Priorto beginning work on this assignment, review Chapter 8 in the textbook (located in attachment below), the article
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Criminality: How Long Must We Live Before We Possess Our Own Lives?
For your Comprehensive Case Study Report final paper you will explore, in-depth, the well-known criminal case for your high-profile killer (Aileen Wuornos). For this assignment, using this client (Aileen Wuornos), you will create an annotated outline to help you begin to organize ideas and sources as you prepare for your final paper.
Assume you have been hired as a mitigation specialist by this individual’s defense attorney to investigate, analyze, and present the underlying biopsychosocial factors that you found were present in this individual’s background and that may explain why your client committed such heinous criminal acts. For the purpose of this assignment you will assume that your client is facing the death penalty, and your job is to use the results of your biopsychosocial investigation to provide credible evidence that your client should not be executed by the state. For this assignment, you will proceed as if your client has not yet been sentenced and thus is still alive, even though your client may have ultimately been found guilty and may have been executed (or may have otherwise died in prison).
In your paper,
- Analyze a minimum of two particular psychological factors that are relevant to the client’s criminal behavior such as specific environmental or situational, biological, or mental health issues that may have contributed to this individual’s crimes.
- Create an annotated outline that examines a minimum of two particular psychological factors explaining your client’s criminal behaviors.
- Discuss, in two to three sentences, each topic or step in each section of the outline.
- Cite specific examples from the sources that support your research and analysis.For example, if you find that your sources show early childhood trauma is a factor in criminal behavior and your client suffered early childhood trauma, or had a high ACE score, write about that connection between your source and your client’s case.
The Comprehensive Case Study Report Annotated Outline paper
- Must be four to five pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted as an annotated outline.
- Must include a separate title page with the following:Title of paperStudent’s nameCourse name and numberInstructor’s nameDate submittedMust utilize academic voice. See the Academic VoiceLinks to an external site. resource for additional guidance.
- Must use at least four scholarly, peer-reviewed, credible sources in addition to the course text.The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible SourcesLinks to an external site. table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types.
- Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA: Citing Within Your Paper guide.Links to an external site.
- Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the APA: Formatting Your References ListLinks to an external site. resource in the Writing Center for specifications.
Carefully review the
Grading RubricLinks to an external site.
for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.
8
Homicide
South_agency/E+/Getty Images Plus
Learning Outcomes
After reading this chapter, you should be able to
• Explain the availability heuristic and its impact on understanding homicide.
• Differentiate between the categories of homicide.
• Differentiate between serial, mass, and spree murderers.
• Describe the types of family violence that could end in homicide.
• Analyze the demographics of homicide.
• Analyze the extent to which homicide offenders may recidivate.
143
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Introduction
Section 8.1
Introductory Case Study: Jessica Colpitts
In Orofina, Idaho, in May 2017, Samantha Fignani suffered a fatal gunshot wound in her home.
She was just 23 years old. Her family, including her two young daughters, were devastated and
hoped for swift justice. The police took only 2 days to locate Fignani’s killer, a woman named Jessica Colpitts. According to police, Colpitts became enraged when her boyfriend, Joseph Walker,
admitted that he had been romantically involved with Fignani behind Colpitts’s back.
The police had an eyewitness to the shooting, along with jail telephone call recordings of conversations between Walker and Colpitts about Walker’s affair with Fignani. Not too long after the
jail telephone call, Colpitts enlisted the assistance of her friend, Cassie Madsen, to confront Fignani about the affair. Colpitts’s car was spotted on video driving toward Fignani’s home. Madsen
denied knowing that Colpitts would actually kill Fignani during the confrontation. Colpitts had
never been violent before and had never expressed a desire to harm anyone.
However, Colpitts fatally shot Fignani with a shotgun and then laughed as she and Madsen fled
the scene. At trial, Madsen testified that she was stunned that anyone could be so cold as to
laugh about having just shot someone to death in front of the victim’s children. Colpitts’s defense
attorneys tried to convince the jury that Madsen was the killer because there had been a fallout
between Madsen and Fignani over drugs. (Fignani was dealing methamphetamine and would
no longer sell to Madsen.) However, the jury rejected that argument and voted unanimously to
convict Jessica Colpitts of first-degree murder for killing Samantha Fignani.
As you read this chapter, consider the following questions regarding this case:
1. Why is homicide considered one of the most fascinating—and arguably the most challenging—issues in the psychological study of crime?
2. Do you think that Colpitts’s socioeconomic status and other situational factors led to
her committing murder?
3. A love triangle ending in murder might sound familiar. Do you think that homicides are
prevalent in today’s culture?
8.1 Introduction
Homicide may seem as though it is highly prevalent in our culture. True crime episodes of
Dateline and 48 Hours, other documentaries focused on homicide cases, and a number of fictional television shows and movies that glamorize murder and murderers seem to support
the belief that homicide is a frequently occurring crime. However, the data does not support
that notion. It’s important to understand the psychological foundation of our perceptions of
homicide frequency and the individuals who commit such violent acts, as well as the types of
homicides and associated variables.
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Availability Heuristic
Section 8.2
Though it may seem that individuals who commit homicide must be mentally ill, you may
recall from Chapter 2 that most individuals who suffer from serious mental illness are significantly more likely to be victimized than they are to perpetrate a crime. Perpetrators of homicide, for the most part, tend to appear outwardly normal. Recall Jessica Colpitts’s case from
the beginning of the chapter. It seems that she was fueled by jealousy and perhaps an inability
to control her impulses, despite a lack of any prior evidence that she was capable of such violence. In some other cases, murderers epitomize psychopaths in that they are cool, calm, and
calculated. Perhaps you are wondering how it is possible that seemingly normal individuals
are capable of perpetrating such brutal acts of violence, including taking another’s life. This is
a question for which there may be no precise or satisfactory response; however, this chapter
will examine some common features of individuals who kill.
