes toward suicide survivors were assessed by the Aftermath of Suicide instrument. In general, many more similarities than differences were noted for the survivors of the various causes. No significant differences between the groups were observed for guilt, shame, isolation from others, or loneliness; thinking about suicide; time to resume normal functioning; or the impact of the event currently or immediately after the death. Compared to other survivors, however, suicide survivors reported significantly more stigmatizing events and blamed more people for the death. Survivors of sudden deaths, both suicidal and accidental, exhibited greater stigma and more of a desire to understand why after the death than did natural death survivors. (Author)

On a societal level Philo argues for a ius talionis based on values of equality, life itself, and health. The first principle results in democracy as the best political system. It also implies that every killing is unjust, including killing in war, as every person who kills in effect gives him or herself a higher value than his or her victim. The second principle implies that when a life is willingly taken, it must be retaliated against—by the death of the offender. In some cases, Philo also considers an intentional assault on someone’s health as murder, especially when the principle sign of life, the ratio (nous), is thereby lost. The condition for the culpability of murderers or potential murderers is in every case the intention to kill. This intention also includes incitement to murder and attempted murder.
On a religious level there is only the one God. God is the creator and the guarantee of the world order (logos) which includes and effectively amounts to natural law. Every offence against God is an offence against this order and cannot be redeemed, and the offender should be completely erased. However, as men are shaped in the image of God, they are, to some extent, also godly. Killing the image of God is, thus, killing a part of God in some way. At the societal level, the victim is to be recompensed by means of the death penalty for the murderer. However, at the religious level, the murderer has broken the law of nature—offended God’s image, and God himself—and must be eradicated, to preserve the goodness inherent in God’s work. To repeat the words of Philo once again:
"The term murder or manslaughter is used to signify the act of one who has killed a human being but in real truth that act is a sacrilege, and the worst of sacrileges."
(Philo, Spec. Laws 3.83; trans. Colson, LCL)

We report a multiple homicide in Angola involving six Portuguese citizens. Immediately after the crime, four bodies were retrieved from the homicide site. Forensic autopsies were allegedly performed by local doctors and three bodies were transferred to Portugal, where they were buried with no extra expertise, presumably identified only by the examinations carried out in Angola. The two remaining bodies, presumably from sub-adults, were only discovered 1 year later. At that time, some bone samples of these two corpses were sent to Portugal. A multidisciplinary team of the National Institute of Legal Medicine (NILM) in Portugal, including forensic anthropologist and pathologists, and forensic geneticist, found out that the bodies were previously misidentified. In fact, the anthropological and genetic examinations on the remains of the two persons showed that they did not belong to a child and an adolescent but instead to two adult victims, at least one of them was supposed to be buried in Portugal since 1 year. The verification of this misunderstanding led to a series of exhumations, of the three victims previously buried in Portugal. In all, the identities were reconstructed and the cause of death could be established in four of them. A multiplicity of severe traumatic cranial injuries were detected, which were, undoubtedly due to a violent death.

The case of Aileen Wuornos, executed in Florida for the serial killing of seven men, is studied to determine her degree of psychopathy and the presence or absence of sexuality or sexual sadism as a motivation or gratification for her crimes. The authors, one of whom evaluated the subject shortly before her death, determined that she evidenced a psychopathic personality (PCL-R score 32). She also met DSM-IV-TR criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. While her killings ostensibly were carried out during routine acts of prostitution, there was ambiguous evidence that her crimes were sexually motivated or gratifying. Her articulated motivation was robbery and elimination of the witness/victim. After carefully considering all available data, the authors concluded there was no convincing evidence of sexual sadism in either her personal history or her method of committing serial murder, and it remains unclear whether sexual gratification was to some degree a motivating factor in her commission of these offenses. The confluence of early childhood attachment disruptions, severe psychopathy, other personality disorder pathology, and a traumagenic abuse history likely contributed to her having serially murdered seven victims.

A woman is murdered in a small town. At autopsy, the pathologist notes the woman had engaged in sexual relations shortly before her murder. The police department determines the male partner should be considered a person of interest in their investigation. They begin a canvas of the town, asking every male to voluntarily consent to a DNA test. Men refusing to provide the specimen will be publicly listed as potential suspects and perhaps arrested. All 1500 men in the town provide a specimen and none is identified as the sex partner. The DNA results are entered into the FBI's database and made available to every law enforcement agency in the country.

Homicide in Malta is not a common crime. Till the present day there is no academic research that inquires the trends associated with this heinous act. After analysing aspects related to homicide committed between 1970 till the latest in 2018, the paper aims at providing the first findings on homicide trends in the islands of Malta. The findings aim at providing the significant statistical outcomes related to homicide trends particularly in relation to the modus operandi, gender, relationship between the offender and homicide clearance.

Bloodstain pattern analysis is inseparably present in forensic genetics, crime scene investigation, the examination of evidence, and paper casework. It times of pandemic related to COVID-19 it is crucial to be aware of obstacles, barriers, and threats that await every expert who deals with forensic biological material. This new situation is an excellent time to go back and point out what are the primary guidelines that reduce the contamination of evidence and increase the protection of practitioners and experts during their work. Some evident principles that exist during crime scene investigation should be used in a more safe environment. The main goal of this article is to show what is the primary indicator that will help to reduce the danger of contamination by Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) during the prosecution of work. Bloodstain pattern analysis is a vast discipline. Other experts can use guidelines that will be shown in this article. Numerous forensic fields can benefit from this information. Subjects such as fingerprint, trace evidence, ballistics, forensic genetics, an examination of the evidence on a crime scene or during paper casework, even handwriting during crime scene investigation.

This paper aims to build on and contribute to earlier studies on use of force by the police, and examines both officer and suspect force levels during altercations. Prior attempts to study non-lethal force have only recently begun to examine the multiple levels of force that may be used within a single encounter, advocating the use of a “force factor” approach. This study examines 4,303 “use of force” reports from the two agencies in Florida for a five-year period. Similar to prior studies which utilized data gathered by observation, this current study finds that law enforcement officers are operating at a force deficit; officer levels of force are consistently less than suspect resistance levels. Data examined through police reports have certain inherent limitations, including the bias of the reporting officer. Analyses of these reports make it impossible for researchers to determine the length of each portion of a conflict. While verbal commands, threats, handcuffing, and takedowns may be important forces to review, they are not well represented in the data collected.These findings have critical implications for law enforcement by continuing to examine conflicts where police force is utilized, showing the importance of officers to be prepared to use decisive force at the point where verbal techniques and force de-escalation have failed. This paper is valuable to scholars and police practitioners because it continues to expand the scholarly review of police use of force, utilizing existing force continua to analyze the data, and taking into account levels of suspect resistance.