Healthcare Serial Killers as Confidence Men

Although there is adequate coverage of serial murder in the extant homicide literature, there is a lack of systematic examination of healthcare professionals who serially murder their patients. Using a sample of 58 healthcare serial killers located within North America, South America, and Europe between the years of 1970 and 2010, this study examines notable pre‐offense and post‐offense behaviours of healthcare serial killers. Patterns related to offender aetiology, victim cultivation, crime scene behaviour, and techniques of evasion were explored. The findings from this study suggest that the pre‐offense and post‐offense behaviours of healthcare serial killers can be conceptualised from the theoretical framework of confidence men or ‘con men’. The findings from this study also suggest that healthcare serial killings and offenders who perpetrate them continue to be elusive and warrant additional scholarly attention to reduce their likelihood of engaging in homicide undetected for extended time. Policy implications are also discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Serial homicide: an investigation of behavioural consistency

To examine if serial homicide offenders are consistent across their crimes, a model was developed empirically that could be used to distinguish between crimes that were instrumental and those that were expressive. The first known three offences in each series of 69 US serial homicides committed by 23 offenders, were examined and the instrumental and expressive themes determined. Three models were then explored that test for consistency across these themes. The most liberal model was found to classify all of the offences effectively and to reveal complete consistency across the three crimes for all offenders. The implications of these results for offender profiling and further study of serial homicide are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lessons from serial murder in South Africa

The systematic study of serial murder in South Africa is a newly developed field. This research demonstrates the similarities and differences between South African serial murderers and those found elsewhere. The most marked difference is the higher incidence of cross‐ethnic offending, the lower rate of ‘team killers’, and the lack of female serial murderers in South Africa. South African offenders display similar geographical behaviours to foreign serial murderers. Overall, South African offenders display more behaviour in common with their non‐European counterparts than serial murderers from the USA. South African serial murderers display certain diagnostic and developmental features that are different from those reported in North American serial murderers. Of these, the most notable is the seeming lack of sexually violent conscious fantasy. There are also fundamental similarities in experience: exposure to traumatic experiences, and profound interpersonal isolation and distance. This ambivalence is also noted in discussions of the evolution of behaviour in the offences, and in the discussion of motives in serial murder. This demonstrates areas that previous studies of serial murder need to explore further. This study also highlights the need for research into the ways in which offence behaviours are affected by the social environment. Finally, the analysis of serial murderers in South Africa suggests ways in which serial murder can be tackled. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

In Search of the ‘Angels of Death’: Conceptualising the Contemporary Nurse Healthcare Serial Killer

Focusing specifically upon nurses who commit serial murder within a hospital setting, this paper aims to establish insights into this particular subcategory of healthcare serial killer. In addition, the paper aims to test the usefulness of an existing checklist of behaviours among this group of serial murderers. Drawing upon existing lists of healthcare serial killers produced by other scholars as well as legal records and an online news archive, we identified and researched healthcare serial killer nurses, collating socio demographic and criminological data and applying the aforementioned checklist to each case. Our findings suggest that to date, the label ‘healthcare serial killer’ has been applied in too loose a manner, making the understanding of this phenomenon problematic. In further refining the definition and identifying the socio‐demographic and criminological characteristics of the victims, perpetrators and crimes, we have developed more specific and therefore useful insights for practitioners and identified a potentially useful checklist which, with revisions, could contribute towards preventative strategies and interventions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Girls Arrested for Murder: An Empirical Analysis of 32 years of U.S. Data by Offender Age Groups

Most studies on juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs) have used small samples and have concentrated on adolescent male offenders. As a result, little is known about the population of female juveniles arrested for murder. This study utilized the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) database to investigate age differences between younger (aged 6–12 years) and older (aged 13–17 years) females arrested for murder in the United States from 1976 to 2007. As predicted, six variables used to test seven hypotheses with respect to younger and older female JHOs in single victim incidents were significant (victim age, victim gender, victim offender relationship, murder weapon, offender count, and homicide circumstance). Regression analysis revealed that younger girls were seven times more likely than older girls to kill children aged 0–12 years. Girls aged 6–12 years were five times more likely than their teen counterparts to be involved in conflict‐related homicides as opposed to crime‐related homicides. Although approximately the same percentages of younger and older girls killed infants under the age of 1, the victims were significantly different for the two offender age groups. This article concludes with a discussion of our findings and directions for future research. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differentiation of Death-Row Murderers and Life-Sentence Murderers by Antisociality and Intelligence Measures

Prior studies of dangerousness have confirmed that the combination of high antisociality and low IQ is associated with male criminal violence and that the same combination can discriminate within a group of violent male criminals by level of severity. My study continued the validation of this two-component measure by showing that men convicted of murder and given the death sentence for their more heinous crimes were more dangerous than murderers who received life sentences. Men who had been extended the death penalty, who selected female victims, and whose murders were judged to have been especially cruel received extraordinarily high dangerousness scores relative to all other murderers. The assumption that high antisociality and low IQ would lead to serious violence because of the criminal's inability to deal with complications that arise in confronting the victim received some support. The murders of more dangerous men followed stronger victim resistance than the murders committed by less dangerous men.     