The reality is that most homicide victims are killed by people who are known to them, and
in many cases the murderous violence was shockingly unpredictable. It may be rather unsettling to grasp that we cannot always predict with precision who will become homicidal or
when homicidal behavior will occur, but we will examine the tendencies and variables that
may lead up to these criminal acts.
8.2 Availability Heuristic
Given that there is so much news coverage of murder and homicide, it may lead us to assume
that murders are frequently occurring events. The truth is that homicides are rare. In 2017,
there were approximately 17,200 homicides in the United States. This may sound like a lot
of victims—and it is—but when considering this number out of the 1.2 million total violent
crimes reported by law enforcement agencies to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR)
program, it is a small proportion of the violent crime category. Specifically, only 1.4% of all
violent crimes in 2017 were homicides (FBI, 2018). This rate represents a slight decrease of
approximately 0.7% from 2016 but also shows a significant increase of approximately 17%
from 2013, when there were an estimated 14,200 homicides in the United States. This means
that homicides have increased over time.
Interestingly, where you live may determine whether you perceive that homicide is a frequently occurring crime. This is based on a social psychology concept called the availability
heuristic. The availability heuristic refers to the likelihood that individuals overestimate the
prevalence of certain events based on how easily these events come to mind. For example,
the UCR shows that nearly half of all murders in the United States in 2017 were committed
in the South (see Table 8.1). Therefore, in southern states, the news media frequently reports
stories of homicides, given that the majority of murders occur in that part of the country. The
availability heuristic predicts that individuals who live in the South will be more prone to
overestimate the prevalence of homicides than individuals in the Northeast, where the homicide rate is much lower.
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Section 8.3
Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
Table 8.1: Offense and population percentage distribution by U.S. region, 2017
Region
U.S. total*
Northeast
Midwest
South
West
Population
100.0
17.3
20.9
38.0
23.8
100.0
11.3
22.6
45.9
20.2
Violent crime
Murder and nonnegligent
manslaughter
Rape
100.0
100.0
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Property crime
Burglary
Larceny-theft
Motor vehicle theft
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
13.4
12.4
15.3
12.9
11.4
9.1
12.6
7.3
*Because of rounding, the percentages may not add up to 100.0.
20.2
24.6
19.1
19.9
19.6
19.6
19.8
17.8
40.8
37.0
38.0
42.5
41.9
44.9
42.1
35.5
25.5
26.0
27.7
24.7
27.0
26.3
25.5
39.4
Note. Sufficient data are not available to estimate totals for arson. Therefore, no arson data are published in this table.
Source: “Table 3: Crime in the United States,” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2018 (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s
/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-3/table-3.xls#overview).
8.3 Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
The concept of murder is commonly understood, but Black’s Law Dictionary (Garner, 2014)
has a substantive and technical definition of murder that includes a clear psychological
component—the ability to form intent to commit murder. In criminal law, intent refers to
the subjective state of mind in which the perpetrator makes “a decision to bring about a
prohibited consequence” (R. v. Mohan, 1994). Specifically, the definition includes language
referring to the perpetrator’s mental state, such as “of sound mind and discretion,” and
“deliberate action” (Garner, 2014, p. 1170) to describe the perpetrator’s goal of causing lifeending harm to the victim. The existence of these psychological and behavioral elements
are components of determining whether the murder constitutes criminal homicide, murder that contains the element of intent to cause the death of another and is considered
neither excusable nor justifiable, such as in Jessica Colpitts’s case.
The legal system further classifies criminal homicide into subtypes of murder, generally broken down into “degrees,” such as first-, second-, and third-degree murder (or manslaughter).
These subtypes are related to the perpetrator’s mental state and are influenced by the perceived heinousness of the murder. The classification system used by authorities to categorize types of homicides and perpetrators is in place for the purpose of record keeping and
reporting. This facilitates ease of research in terms of analyzing whether there is something
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Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
Section 8.3
fundamentally different from a behavioral and psychological perspective between individuals who, for example, commit first- or third-degree murder or between serial killers and mass
murderers.
First-Degree Murder
First-degree murder, also known as premeditated murder, refers to the unlawful killing of
another that must have the intentional element of malice aforethought (Garner, 2014). Malice aforethought refers to the intent to cause significant harm to another. Premeditation
refers to planning, but it does not necessarily require a significant amount of time to form a
plan. Premeditation can occur in an instant, according to the law in most states. The seriousness of first-degree murder is such that the punishment may be as serious as the death penalty or life in prison, depending on the jurisdiction in which the murder took place. In the case
study at the beginning of the chapter, Jessica Colpitts was found guilty of first-degree murder
in the death of Samantha Fignani. The jury found that Colpitts willfully, and with malice aforethought, intended to cause Fignani harm by ending her life with the shotgun she brought to
Fignani’s home when Colpitts confronted her about the affair.
One type of first-degree murder is felony homicide. Felony homicide, or a homicide that
occurs during the commission of another felony, occurs as a form of instrumental aggression.
You will recall from Chapter 6 that instrumental aggression is “cool” aggression and occurs as
a means to an end. In felony homicide, the central goal of the perpetrator is typically to obtain
criminally some reward, such as cash, objects, or other desired goods possessed by another
person. The violent behavior is a means to obtain that goal. In the context of law, felony homicide is generally conceptualized as premeditated, first-degree murder.
Second-Degree Murder
Second-degree murder is commonly thought of as “depraved heart/mind” murder. The legal
definition used in most states for second-degree murder reveals the mental state underlying and driving the deadly form of human behavior with the use of words such as “depraved
mind,” “depraved heart,” and “reckless disregard” for the life of another. Though very serious
because it is an intentional killing, it lacks the first-degree murder element of premeditation
(Garner, 2014). Second-degree murder is punishable by life in prison in many jurisdictions,
but the judge may opt to sentence the perpetrator to a term of years instead of a life sentence.
