| Chapter 2: | Characterizations in Murder |
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The behavior of extremely violent and sadistic sexual rapists and lust murderers (single or serial event) frequently indicated planning, concealment, movement of victim's body, and actions associated with significant organization and control throughout the offences rather than the frequently depicted frenzied, impulsive, or disordered attacks on victims. Therefore, lust murder is not the behavior of persons acting at random nor is it necessarily symptomatic of a disorganized mind. Rather, the offender's actions are intentionalities. The vagaries of behavior are intended to satisfy the psychological and emotional needs of the offender through directed purpose and planning resulting in the sexualization of the victim and the injuries of that victimization.
Violence and Lust
Lust murder is the acting out of sadistic ideologies by means of cruelty, torture, or other acts, sexual or sexual in their nature, that culminates in the death of the victim (Santtila et al., 2004) and the definition used includes those acts of homicide commonly referred to as sexual sadism, sexualized homicide, and rape homicide.
Fromm (1973) stated that passions are the “strivings to love, to be free, as well as the drive to destroy, to torture, to control, and to submit” (p. 5) to the passions that are the basis of a person's interest in life, enthusiasm, and excitement. These then are essentially the dreams that fuel the passions and encompass the “art, religion, myth and drama” (p. 5) of the individual. Thus, the passions of human beings can create, invent, or destroy. Human beings are not simply biological automatons, but, because of their passions, they seek excitement and desire drama. “The typical emotional object is either the person experiencing the emotion or another person. People are more interesting to people than anything else is” (Ben-Ze’ev, 2000, p. 29).