South African Serial Homicide: A Victim‐Focused Behavioural Typology

This current study assessed the value of the Interpersonal Model in differentiating serial homicide offences in South Africa, notably in terms of how the offender may display behavioural patterns that are indicative of them dealing with the victim as a Person, an Object, or a Vehicle. The sample consisted of 302 offences committed by 33 offenders that occurred from 1953 to 2007 in South Africa. Multidimensional scaling analysis was used to test the Interpersonal Model and results indicated that crime themes did not directly correspond to the threefold model. Instead, two crime scene types were present: Victim as Object (where the focus was on tangible gains, interaction with the victim throughout the phases of the crime was limited, and victims included men and live women) and Victim as Vehicle (where the victim might be construed as a conduit through whom the offender could realise their specific psychological needs, the interaction was extensive, and victims tended to be vulnerable). South African serial homicides did not appear to have a specific sub‐theme of Victim as Person, suggesting that the themes engaged in centred more on instrumentally focused actions but in qualitatively different ways. However, victim types were integral to the overall behavioural model. Using the Victim as Object/Vehicle dichotomy, 85.7% of the offences could be seen to engage dominantly in one of the two patterns at the crime scene. This not only supported the results of a twofold model, but having these many offenders showing a dominant crime scene type also shows that the model is an excellent representation of serial homicide offending in South Africa. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

South African Serial Homicide: Consistency in Victim Types and Crime Scene Actions Across Series

Key to understanding the significance of behavioural evidence for linkage purposes is in establishing how consistently an offender displays the same or similar behaviours across their series. There have however to date been very few studies aiming at identifying salient components of offending behaviour that can be used reliably for linking individual crimes as part of a single series. In addition, studies that have been conducted have all dealt with serial homicide in the Western world and have been based on small samples of cases from each country. Some of the recent literature has started to disentangle some of these salient features, notably the victim, violence levels, control, and planning. The current study focused on evaluating the consistency of these features across series, using a sample of serial homicides from South Africa consisting of 30 offenders with a total of 283 victims and 235 crime scenes. Results indicate that the level of interaction with the victim may be influential to the stability or instability of offending patterns across the series. How offenders approach planning in their offence also showed a certain degree of consistency, with patterns of violence being the least consistent across the series of all components tested. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparing serial homicides to single homicides: A study of prevalence,offender, and offence characteristics in Sweden

Multiple and serial homicides constitute around 1.6% of all homicides but have unusually tragic outcomes. The aims of this study were to report the prevalence serial‐homicide offences and the characteristics of serial‐homicide offenders in a non‐North American context. The study included all convicted serial‐homicide offenders in Sweden from 1973 to 2012 (n = 25), as well as a population‐based control sample of single‐homicide offenders collected during 2007 and 2009 (n = 201). Similar to U.S. findings, approximately 1.6% of homicides could be attributed to serial‐homicide offenders. Serial offenders were more often diagnosed with personality disorders and autism‐spectrum disorders compared with single offenders; and serial offences more often involved victims who were female and unacquainted with the offender, as well as planning, sexual motives, and asphyxia as method of violence. One third of serial offences involved actions aimed at disguising the manner of death; such actions were considerably less common in single‐homicide offences. Few offenders displayed the traditional profile of a serial‐homicide offender; however, one third displayed sexual motives, a rate roughly 10 times higher than that in the single‐homicide group. The study concludes that serial‐homicide offenders should be subjected to forensic‐psychiatric examinations and that research involving cross‐contextual differences and similarities in serial‐homicide offenders is needed.     