One type of second-degree murder is altercation homicide. Altercation homicide occurs as
a result of hostile aggression. Recall from Chapter 6 that hostile aggression is “hot” aggression—that is, an impulsive reaction motivated by anger in response to the actual or perceived
aggressive behavior of the provocateur. The underlying motivation behind hostile aggression
is to cause harm, including homicide. In the context of the law, altercation homicide can best
be conceptualized as “heat of passion,” second-degree murder.
See Case Study: Josiah Hadley to read about how homicide charges take into consideration the
psychological functioning leading up to and at the time of the crime.
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Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
Section 8.3
Case Study: Josiah Hadley
Griselle Martinez was just 22 years old when she was killed by her boyfriend, 24-year-old
Josiah Hadley. Martinez and Hadley were out with friends when they began arguing. The couple returned home, and as the evening wore on, the argument escalated to a physical altercation. A friend who was at their apartment when the physical altercation took place told police
that he saw Hadley over Martinez’s body, punching her. Hadley and his friends rushed Martinez to the hospital, where she died.
Hadley, his parents, and Martinez’s family were grief stricken. This was not something they
ever imagined was possible, given that Hadley was described by everyone who knew him as a
kind, caring, deeply religious, and responsible young man. Nevertheless, at trial the jury found
that Hadley killed Martinez with a depraved mind (i.e., showing no regard for human life;
second-degree murder). The jury believed that as the argument continued for hours, Hadley
became angry and lost his ability to control his own behavior.
Third-Degree Murder
Third-degree murder, more commonly known as manslaughter, is defined as an unintentional yet criminal homicide that lacks malice and premeditation (Garner, 2014). Manslaughter is a very serious crime because human life is lost as the direct result of the unlawful
behavior of another. However, in manslaughter the perpetrator has significantly less culpability than in first- or second-degree murder.
Manslaughter has two major categories: voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter.
Voluntary Manslaughter
Voluntary manslaughter is a “heat of passion” murder that lacks intent to commit murder
(Garner, 2014). The most commonly used example of voluntary manslaughter is that of a
spouse who arrives home unexpectedly to find the other spouse having an affair and “in the
heat of passion” murders the spouse and/or the paramour.
The “heat of passion” may also be present in non–love triangle cases, such as that of Diana
Lalchan, who shot her controlling and abusive husband, Christopher, in the back of the head
during a verbal argument. Diana feared that her husband was planning to kill her based on
the years of abuse she suffered. The state’s position was—and the jury agreed—that this was
not a case of self-defense. Christopher was not physically harming Diana at the time of the
shooting, and thus there was no imminent danger to her at that time. However, the years of
abuse influenced Diana’s perception that she was in danger, causing her to shoot Christopher.
The jury agreed that Diana had been abused by Christopher previously, yet they judged her
reaction at the time of his death as “extreme.” The jury found Diana guilty of voluntary manslaughter. That is, they found that in the “heat of the moment,” Diana killed her husband to
protect herself without malicious intent to cause him harm.
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Section 8.3
Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
Involuntary Manslaughter
Involuntary manslaughter is an accidental murder that occurs during the commission of
an illegal act (Garner, 2014). To understand involuntary manslaughter, let’s explore the case
of Michigan state trooper Mark Bessner, whose actions led to the death of teenager Damon
Grimes. Bessner, in the passenger seat of his patrol vehicle while another officer was driving,
was in pursuit of Grimes, who was riding on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV). Bessner shot Grimes
with a Taser, leading Grimes to crash the vehicle and subsequently die. The state asserted
that Bessner shot Grimes knowing that the Taser would render Grimes unable to maintain
control of the ATV, thus potentially leading
to serious bodily harm, including death. The
jury was able to consider that Bessner had
previously improperly used his Taser on a
handcuffed man in another case, which was
a serious violation of police department
policy. Bessner had been disciplined by the
police department for that incident.
In this case, the jury found that Bessner did
not intend to kill Grimes but that his habit of
using his Taser unlawfully led directly to the
death of Grimes. They rendered a verdict of
guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
LIVINUS/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Involuntary manslaughter, such as killing
someone during a car accident, is an example
of an accidental murder.
Determining Mental State
The key element that distinguishes between the four major legal categories of murder we
have covered so far is the perpetrator’s psychological or mental state at the time just prior
to, during, and sometimes even after the commission of a homicide. It is important to understand that in the criminal justice system, each victim is considered a distinct and separate
count of murder, regardless of the type of murder the state charges. In other words, regardless of the total number of victims a perpetrator murders, each of those victims is treated as
an individual crime. Thus, if the perpetrator’s mental state varies such that malice, premeditation, and intent are different for each victim, then the type of murder charge will reflect that.
For example, in a convenience store robbery in which the perpetrator kills a bystander and
the clerk, each victim would be treated as a separate murder count, and thus there would be
two murder charges. The perpetrator may face a first-degree murder charge for planning to
rob the store and kill the clerk but perhaps a second-degree murder charge for killing the
bystander if the perpetrator did not plan to kill the second person at the scene.
Justifiable Homicide
Not all murders are deemed criminal. Justifiable homicide, described as killing someone out
of necessity, occurs because the victim perceives that he or she must defend him- or herself
from certain death.
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Section 8.4
Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, and Spree Killers
Consider the case of Ethan Gratton, who shot and killed his friend in self-defense after the
friend and another man assaulted Gratton during an argument. The men punched Gratton
so hard that he lost a tooth and suffered a concussion and a broken nose. In the middle of
the attack, Gratton pulled his gun from his pocket and shot both men, killing his friend. The
other man survived. The state prosecuted Gratton because it believed he formed the intent
to kill. That is, the state’s position was that Gratton premeditated his friend’s death. The jury
disagreed and acquitted Gratton at trial. Although the friend died by Gratton’s hand, the jury
found that Gratton was justified in shooting the men in order to defend himself from further
injury, including his own death.
