Body Dismemberment

Introduction

Sexual homicide (SH) is a rare crime that represents only a small proportion of homicides committed every year (see Beauregard & Martineau, 2017 for a review). Despite the rarity of these offenses, SHs often monopolize media headlines and have the unique ability to provoke wide-spread fear in the community due in part to the apparent randomness of victim selection, but also because they are often characterized by gratuitous brutality as well as a combination of irrational behaviors (Roberts & Grossman, 1993). In some cases, certain acts committed during the crime-commission process become even more shocking and irrational than the murder itself. One of the most exemplary among these acts is the criminal dismemberment of the victim’s body, which is considered to be the ultimate act of aggression (Holmes, 2017). This act, whatever its motivation, is not only shocking but also demoralizing as it constitutes a way to deny the victim’s integrity (Black et al., 2017).