Exploring the different manifestations of anger in sexual homicide

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Typologies of homicides are ever-changing, with validations and critiques raised with each new model. A recent typology which focused on sexual homicide is the sadistic/angry model, an updated and empirically validated form of the organized/disorganized typology from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Angry offenders are more common than sadistic offenders but have received little attention in the literature on the typologies. The present study aims to test the existence of subgroups within the angry typology using latent class analysis (LCA). Using previously collected data from police in France and Canada, LCA was performed on cases that met the various criteria of the angry offenders as identified in the literature. Three classes emerged: angry-expressive, angry-sadistic, and angry-planner. Angry-expressive offenders aligned with the typical characteristics of an angry offender, while the angry-sadistic offender showed unusually sadistic tendencies. The angry-planner was characterized by forensic awareness and precautions in committing the crime. Variables related to crime scene characteristics, offender behavior and victimology were used to externally validate the subgroups. The implications and alignment with literature are discussed.