8.4 Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, and Spree Killers
Additional murder classifications based on features of the crime scene or scenes have been
identified. These are serial killers and mass murderers. Serial killers and mass murderers are
generally charged with a single count of first-degree murder for each individual victim. The
number of first-degree murder cases the defendant faces depends on how many victims there
were in total. The distinguishing characteristic between a mass murderer and a serial killer is
the elapsed time between murders.
Additionally, it is worth noting that while less than 2% of all violent crimes are homicides,
serial murder is extremely rare, accounting for less than 1% of all homicides (FBI, 2008).
Serial Killer
The FBI classifies a serial killer as a single perpetrator who murders three or more people on
separate occasions. The temporal separation between murders is often referred to as a coolingoff period. For a historical example of a serial killer, see Case Study: Clementine Barnabet.
Case Study: Clementine Barnabet
In January 1911 Louisiana authorities were notified of a horrific discovery that included three
obvious homicides. There was a couple and their young son lying in bed together. Police reports
stated that it was an incredibly gruesome scene in which the family of three had suffered massive head injuries, leaving them barely recognizable. Also found at the scene was a bucket full of
blood and a bloody ax. Newspaper reporters called the crime the most brutal they had ever seen,
but it was not the last. Ax murders continued throughout 1911 and 1912 in parts of Louisiana
and neighboring Texas. Police investigated several different men for the murders and eventually
arrested Raymond Barnabet, who was a local sharecropper with a criminal record for relatively
minor crimes.
Raymond Barnabet, by all accounts, was not a good man. He was controlling, possessive, and
abusive toward his wife and two children, Clementine and Zepherin. Clementine, approximately
17 years old, was happy to talk to police about a night that her father arrived home wearing
blood-soaked clothing. She told them that Raymond had threatened to kill her if she revealed this
information to anyone. At trial, both Clementine and her brother testified against their father.
(continued)
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Section 8.4
Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, and Spree Killers
Case Study: Clementine Barnabet (continued)
However, while Raymond was in jail and his case was working its way through the legal system,
another ax murder took place. Once again, the murder claimed the lives of an entire family, but
because Raymond was in jail, he was effectively ruled out as the culprit. Police were already
suspicious of Clementine because they had found blood on women’s clothing that was hanging
in Clementine’s room when they arrested her father. Clementine asserted that her father had
wiped the blood on her clothing, but police investigators could not verify that Clementine had
an alibi for the evening of the most recent ax murder.
Police arrested Clementine and discovered through her confession that she had killed 35 people over approximately a one-and-a-half-year period. According to police, Clementine killed
these families because she believed that doing so would give her supernatural powers. The
media suggested that the murders were part of a voodoo ritual that Clementine and “many
others,” who were never identified, were involved in. They also suggested that Clementine
was a high priestess in a religious cult called the Church of Sacrifice. (The existence of such a
church has never been confirmed.) However, it is possible that this part of the story was fabrication based on the racial and class biases of that era, given that Clementine was an African
American woman in the Deep South during a time in history when African Americans’ rights
were limited through use of curfews, segregation, and other restrictions under the doctrine
that deemed African Americans “separate but equal.” The media may have been creating stories that took advantage of Clementine.
In Clementine’s case, she murdered entire families (multiple victims) at each crime scene, and
she was classified as a serial killer because there was a temporal separation between each set
of murders. That is, Clementine murdered, then some time passed, then she murdered again,
and so on until she was arrested.
Mass Murderer
Mass murder occurs when there are multiple victims (at least four) in a single location,
with no subsequent murder events because the murderer is typically captured or killed
before he or she can do any additional harm (FBI, 2008). Perhaps the most salient type of
mass murderer in recent history is that of
the mass shooter.
The deadliest mass shooting in the United
States to date is the Las Vegas massacre on
October 1, 2017, that claimed 58 lives. The
shooter, Stephen Paddock, killed himself
on the scene. The Pulse Nightclub shooting
perpetrated by Omar Mateen in Orlando,
Florida, on June 12, 2016, claimed 49 lives
and is the second most deadly mass murder in U.S. history to date.
However, mass murderers do not always
kill dozens of people in public places. See
Case Study: John List for another example
of who can be considered a mass murderer.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department/Associated Press
The interior of Stephen Paddock’s room at
Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada,
where Paddock fired on attendees of a nearby
music festival.
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Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, and Spree Killers
Section 8.4
Case Study: John List
In 1971 New Jersey accountant John List shot and killed his family of five, including his wife,
a teenage daughter, two teenage sons, and his own mother. It was weeks before neighbors
became concerned that they had not seen anyone entering or leaving the home and reported it
to police. When police entered the home, they heard loud organ music playing over the home’s
intercom system. In addition to discovering the five victims in the home, police also discovered
a five-page letter that List wrote to his pastor stating that he perpetrated the murders because
he “had seen too much evil in the world” and wanted to save the souls of his family members.
Between the murders and the police entering the home, List changed his identity to avoid
being found. He changed his name to Robert Clark and started a new life in Virginia, where he
lived quietly for approximately 18 years. In 1989 the FBI broadcast List’s case on a television
show called America’s Most Wanted, asking for the public’s assistance in locating John List.
A woman in Virginia called the tip line and reported that her neighbor, Robert Clark, looked
remarkably similar to the age-progressed image shown to viewers.
Thanks to the tip, the FBI finally captured List, who was working as an accountant, had remarried, and was active in his local church. At trial, the jury found List guilty of five counts of
murder, and he received five separate life sentences, one for each of the victims. List later
stated that he killed his family instead of himself because he feared that suicide would prevent
him from going to Heaven, where he was hoping to be reunited with the family members he
murdered.
Although List fatally shot his victims and this is the mode of death in many all-too-familiar
mass murder cases, he carried out the crime in the privacy of his own home instead of a public
venue. Nevertheless, List fits the FBI definition of mass murderer because he killed five people
in a single location with no cooling-off period between the murders. Moreover, there is no evidence that List committed any subsequent murders at any other location.
