Classification of Homicide

Although crime theory is helpful for an understanding of antisocial conduct as a whole, the first and most basic step in understanding any form of human behavior, including criminal behavior, is classification. Without classification, naturally occurring events would seem random, unrelated, and chaotic. Classification is certainly the approach that medicine has taken since Hypocrites’ initial grouping of diseases. Similarly, psychiatry has always valued classification of symptoms and behaviors, especially since DSM-III (published in 1980) which first listed specific criteria of disorders. However, complex phenomena such as human behavior, criminal behavior, and homicide are difficult to classify. Rigid boundaries cannot be established, and there are often many borderline cases, especially as one deviates from the nuclear condition.

Over the past 70 years, many researchers have attempted to develop a system of classification for the different types of homicide. Brancale (1955) proposed a simple classification of homicide into two basic groups: administrative and psychiatric. In the psychiatric group, he placed offenders who are neurotic, psychotic, and mentally deficient. All others—a much larger number—would be placed in the administrative group. The psychiatric offenders would be treated in a specialized setting, whereas the others would be handled in correctional facilities.

Bromberg (1961) also divided murderers into two general categories: the normal and the psychopathic. A “normal murder” might occur when, for example, a man finds his wife in bed with a paramour and kills one or both of them. Bromberg explained this type of “triangle murder” as a “reaction to extreme humiliation in a sensitive individual” (p. 30); the stronger the unconscious feelings of inadequacy in the perpetrator, the more vicious the attack will be. Under the heading of psychopathic murderers (or more accurately murderers with psychopathology), Bromberg included a wide range of offenders with various levels of disturbance, including the sex and lust killer, the thrill killer, the rapist who murders, and the alcoholic who kills. Psychopathic murderers are generally unstable, unpredictable, impulsive, and without conscience; they frequently describe their crime with an emotionally flat attitude. Such homicides are rarely premeditated but instead follow an impulse.

Also using a two-pronged system, Megargee (1966) classified individuals who commit acts of violence, including murder, as either undercontrolled or overcontrolled. The undercontrolled person commonly responds with violence when frustrated or provoked. The overcontrolled person displays moral rigidity, often proclaims antiviolence sentiments, and is a proponent of law and order; at the same time, he builds up an underlying (and unrecognized) rage that results in an unanticipated explosion.

Tanay’s (1969, 1972) classification system includes three types of homicide: ego-syn- tonic, ego-dystonic (dissociative), and psychotic. The ego-syntonic homicide is, in essence, a goal-directed, purposeful act; the psychotic homicide is the result of an overt psychosis, such as a response to hallucinations or delusions; the dissociative or ego-dystonic homicide is carried out in an altered state of consciousness, against the recognized wishes of the perpetrator. In a later publication, Tanay (1978) further describes the person who commits (dissociative) ego-dystonic homicides as having an “aggressophobic personality.” This disorder is characterized by rigidity, moral preoccupation, and a high degree of inner conflict regarding the subject’s own aggressive strivings. He represses angry impulses to such an extent that he does not conceive of a gun as a dangerous instrument, and he may even deny that he has ever had an aggressive fantasy. These aggressophobic personalities have such an overdeveloped superego that they are afraid of their own anger and have little ability to express hostility on any level. Because of these characteristics, the aggressophobe is prone toward a sudden loss of control, resulting in an explosive ego-dystonic homicide.

Halleck (1971) classifies criminal behavior, including homicide, into adaptive and maladaptive groups. The adaptive murder is committed for some self-serving and logical, albeit socially unacceptable, purpose—for instance, to obtain money or to eliminate someone who might interfere with a plan. The maladaptive homicide is illogical, basically not purposeful, and is caused by some type of psychopathology, such as an overt psychosis, intoxication, or pronounced internal conflicts.

