Citation

Zappalà A, Haginoya S, Santtila P. Psychiatry Psychol. Law. 2022; ePub(ePub): ep.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13218719.2022.2040396

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The present study reports offender, victim and offence characteristics of the entire population of known serial homicide offenders identified in Italy between 1848 and 2019 (59 offenders, 244 victims, of whom 50.4% were men, and 21.7% were sex workers). We found that most of the offenders (72.4%) had a personality disorder. The offenders' age during their series was 35.1 (SD = 11.3) years, on average. Sexual elements were found in 28.4% of the crime scenes. The median time interval between homicides was 2.8 months. Also, we investigated the consistency of the offence characteristics over the series and found significant correlations between the offence characteristics between a previous and the subsequent homicide.

Language: en

Keywords

behavioral crime linking; cooling-off period; serial homicide