Spree Killer
Though the FBI murder classification system no longer uses the term spree killer, the media
sometimes still refers to these types of killers, which is why we’re discussing it here. Spree
killer was defined as someone who murders multiple people over a short time period but
in different geographic locations with no cooling-off period between murders. However, the
FBI received much criticism about the arbitrary definition of a cooling-off period (FBI, 2008).
Therefore, the FBI stopped using the term in 2005, deciding that spree killers were actually
serial killers whose murders may occur with little to no break between them.
To help explain why there was the third category in the first place, the example of Dwight
Lamon Jones may be helpful. In 2018 Jones went on a murderous rampage, killing six victims
in three Arizona cities over a 5-day period before killing himself. All the victims were professionals who were either directly or indirectly involved in Jones’s divorce proceedings years
earlier. It is important to note that, even though prior to 2005 he would have been considered
a spree killer, in the context of the current FBI murder classification typology, Jones’s category
is serial killer because his homicides took place over a short time period.
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Section 8.5
Family Violence
8.5 Family Violence
According to the UCR, in most of the 15,129 murders that were solved in the United States in
2017, the perpetrators were known to the victim either as an acquaintance or family member,
with only 9.7% of the cases being committed by a stranger (FBI, 2018). This indicates that
family and intimate partner violence are a leading cause of death by homicide. Figure 8.1
shows homicide victims by relationship to the perpetrator.
Figure 8.1: Homicide victims by their relationship
In this figure, the bar graphs and pie chart visually represent the relationships of the 15,129 murder
victims to their offenders in 2017.
Family
110
Husband
549
Wife
Mother
169
Father
186
Unknown
7,557 victims
Family
1,867 victims
50.0%
12.3%
253
Son
9.7%
179
Daughter
28.0%
98
Brother
27
Sister
Other known
4,236 victims
296
Other family
0
100
200
300
400
500
Stranger
1,469 victims
600
Other known
2,999
Acquaintance
431
Friend
181
Boyfriend
488
Girlfriend
114
Neighbor
Employee
17
Employer
6
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
From “UCR Supplemental Homicide Data 2017,” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d. (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the
-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/expanded-homicide).
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Section 8.5
Family Violence
Family violence is the umbrella term for any type of family violence in which there are a
small but significant number of family members who are emotionally or physically abused
or killed at the hands of another member of the family. These can include intimate partner
violence, familicide, filicide, and parricide.
It is difficult to get accurate data on the prevalence of the latter three types of homicides, perhaps because they are so rare and are not necessarily distinguished from other types of family
violence when the data are collected and recorded.
Intimate Partner Violence
According to the National Coalition Against
Domestic Violence (NCADV; 2019), approximately 10 million people annually experience intimate partner violence. Intimate
partner violence (previously known as
domestic violence) is the deliberate intimidation of a romantic partner—current or
former—that can include physical, sexual,
or other violence and abusive behavior as
a means of gaining or asserting dominance
AntonioGuillem/iStock/Getty Images Plus and control over the person (NCADV, 2019).
Physical or sexual intimidation of a romantic
Intimate partner violence is an all-inclusive
partner is known as intimate partner violence.
term meant to update the term domestic
Left unchecked, this can lead to intimate
violence to include same-sex partners and
partner homicide.
others who may or may not be married or
residing in the same household. This abuse
is frequently systematic with varying degrees of severity. That is, for some victims the abuse
is psychological and emotional, never resulting in physical injury. For others the abuse is
physical, leading to injury and possibly even death.
The NCADV (2019) reports that, on average, 1 in 3 female murder victims are killed by an
intimate partner, in contrast to 1 in 20 male victims who are killed by an intimate partner.
Nearly half of all female homicide victims are killed by a current intimate partner or a former partner, with approximately 10% of these homicide victims experiencing violence at the
hands of their murderer in the 30 days prior to being killed (Petrosky et al., 2017). However,
intimate partners were not the only individuals murdered in at least some of these homicide
cases. Approximately 20% of all murder victims were friends, family, and/or acquaintances
of domestic violence victims and were murdered because they were somehow related to or
intervened on behalf of the victim (NCADV, 2019).
See Case Study: Robert McCoy to read about a case in which intimate partner violence led to
multiple homicides.
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Section 8.5
Family Violence
Case Study: Robert McCoy
Yolanda McCoy separated from her controlling and abusive husband, Robert McCoy, in 2008.
One day as she arrived home from work, her estranged husband was waiting for her inside
her new residence. He put a knife to her throat and held Yolanda and their 1-year-old child
hostage. Yolanda was eventually able to contact the police, but before they arrived, Robert fled
the scene.
Fearing for her life, Yolanda took her teenage son from a previous relationship to her parents’
home in a neighboring city because she believed he would be safe there. Yolanda then moved
to a nearby city with her 1-year-old with the hope that the police would soon capture Robert
and he would go to jail. However, despite their best efforts, the police had been unsuccessful
in locating him.
Approximately 2 weeks after holding Yolanda hostage, Robert, armed with a gun and furious
that he could not find Yolanda, went to her parents’ home and demanded that they tell him
Yolanda’s whereabouts. Yolanda’s mother immediately called 911, and she was heard on the
recording saying, “She’s not here, Robert. Robert, Yolanda is not here.” A voice believed to
be Robert’s was shouting in the background, and then there were gunshots fired. Yolanda’s
mother, stepfather, and teenage son, Gregory, were all killed execution style. Witnesses saw
Robert running from the home, and the police later recovered his abandoned car near the
scene.
Eventually, Robert was captured, tried, and sentenced to Louisiana’s death row to serve three
death sentences, one for each of the three murders he is alleged to have committed.
Familicide
Familicide is a murder-suicide in which the murderer is a family member who kills multiple
family members and then kills him- or herself. To understand this type of family violence, let’s
explore the case of Terry Strawn.
Strawn was named Hillsborough County, Florida, Officer of the Year in 2009. He worked
effectively as a police officer for many years before his retirement in 2016. However, family
financial issues caused him to return to the sheriff’s department as a school resource officer.
