Passionate Homicides and Overkilling. A Forensic Case Series of Overkill in Rome (Italy) from 1999 to 2015

In forensics, the term overkill refers to the modus operandi of the offender that goes beyond the immediate need to kill the victim, but not beyond the borders of cruelty. The killer - unable to stop his murderous impulse - seems to want to make sure the victim is dead, repeatedly hitting the corpse. From a forensic point of view, this type of murder is characterized by bloody crime scenes and the discovery of brutal wounds on the victim's body.

Through an examination of suggestive cases, we aim to identify and analyse the forensic aspects of overkill. The study aims to provide a framework of the findings in this type of murder to guide forensic assessment and allow differential diagnosis with others type of homicide.

In our study, we examined all the murders occurred in Rome between 1999 to 2015, closed with a final sentence and/or archived. We have therefore selected 18 cases where the crime has degenerated into overkill, because characterized by repeated and several signs of aggression on the body of the victim. For each case, there were analyzed the crime scenes and there were performed complete autopsies.

Only in one case the killer was a woman. In most cases victim and killer were partners. As for the motive, in 38.8% of the cases there was a passionate motive, followed by a neighborhood problem (22.2%) and money motive (17%). The sharps were the most used weapons; only in two cases firearms were used. The 39% of our cases had < 10 wounds on the victim's body; only in one case were more than 40 wounds.