SFU criminology professor investigates previous Canadian sexual homicides
When imagining a sexual killer, most people picture a loner, lurking in the shadows and waiting for his next victim. Not so, says a new study by SFU criminologist Dr. Eric Beauregard. One of the largest studies of its kind in Canadian criminal history, it looked at 350 Canadian cases of sexual homicide from the last 62 years. The most significant finding of the study was that many sexual killers are not actually as socially isolated as was previously believed. In fact, in more than 40 per cent of the cases, the attackers used a social ruse to approach their victims, rather than attacking them outright — only 20 per cent actually used physical force to overpower their victims. This can be seen as an indicator of developed social skills. Most sexual killers in the study also did not seem to be serial offenders — 80 per cent did not have any official sexual convictions in the past. However, they did have 1.7 past convictions for violent offences that were not of a sexual nature, and 7.3 past convictions for property offences on average.
The study found that the average sexual killer was a single, white male in his late 20s, usually with a thin or average build. Their victims were often around the same age, with a shocking 90 per cent being female, and a strong majority (62 per cent) being white, closely followed by aboriginal victims (33 per cent). Many of the victims had a history of alcohol or drug abuse, and 17 per cent had at some point been sex workers. Contrary to the general stereotype of the sexual serial killer that plots his victims carefully in a basement, it turns out that more than 80 per cent of the victims in the study were not specifically targeted, but were randomly selected.
“The fact that more than half of the offenders did not use any forensic awareness strategies is very interesting,” said Beauregard in terms of analyzing the findings, “This suggests that a little bit more than one out of two offenders do not pay attention to the evidence he may be leaving at the crime scene.” Beauregard notes that the culture of criminal shows on television such as CSI would be hypothesized as having an effect on actual crimes, as offenders would learn what kind of evidence they should hide or be careful about.
In the past, there has been a misconception of what a sexual killer’s profile looks like. However, with this new study, Beauregard hopes these findings will aid police and investigators, giving them a better of idea of what they are looking for in suspected sexual killers. “One of our next projects is to investigate what are the factors related to the solvability of the sexual homicide,” said Beauregard about the future of research in this area. “In other words, we are interested in looking at what sexual murderers are doing to avoid police detection.” This area of research is one that is essential to public interest and safety, and this study is leaps and bounds ahead of other Canadian criminological studies of its type.