Behavioural linking of stranger rapes

A sample of serial stranger rape cases ( n = 43) that had occurred in Finland during the years 1983–2001 were studied with the objectives being to: (a) describe the characteristics of the offenders; (b) explore the structure of serial rape; and (c) demonstrate behavioural linkage through an analysis of the offenders' crime scene behaviour using both multidimensional scaling (MDS) and discriminant function analysis (DFA). The material was content analysed with regard to the occurrence of a number of dichotomous variables. The inter‐relationships of the variables was studied using MDS. The analysis revealed two previously identified major modes of interaction with the victim: involvement and hostility. Employing MDS and DFA, it was shown that the offences of different offenders were distinguishable in terms of variation between the offences of different offenders and consistency within the offences of a single offender. Using DFA, the classification accuracy clearly exceeds that expected by chance, and 25.6% of the cases were classified without any error. The results are discussed in relation to their practical utility and previous studies. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Offending Patterns of Serial Sex Offenders: Escalation,De‐escalation,and Consistency of Sexually Intrusive and Violent Behaviours

A series of stranger sexual assaults poses considerable obstacles for law enforcement officials. One such preoccupation is concerned with whether or not the offender will escalate in the severity of his behaviours with subsequent victims. The current study uses transition matrices to address whether or not the offending patterns of 72 serial stranger sex offenders change from one victim to the next as it pertains to their sexual acts and level of physical force used during the crime. Findings indicate that stability, specifically the offender's intrusive sexual acts and use of physical force, and versatility are present in this sample's offending patterns. To explain changes in offending patterns between victims, multinomial regression analyses indicate that situational factors and modus operandi strategies are important considerations. Implications for investigations are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

South African Serial Homicide: Offender and Victim Demographics and Crime Scene Actions

There is an abundance of literature on serial homicide from a Western perspective that outlines operational definitions, types of offenders and how they prey upon their victims. However, currently, there is a lack of studies that compare serial homicide in different countries. The current study aims to give an overview of the demographics of serial homicide offenders and victims in South Africa and compare these to the demographics of offenders and victims from other currently available empirical studies of other countries. The sample consisted of 33 out of the total 54 solved series in South Africa between 1936–2007, which includes a total of 33 offenders, 302 victims, and 254 crime scenes. Results of the sample as a whole showed that South African serial homicide offenders are similar to offenders in other countries in terms of their actions at the crime scene and victim choice, with some notable exceptions. Additional analysis looked at the offender's consistency of targeting certain types of victims across their homicide series in comparison with the patterns of serial homicide offenders in other countries. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The consistency of inconsistency in serial homicide: patterns of behavioural change across series

Linkage analysis is a crucial part of the investigative process when faced with a possible series of related offences. Establishing behavioural consistency (i.e., offender's behaviours consistently present across the series) is at the core of linkage. Recent empirical studies have found little evidence of consistency looking at either individual or groups of behaviours in serial homicide. It is argued that behavioural changes are rooted in the changing cognitive strategies that offenders use to reach their ultimate goal (i.e. the commission of multiple homicides). Factors that could account for these changes include learning, situational factors, loss of control, and changes in the offender's fantasy. Patterns of behavioural change have been identified in serial crimes, such as rape. However, no empirical studies have looked at patterns of behavioural change in serial homicide. The present study examined patterns of consistency and change using a combination of thematic and behavioural subgroup approaches that use Multidimensional Scaling. Thematic differentiation indicative of behavioural manifestations of cognitive strategies was found in all three examined subgroups: planning, wounding, and offender–victim interaction, and patterns of change within these subgroups provided support for the above theories. Looking at behavioural patterns rather than individual behaviours, may be a more fruitful way of examining consistency in serial homicide, and could have significant implications for linkage analysis. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Geographical offender profiling: Dragnet's applicability on a Brazilian sample

Even though geographical offender profiling is already widely used and researched in countries such as England, Canada, and United States, it is still severely overlooked in Brazil, as there are no researches on the subject using a Brazilian sample. Therefore, the present paper aims to start filling this gap by analysing the applicability of the geographical offender profiling and Dragnet on a sample of Brazilian serial killers. In order to achieve this objective, the authors collected data through police records on 15 serial killers that were active between June 2009 and June 2015, in the city of Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil. As a result, the circle hypothesis was confirmed, considering that 66.7% of the sample fell into the marauder category. Interestingly, the Dragnet's result accurately informed the area that contained the offender's base in the same cases in which the offender acted according to the marauder model. Also, other important correlations were found such as the influence of age, intelligence, resourcefulness, and method of approach on the distance travelled to commit a murder. Those results show that the geographical offender profiling can be effectively applied in Brazil and thus is a valid investigative tool to aid police officers in serial crimes investigations.     

