Sexual murderers of children: developmental, precrime, crime, and postcrime factors

The amount of empirical research on men who commit sexual murders is scarce, and no distinction has been made between those who have victimized adults and those who have victimized children. Therefore, to better understand specifically sexual murderers of children (n = 11), comparisons were performed with a group of sexual murderers of adult women (n = 66) on developmental, precrime, crime, and postcrime factors. It appears that sexual murderers of children are more often victims of sexual abuse during childhood and present more often deviant sexual fantasies as compared to sexual murderers of women. The results show also that sexual murderers of children more often use pornography prior to crime, have contact with the victim prior to crime, and commit a crime more often characterized by premeditation, strangulation, the hiding of the body, and its dismemberment than the sexual murderers of women.