Strawn’s goal was to help improve school security in the wake of the mass shooting at another
Florida school in 2018.
On the morning of December 19, 2018, Strawn broadcast over his police radio, admitting to
killing his wife, daughter, and granddaughter and revealing the locations of their bodies. He
went on to say that he loved the sheriff’s department but was despondent and intended to
take his own life at a high school that was near the locations of the three murders he committed earlier that day. His colleagues arrived at the high school, but despite their best efforts
to stop him, Strawn killed himself. Further investigation showed that the family had filed for
bankruptcy protection a few years earlier and may have been having significant financial
issues.
Regardless of the underlying reasons, Strawn committed familicide—he murdered his family
and then killed himself.
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Section 8.5
Family Violence
Parricide
Parricide is the killing of one’s parents. Recall Figure 8.1, which shows that in 2017, 169
homicide victims were the mother of the perpetrator and 186 were the father of the perpetrator (FBI, 2018).
To put these data into context, for the year 2017, less than 1% (about 0.02%; 355 cases) of
total homicides in the United States were perpetrated by children on a parent. It may seem
that these low numbers do not accurately reflect the reality of the situation, due to the fact
that when cases like these occur, they are covered extensively by the media. We tend to hear
about these cases more frequently and in more detail than with many other homicide cases,
and they become salient to us because of the level of shock and distinctiveness from other
types of homicides.
Consider the case of Andrea Balcer, who was
just 17 years old when she killed her parents in Winthrop, Maine. Andrea was struggling with psychological stress because she
believed that her parents would be unsupportive of her desire to transition from male
to female. According to Andrea, she “snapped”
and killed both of her parents but spared her
brother, Christopher, who later advocated
against Andrea for a harsh sentence, citing
her lack of remorse. The state charged Andrea
as an adult in part due to the brutality of the
crime, which included Andrea stabbing her
mother in the back repeatedly as her mother
was giving her a hug.
Robert F. Bukaty/AP/Associated Press
Andrea Balcer delivers a statement in 2018
before being sentenced to 40 years for killing
her parents 2 years prior.
To avoid trial and a possible life sentence for each murder, Andrea accepted a plea bargain
for a term of 40 years in prison. The judge rejected her mental health mitigation, stating that
many individuals struggling with lack of support from family and community when they experience psychological stress surrounding gender identity do not use this as an excuse to kill.
In parricide cases, there is often a teenage perpetrator who believes that if his or her parents
were dead, he or she could go on to live a life free of parental oppression.
Filicide
Filicide involves cases in which parents kill their children. In 2017 approximately 432 homicide victims were children who were murdered by their parents (about 0.03%). Figure 8.1
also shows that sons were killed by a parent in 253 cases and daughters were killed by a parent in 179 cases.
Consider the case of Julie Schenecker. For most of her life, Schenecker had suffered from bipolar disorder possibly with psychotic features (see Chapter 2 for more information on this
disorder). However, no one believed she would ever harm her children. While her husband,
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Demographics of Homicide
Section 8.6
Parker, was in the army stationed overseas, Julie drove her 13-year-old son, Beau, to soccer
practice, and she fatally shot him while in the car for “talking back.” After killing Beau, Schenecker turned the car around to go back home. When she arrived, she went inside and fatally
shot her 16-year-old daughter, Calyx. When the children’s grandmother became concerned
that she could not reach Schenecker or the kids, she had police do a welfare check at the home.
The police discovered Beau’s body still in the SUV where he was killed, and they discovered
Calyx covered with a sheet on her bed. Police also discovered a journal of Schenecker’s in
which she wrote about planning to kill the children. At trial, the jury rejected Schenecker’s
insanity defense, citing the premeditated plan to kill the children. (An insanity defense is
one in which the defendant asserts in court that he or she could not appreciate the criminal
nature of his or her actions at the time of the crime or did not understand the difference
between right and wrong, as a direct result of mental defect.) Schenecker was sentenced to
life in prison.
Assessing Balcer’s and Schenecker’s Mental States
In Balcer’s and Schenecker’s cases, there were indications that each was suffering from either
psychological stress or a mental disorder. However, in the criminal justice system, mental
state is considered within the context of whether there was intent to kill, premeditation, and/
or malice.
In Maine, where Balcer was sentenced, the law includes only one statute that criminalizes
almost all types of murder. The statute includes the previously discussed components of firstand second-degree murder, as well as manslaughter. Presumably, the defendant is sentenced
based on what facts in evidence show the perpetrator’s mental state at the time of the crime.
In the Balcer case, she plead guilty to two counts of murder, one for each of her parents. She
was sentenced to 40 years for each homicide.
In Florida, where Schenecker was sentenced, there is a separate statute for each type of criminal homicide discussed earlier in this chapter. Although there was evidence presented at trial
that Schenecker’s criminal behavior was likely attributable to psychiatric dysfunction, as evidenced by her taking psychotropic medications to treat bipolar disorder, the jury found her
guilty of first-degree murder. They decided that Schenecker’s mental state at the time of the
crime included the premeditated attempt to murder her children with malice aforethought.
Due to Florida’s criminal justice system mandate that anyone found guilty of first-degree
murder must serve a life sentence without parole, the jury’s verdict left the judge no option
other than to sentence Schenecker to two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
8.6 Demographics of Homicide
There are a number of demographic variables correlated with homicidal behavior, including
race, age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Overall, it is important to consider how demographic, biopsychosocial, and other situational factors impact crime and its prevention.
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Demographics of Homicide
Section 8.6
Race
Perhaps the most controversial of the demographic variables associated with homicide is
that of race, ethnicity, and culture. This variable is controversial because criminal justice data
show consistently that African Americans are overrepresented as defendants in the criminal justice system. As of July 1, 2018, the U.S. African American population was estimated
at 13.1% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). According to the UCR homicide data on race, 54.2% of
perpetrators were African American, a startling figure considering that less than 15% of the
U.S. population is African American (FBI, 2018). Clinical psychology research informs us that
there are no significant differences in the behavioral and mental health functioning of individuals based on race. A lack of behavioral and psychological differences suggests that the
racial inequities may be due to explicit and implicit racial biases (Goel, Rao, & Shroff, 2016;
Hetey & Eberhardt, 2014; Kay et al., 2009).