Child versus peer/adult offenders: A critical review of the juvenile sex offender literature

Sexual offenses are serious crimes and it is believed that adolescents perpetrate 20% of all sexual assaults and 50% of all child sexual abuse (Barbaree & Marshall, 2006). To better understand the etiology of juvenile sexual offending, researchers have explored differences between those who offend children versus those who offend peers/adults. This paper critically reviewed 21 studies that compared juvenile sex offenders who abused children with those who abused peers/adults on a variety of variables including victim, offense, and offender characteristics; psychosocial variables; and predictors and rates of recidivism. Strengths and weaknesses of these studies as well as future directions for the literature are discussed. Common methodological limitations of victim-age based comparisons of juvenile sex offenders included inconsistent definitions, low-powered studies, lack of standardized measures, and recidivism data based solely on conviction rates. Overall, many inconsistent findings limit our ability to give overarching conclusions; however, the research does suggests that not only is it important to examine child and peer/adult offenders, but mixed offenders (i.e., offender with both child and peer victims) as a distinct group need to be included in comparisons as well.     

Placing the Blame for crime in press reports

This study examined the attributions of responsibility contained in factual accounts of crime in a number of Canadian daily newspapers. The focus was upon the relative amount of coverage accorded crime suspects and victims, as well as upon the presence or absence of references to the victim's contribution to the offense. Also, examined were the effects of the type of crime involved and the gender of the parties to an offense upon offender/victim coverage and references to victim contribution.

As expected, offenders tended to receive greater coverage than victims. The coverage of the offender, relative to the victim, tended to be greatest when the offender was a male and a property, rather than violent crime was involved. The victim's gender did not exercise an effect on offender/victim coverage. In about one‐quarter of the articles, a mention was made of the victim's contribution to the offense. Such references to the victim's role were more likely to be found where the offender was a female, the victim a male and where the offense was violent in nature. These findings about the media portrayals of the respective roles in crime of offenders and victims, as well as the effects of the type of crime and gender on these roles, conformed, in large part, to what is known about the actual dynamics of criminal behavior.     

How Long Do Offenders Escape Arrest? Using DNA Traces to Analyse when Serial Offenders Are Caught

Why is it that some serial offenders are arrested quickly and others only after a long period, or never at all? What characterises offenders who continue to escape arrest despite their continued involvement in crime? To be able to answer these questions, arrested (identified) offenders must be compared with never arrested (unidentified) offenders. In this paper, data from the Dutch DNA database are used to assess which characteristics of the criminal behaviour of unidentified offenders influence the probability that they will subsequently be arrested. DNA data offer a unique opportunity to compare crime series of identified offenders with crime series of yet unidentified offenders. Using the Cox proportional hazards model, we tested whether the number of crimes committed, offence specialization, and offence seriousness affect the probability of arrest of serial offenders. Results showed that as an offender commits more crimes, the probability that he will be arrested increases and that offence specialization decreases the probability of arrest. Another conclusion drawn is that DNA traces offer unique opportunities for criminological research. We discuss the limitations of this new data source and make suggestions for future research using DNA traces and for future research that might improve the current study. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differentiation of death-row murderers and life-sentence murderers by antisociality and intelligence measures

Prior studies of dangerousness have confirmed that the combination of high antisociality and low IQ is associated with male criminal violence and that the same combination can discriminate within a group of violent male criminals by level of severity. My study continued the validation of this two-component measure by showing that men convicted of murder and given the death sentence for their more heinous crimes were more dangerous than murderers who received life sentences. Men who had been extended the death penalty, who selected female victims, and whose murders were judged to have been especially cruel received extraordinarily high dangerousness scores relative to all other murderers. The assumption that high antisociality and low IQ would lead to serious violence because of the criminal's inability to deal with complications that arise in confronting the victim received some support. The murders of more dangerous men followed stronger victim resistance than the murders committed by less dangerous men.     

Juvenile homosexual homicide

Limited information exists on juvenile homosexual homicide (JHH), that is, youths who perpetrate sexual homicides against same-sex victims. Only a handful of cases from the United States and internationally have been described in the literature. This study, the first of its kind, examines the epidemiology, victimology, victim-offender relationship, and weapon-use patterns in JHH offenders using a large U.S. database on homicide spanning three decades. The data for this study were derived from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHRs) for the years 1976 through 2005. A total of 93 cases of JHH were identified. On average, three of these crimes occurred annually in the U.S., and there was a marked decline in its incidence over the study period. Ninety-five percent were male offender-male victim cases and 5% were female offender-female victim cases. JHH offenders were over-represented amongst all juvenile sexual murderers, similar to their adult counterparts. The majority of these boys were aged 16 or 17 and killed adult victims. They were significantly more likely to kill adult victims than other age groups, to be friends or acquaintances of the victims, and to use contact/edged weapons or firearms. Most offenders killed same-race victims, although Black offenders were significantly more likely than White offenders to kill interracially. A case report is provided to illustrate JHH. Further research is needed to promote our understanding of the pathogenesis, etiology, and associated risk factors for this aberrant form of murder by children.