| Chapter 2: | Characterizations in Murder |
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Munn (1992) published an article on violent crime scene analysis examining the modus operandi, signature, forensic information value, and victimological analysis, and it has provided a means of developing a more rigorous presentation style for use by law enforcement officials. Based on the issues, a Douglas and Munn (1992) table has been developed to use as an informational organizational model through which one can more easily examine and compare the descriptive typologies contained in the Godwin (2000), Holmes and Holmes (2002), Keppel and Walter (1999), and Kocsis, Cooksey, and Irwin (2002b) lust murder classifications. The importance of developing an organized modeling of typologies cannot be understated. Although much of the research presents interesting descriptive discussions of offender behaviors, statistical examinations, and summaries of that behavior, little of it is easily accessible or informative to the investigator. Long, complicated, descriptive discussions with assortments of outlying offence styles are not easily deciphered. The creation of a modified Douglas and Munn (1992) table resolved inaccessibility of research outcomes to the application of investigative processes by organizing the information in a comprehensible fashion. The four-part tables are used to sensibly present the features and characteristics of lust murder data embodied in the lust murder classification typology research of Godwin (2000), Holmes and Holmes (2002), Keppel and Walter (1999), and Kocsis, Cooksey, and Irwin (2002b).
The Burgess et al. (1992) classifications of violent sexualized homicide presented in the Crime Classification Manual using a modified Douglas and Munn (1992) table are presented below. The use of the table creates a fairly accessible and readable template and reduces the descriptive materials in the book in the homicide chapter from 21 to 8 and essentially reduces descriptive presentation to its key components. The Douglas and Munn (1992) table is used with the Godwin (2000), Holmes and Holmes (2002), Keppel and Walter (1999), and Kocsis, Cooksey, and Irwin (2002b) lust murder classifications to highlight the key characterization identifiers in each of those typologies.