Hetey and Eberhardt (2018) examined factors related to racial disparities in the criminal justice system. The primary goal of the research was to identify areas of psychology research
that may mitigate the effects of inherent racial bias in the criminal justice system. One popular
intervention is to widely disseminate information on racial inequality in the criminal justice system to the masses. However, social psychology researchers have found that educating
White people about observable racial bias in the criminal justice system caused them to be
more punitive instead of less punitive when the defendant was Black (Hetey & Eberhardt,
2014; Peffley & Hurwitz, 2007).
Hetey and Eberhardt (2018) proposed that additional research be undertaken on three key
interventions in an effort to effectively communicate information about racial disparities and
develop interventions that will reduce or eliminate negative stereotype activation. These proposed areas of research are (a) the best ways to offer context when presenting statistics on
racial disparity; (b) how to effectively challenge negative implicit associations based on race
(e.g., reduce or eliminate implicit bias); and (c) how to highlight the roles that institutions, as
opposed to individuals, have in facilitating and perpetuating racial disparities in the criminal
justice system.
Age
Although the scope of this chapter focuses on adult homicide perpetrators (juvenile perpetrators are discussed in Chapter 7), it is important to note that even adult homicide offenders
tend to be young. When examining homicide cases in which a perpetrator has been identified,
approximately 54% of homicide perpetrators are aged 20 to 34, with more than three quarters of this group falling under age 29 (FBI, 2018).
Gender
The overwhelming majority (88.1%) of homicide offenders are male (FBI, 2018). However,
there are differences between male and female homicide perpetrators based on who they
tend to kill. Data show that more than half of female homicide offenders murder an intimate
partner or family member, whereas about 75% of male offenders are significantly more likely
to kill an acquaintance or a stranger (Fox & Fridel, 2017).
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Section 8.6
Demographics of Homicide
A potential gap in the gender variable reporting is that data are collected and reported based
on male–female gender categories even though an increasing number of individuals identify
as gender nonconforming or transgender. There is no specific information to determine to
which gender category transgender perpetrators (or victims) are assigned. Therefore, caution must be used when interpreting and drawing gender-based conclusions, as these may
be inaccurate.
An example of this conundrum is in the previously discussed case of Andrea Balcer. Despite
the fact that Balcer identifies as a female, her legal name is Andrew, and she has not undergone sex reassignment surgery (which is currently required in the state of Maine to change
gender on a birth certificate). Therefore, the Maine Department of Corrections has placed
Balcer in a male prison facility under her legal name of Andrew Taney Balcer and has listed
her gender as male (State of Maine Department of Corrections, 2019).
Socioeconomic Status
Though socioeconomic status is discussed in more depth in Chapter 4, it bears mentioning here that poverty is a key risk factor in predicting criminal behavior, including homicide. Although social class and poverty are
not adequate predictors of future criminal
behavior on their own, when combined
with additional variables—such as access to
weapons and repeat exposure to violence—
they are typically cited as an underlying risk
factor for homicidal behavior.
Many children who grow up in high-crime
and high-violence areas will not go on to
commit homicide. However, research suggests that the greater the exposure to violence and crime, the greater the likelihood
of engaging in criminal behavior, including
homicide. This is attributable to a lack of
financial, medical, and social resources.
gorodenkoff/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Studies indicate that the more individuals are
exposed to violence, the greater the odds are
that they will commit violent crimes. This,
combined with low socioeconomic status, is a
risk factor for criminal behavior.
Access to Weapons
Although access to weapons and the use of a weapon by homicide perpetrators is not a
demographic variable, weapon accessibility is a strong predictor of violent behavior, including homicide. In 2017 approximately 73% of homicides were committed using a firearm,
the majority of which were handguns (FBI, 2018). This number has increased from 2013,
in which a firearm was the weapon used in approximately 69% of homicides. The next most
frequently used weapon in homicides in 2017—though significantly less than firearms—was
knives/cutting instruments, at 11%.
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Criminal Recidivism Among Homicide Offenders
Section 8.7
Another sobering statistic is that for children age 18 and under, gunshot wounds are the leading cause of death by homicide (N = 680; FBI, 2018). More than half of these homicides were
perpetrated on victims ages 13 to 16. For young adults ages 18 to 22, the total number of
homicides by gunshot wound is more than double that of the 18 and under group (N = 1,551
vs. N = 680).
Given the increase in mass murder via gun violence in the past several years, there is much
public debate about gun control. The public discourse tends to suggest that if there are no
guns, there will be no violent crime or violent crime will be greatly reduced. It is important
to understand that neither guns nor any other type of weapons cause homicides. However,
the data show a strong association between accessibility to weapons and homicides. That is,
it may be that the availability of firearms and the laws that entitle people to carry firearms
contribute to deaths by gunshot wound.
8.7 Criminal Recidivism Among Homicide Offenders
Perhaps the strongest influence on criminal homicide behavior is the power of the situation.
That is, even with someone who has no discernible biological or developmental risk factors
that may lead us to believe he or she is capable of killing, the way a situation is structured can
be a predictor of homicidal behavior. Important considerations are whether the perpetrator is under the influence of alcohol or recreational drugs, whether he or she is provoked or
despondent, or any number of other situational factors that have a strong and direct impact
on his or her behavior.
Although it could be helpful to be able to predict with precision what combination of situational, biological, and developmental factors may lead to homicide, the best that criminal
psychology researchers can do is evaluate past cases for indicators of similar characteristics
among killers and their homicides. A historical gap in the research is that most homicidal
behavior research focuses on serial killers and mass murderers, with very little research on
the characteristics of individual killers. However, researchers in New Jersey examined individual killers in relation to recidivism (the tendency of an individual to relapse into criminal
behavior) and what drove them to kill in the first place, providing us with a novel typology of
what drives someone to kill.
