A 39-year-old prostitute stabbed and beaten. Nipples cut off and “skinned” in pubic and perineal region. No further info about this case.
Sexual homicide is a rare crime that represents only a small proportion of homicides committed every year. Despite the rarity of these offenses, 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.
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. This act, whatever its motivation, is not only shocking but also demoralizing as it constitutes a way to deny the victim’s integrity.
Fig.1 39-year-old prostitute stabbed and beaten. Then “skinned” in pubic and perineal region.
Other studies have also suggested that criminal dismemberment could be motivated by the presence of paraphilia and sexual deviance. In these cases, the need to avoid police detection is not important; instead, it is the search for sexual gratification related to body dismemberment that is pivotal. This motivation associated with criminal dismemberment is the expression of paraphilic behaviors driven by the search for sexual gratification. The criminal dismemberment can be the central or a secondary act of the sexual deviance.
Fig.2 Nipples cut off.
As a central act, it has been noted that individuals found sexual gratification in the body dismemberment of their victims. This paraphilic behavior is considered as an extreme form of picquerism (i.e. gratification from the process of penetration such as cutting, biting or stabbing) and could be associated with lust murder which is a term describing homicides where offenders find sexual gratification in the act of killing. This category of sexual homicide is also associated with a great diversity of sadistic acts (e.g. extreme mutilation).
As a secondary act in search of sexual gratification, criminal dismemberment is associated with erotophonophilia (i.e. sexual gratification found in the act of committing murder). This paraphilia is often associated with amputation of limbs or breasts, as well as the dissection and the evisceration of victims’ bodies. Studies mentioned that criminal dismemberment is also associated with necrophilia (i.e. sexual gratification to perpetrate sexual acts with corpses or body parts).
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