Prevalence of Mutilation Murders?

[Ginger]

Kind of a morbid question, but it's something that I've been wondering about for a bit, and there are some remarkably knowledgable people on this board. I'm wondering whether mutilation murders where the mutilation was presumably sexual in intent have increased as a percentage of murders over time? I'm speaking not of cases such as, for example, the Brighton Trunk Murders, where the purpose of cutting up the victim was apparently just to aid in disposal, but of cases like the Ripper where the desire to mutilate is one of the chief apparent motives for the crime.

My own belief is that this is a much more common sort of crime than it used to be, but I'd really like actual statistics if anyone can point me toward them.

[Errata]

Kind of a morbid question, but it's something that I've been wondering about for a bit, and there are some remarkably knowledgable people on this board. I'm wondering whether mutilation murders where the mutilation was presumably sexual in intent have increased as a percentage of murders over time? I'm speaking not of cases such as, for example, the Brighton Trunk Murders, where the purpose of cutting up the victim was apparently just to aid in disposal, but of cases like the Ripper where the desire to mutilate is one of the chief apparent motives for the crime.

My own belief is that this is a much more common sort of crime than it used to be, but I'd really like actual statistics if anyone can point me toward them.

Well, serial killing is on the rise, so any statistic involved with that will also have climbed to a certain extent.

What you ask is not black and white. Post mortem mutilation is one thing, peri mortem mutilation is another, and either can be sexually motivated or not. But there isn't one number for sexually motivated mutilations in serial killers. The FBI compiles all that data for the US, but not in that particular kind of category. The number exists, it can be found, but it is found by going through a bunch of numbers and winnowing it down to the correct criteria. Sort of like finding the number of atlases in a library is completely doable, it's just not a number you can look up in the computer. You have to do some counting.

You can make information requests with the BAU at the FBI. They can get that to you. You'd have to trust their judgement on what constitutes "sexually motivated", but their judgement is probably very good.

About 15 years ago 10-15% of serial killers engaged in sexually motivated mutilation. But this was post Dahmer, so the numbers might have been off because of copy cat behavior, or because of fear of the notoriety that case brought. So who knows. It's a number. It's likely not the number.

[Michael W Richards]

Kind of a morbid question, but it's something that I've been wondering about for a bit, and there are some remarkably knowledgable people on this board. I'm wondering whether mutilation murders where the mutilation was presumably sexual in intent have increased as a percentage of murders over time? I'm speaking not of cases such as, for example, the Brighton Trunk Murders, where the purpose of cutting up the victim was apparently just to aid in disposal, but of cases like the Ripper where the desire to mutilate is one of the chief apparent motives for the crime.

My own belief is that this is a much more common sort of crime than it used to be, but I'd really like actual statistics if anyone can point me toward them.

Hi Ginger,

Im assuming that your question presupposes that the Ripper crimes fall into a category that is predominantly sexual in nature. I think PM mutilation of genitals and/or organs of regeneration are still highly unusual. Most pm mutilation these days is to facilitate disposal.

The thing about the Ripper crimes is that there isn't one cohesive story told by the wounds inflicted...for example it would nearly impossible at this juncture to attribute Liz Strides murder to a serial sexual pm mutilator. There has to be a new story to make that argument convincing.

[mucher1]

Well, serial killing is on the rise[...]

Do we know this for sure? I'm not aware of what the (recent) statistics say, but it seems to me that nearly all of the really big cases were 20+ years ago.

[DJA]

My own belief is that this is a much more common sort of crime than it used to be, but I'd really like actual statistics if anyone can point me toward them.

Prolly because 76% of last centuries solved serial killings happened in US of A.

Just checked the FBI site.
Same old,same old.

Think part of the problem is socio economic and lack of gun control.

Good Luck.

[Defective Detective]

Do we know this for sure? I'm not aware of what the (recent) statistics say, but it seems to me that nearly all of the really big cases were 20+ years ago.

My strong impression is that serial killing peaked in the mid-1980s through the early 1990s and has been on a steady decline since, along with much other violent crime, ticking upwards only slightly with the onset of the recession.

[Ginger]

You can make information requests with the BAU at the FBI. They can get that to you. You'd have to trust their judgement on what constitutes "sexually motivated", but their judgement is probably very good.

Thanks!