| Chapter 1: | Profiling Erotophonophilia |
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sophistication usually causes the offender to exhibit increasing levels of violence and control over the victim. Therefore, lust murder is not a random act, nor is it assumed symptomatic of either a disorganized mind or the indication of some underlying psychological deficiency. It is instead an arrangement of intentional behaviors used to satisfy the offenders’ psychosexual needs (Kocsis, Cooksey, & Irwin, 2002b; Meloy, 2000; Skrapec, 2001). The planning and preparation in lust murder increase the likelihood of the offender escaping subsequent detection by law enforcement, thus increasing the number of unsolved homicides in the United States.
The contemporary erotophonophilia (lust murder) researchers Godwin (2000), Holmes and Holmes (2002), Keppel and Walter (1999), and Kocsis, Cooksey, and Irwin (2002b) developed typologies to identify offenders’ profiles. The typologies represent a unique application of the classification and depiction of lust murderers based on analyses of their psychosocial histories, crime scene activities, and offence artifacts (evidence). Unfortunately, little research has examined the practicality or reliability of the models used by investigators and researchers and whether the models complement or conflict with one another. The critical goals of the current study are to determine the utility of the classification typologies as a practical tool for the homicide investigator, and, through the examination of the selected case studies of Theodore Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Dennis Rader, to determine the various models’ agreements or dissimilarities. Therefore, this book examines the research of lust murder in order to develop a more comprehensive characterization of the lust murderer that combines the similar features of current classification systems as developed by Godwin (2000), Holmes and Holmes (2002), Keppel and Walter (1999), Kocsis, Cooksey, and Irwin (2002b), and Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas (1988). Through the construction and merging of the theoretical mutually supportive features of the typologies, a practical tool for the investigation of lust murder is sought. However, before turning specifically to the typologies themselves, the development of associations and processes associated with the features of lust murder and violent sexualized homicides must be constructed.