Psychopathology and Personality in Juvenile Sexual Homicide Offenders

This project describes the psychopathology and personality findings in 14 juve-niles who committed sexual homicide. These incarcerated youth were assessed using a structured interview, a personality assessment instrument, correctional files review, and an author-designed clinical interview. Nearly all of these youth met DSM-Ill-R conduct disorder criteria at the time of the crime. The presence of personality disorders and moderately high psychopathy scores at follow-up were common. Two-thirds of these youth reported the presence of violent sexual fantasies before their crimes. Weapons, most often knives, were used by these juvenile sexual murderers to kill known victims in a majority of the cases. They usually acted alone and selected a low risk victim. These findings suggest that juvenile sexual murderers are an emotionally and behaviorally disturbed popula-tion with identifiable psychopathology, personality disturbances, and criminal patterns. Sexual homicide involves "a sexual ele-ment (activity) as the basis for the se-quence of acts leading to death." ' This crime will include some form of sexual assault or sexually symbolic behavior combined with a homicidal act. Sadistic fantasy, often escalating over time and eventually resulting in behav-ioral try-outs, is postulated to be a root cause in many cases. * Fantasy is not just an integral part of sexual excitement, but also of the perversion^. ^ catathymia4. i