Roberts, Zgoba, and Shahidullah (2007) conducted a study of more than 300 perpetrators
of homicide who had been released from New Jersey state prisons from 1990 to 2000. The
researchers tracked these individuals for 5 years to measure their recidivism rates. They
hypothesized that homicide perpetrators who had no criminal history prior to their murder
charge would be the least likely to return to prison. Their findings identified four major homicide perpetrator types.
1. perpetrators who killed someone during a family violence incident (family violence
homicide offenders)
2. perpetrators who killed during the commission of another felony such as armed robbery (felony homicide offenders)
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Summary and Conclusion
3. perpetrators who killed someone during the course of an automobile accident (typically DUI related; accidental homicide offenders)
4. perpetrators who killed as a result of provocation (altercation-precipitated homicide
offenders)
Overall, none of the offenders committed another homicide. However, many of these individuals committed other crimes, including violent or drug-related offenses. The highest recidivism rates were observed in the felony homicide group, followed by the group of homicide
perpetrators who were provoked by an altercation. Only 10% of the family violence homicide
offenders recidivated due to a new violent or drug-related offense.
These categories are helpful for understanding what some precipitating factors may be for
homicidal behavior, along with whether these individuals are likely to kill again.
Summary and Conclusion
Regardless of the variables that lead to homicide, this deadly form of violence is one that
shocks and fascinates the public conscience. Though it may seem that homicides occur frequently, the data show that homicides are rare, depending on where in the United States one
resides. Recall the availability heuristic, which refers to the likelihood that individuals overestimate the prevalence of certain events based on how easily these events come to mind.
It’s important to remember that there are different types of criminal homicide. For example,
the chapter covered several subcategories of murder, including first- and second-degree
murder. While any type of homicide is serious, first-degree murder cases are commonly
considered among the most serious and heinous crimes.
People who have murdered more than one victim are also classified into different categories
based on the patterns of their murders. A mass murderer kills four or more people at one
location during one continuous time period, while spree killers murder two or more victims
at more than one location. Finally, serial killers murder three or more victims, and each victim is murdered on separate occasions.
The chapter also discussed family violence, which includes intimate partner violence,
familicide, parricide, and filicide. Though these types of homicides are rare, it is important to
understand the context in which they occur.
Although demographic and other psychosocial variables are merely correlational when measured in conjunction with homicides, the chapter discussed race, age, gender, socioeconomic
status, and access to weapons in an effort to identify variables that may lead to violence and
homicide.
Although television, movies, and true crime stories fascinate and provide interesting entertainment, it is important to remember that homicide is a major trauma to the loved ones
of victims. Therefore, criminologists, psychologists, law enforcement, and other interested
stakeholders continue to examine homicidal behavior in an effort to devise interventions to
prevent and significantly reduce homicides.
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Summary and Conclusion
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Why aren’t all homicides deemed criminal?
2. Discuss the issue of racial bias as it relates to the association between race and
homicide.
3. Discuss the accessibility of firearms as a predictor of homicide. Which demographic
group is the most likely to die of gunshot wounds in the United States?
4. Think about the region in which you live. Does the media frequently run news stories about homicides, or are these types of stories infrequent? Consider the availability heuristic.
Key Terms
altercation homicide A type of homicide
that occurs as a result of the perpetrator
feeling intense anger and provocation.
Considered “heat of passion,” second-degree
murder.
availability heuristic The likelihood that
individuals overestimate the prevalence of
certain events based on how easily these
events come to mind.
criminal homicide A murder that contains
the element of intention to cause the
death of another and is considered neither
excusable nor justifiable.
familicide A murder-suicide in which the
murderer is a family member who kills
multiple family members and then kills himor herself.
family violence An umbrella term used to
describe any type of family violence in which
there are a small but significant number
of family members who are emotionally or
physically abused or killed at the hands of
another member of the family, such as in
intimate partner violence, familicide, filicide,
and parricide.
felony homicide A homicide that occurs
during the commission of another felony,
which is typically a crime to obtain some
reward such as cash, objects, or other
desired goods possessed by another person.
Considered first-degree murder.
filicide A type of homicide in which a
parent murders his or her child or children.
first-degree murder The unlawful killing
of another that must have the intentional
elements of malice aforethought and
premeditation.
intimate partner violence The deliberate
intimidation of a romantic partner—current
or former—that can include physical, sexual,
or other violence and abusive behavior as
a means of gaining or asserting dominance
and control over the person. Previously
known as domestic violence.
involuntary manslaughter An accidental
murder that occurs during the commission
of an illegal act. Considered a category of
third-degree murder.
justifiable homicide The act of killing
someone out of necessity. Occurs because
the victim perceives he or she must defend
him- or herself from certain death.
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Summary and Conclusion
malice aforethought The intent to cause
significant harm to another.
manslaughter See third-degree murder.
mass murder A type of murder that occurs
when there are multiple victims (at least
four) in a single location with no subsequent
murder events.
parricide A type of homicide in which a
child murders his or her parent(s).
premeditation The planning of a homicide.
Does not necessarily require a significant
amount of time to form a plan.
second-degree murder An act of
intentional killing that lacks the firstdegree murder element of premeditation.
Commonly thought of as “depraved heart/
mind” murder.
serial killer A single perpetrator who
murders three or more people on separate
occasions.
spree killer A term no longer used by
the FBI, but when used by the media, it is
defined as someone who murders multiple
people over a short time period in different
geographic locations with no cooling-off
period between murders.
third-degree murder Commonly known
as manslaughter; an unintentional yet
criminal homicide that lacks malice and
premeditation. Its two major categories are
voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.
voluntary manslaughter A “heat of
passion” murder that lacks intent to commit
murder. Considered a category of thirddegree murder.
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