Other classification systems have been proposed by Guttmacher (1960) and Wille (1974). Guttmacher differentiated six types of murderers: (1) average murderers, free from prominent psychopathology; (2) individuals angry at the world because of their own mistreatment in earlier years; (3) alcoholics who kill their wives out of fear of rejection; (4) murderers who kill to avenge a prior intimate partner’s rejection; (5) schizophrenics who respond to hallucinations and delusions; and (6) sadists who kill to achieve sexual gratification. Wille (1974) grouped murderers into ten different types: (1) depressives, (2) psy- chotics, (3) organics, (4) psychopaths, (5) passive-aggressive individuals, (6) alcoholics, (7) hysterical personalities, (8) child murderers, (9) mentally retarded individuals, and (10) those who kill for sexual gratification.

Two methods of classification were derived from empirical research. Simon (1977) studied 30 murderers and classified them into three general groups. Type A homicides are impulsive and occur usually while the offender is under the influence of alcohol; type В homicides are victim-induced, typically stemming from rejection by a former intimate partner; and type AB murders are committed by sadistic individuals who probably cannot be rehabilitated. In their research on adolescent homicidal offenders, Miller and Looney

(1974) developed a classification system that is focused on prediction. The groupings here are based on the degree of “dehumanization” of the victim by the perpetrator. Thus, the classification includes (1) offenders who are at high risk for repetition because they have totally and permanently dehumanized their victim; (2) offenders who are at high risk for repetition because of partial and transient dehumanization; and (3) individuals who have a low risk to commit a future homicide because the degree of dehumanization, although transient and partial, required consensual validation by peers.

Still another system of homicide classification, utilizing a law enforcement perspective based on crime scene characteristics, was offered by Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, and Ressler (1992; 2013). These authors differentiate 43 different types of homicide, including criminal enterprise homicide, personal cause homicide, sexual homicide, and group cause homicide. Personal cause homicides would include domestic murders, homicides triggered by arguments, or revenge killings. Included in group cause homicides are cult murders, murders of hostages, and paramilitary homicides. Within each category, the authors list crime scene and forensic findings, victim characteristics, and investigative considerations. Douglas, Ressler, Burgess, and Hartman (1986) also describe the distinguishing features of mass murder (killing multiple individuals at one time in one place), spree murder (killing multiple persons at different locations, with no cooling-off period between murders), and serial murder (killing multiple victims, with a cooling-off period between events). Recently Safarik and Ramsland (2020) differentiated types of spree killing also from a law enforcement perspective.

Although the various classification schemes cited above are different in overall approach, purpose, and extent of differentiation, there is a common denominator among many of them: those that include (1) a large group of homicidal offenders with no overt psychopathology or disturbance and (2) a smaller group of offenders with overt psychopathology (see Table 3.3). For example, Brancale’s administrative grouping is similar to Tanay’s ego-syntonic group; Bromberg’s normal (triangle) offenders; Halleck’s adaptive murderers; and Guttmacher’s average, angry, sadistic, and avenging individuals. Those with a more overt disturbance would include Brancale’s psychiatric group, Guttmacher’s schizophrenics and alcoholics, Tanay’s ego-dystonic and psychotic groups, Bromberg’s psychopathic category, and Halleck’s maladaptive murderers.

Table 3.3 Systems of Homicide Classification: Common Groupings

The legal system’s method of classification of crime attempts to assess an offender’s level of intent; the more intent, the more criminal responsibility, the greater the punishment. However, since the various legal definitions of homicide deal with motivational factors, both the prosecution and the defense may stress different aspects of the same set of facts. The prosecution may emphasize logical behavior and explain away irrational acts. In many cases, however, what may seem to be premeditation is actually a compelling irrational need with reasons obscure even to the offender. Moreover, different examiners will often stress and emphasize different aspects of the same symptoms and behavior (Perr, 1975). Shah (1972) illustrates the many other levels of motivation in homicide by recounting a conversation between a scholar and a mullah. The scholar, believing totally in logic and in cause and effect, regards murder as an uncomplicated event. However, he was taken aback when the mullah pointed to a group of people passing in the street; they were taking a man to be hanged for committing a murder. “Is that because someone gave him a silver piece and enabled him to buy the knife with which he committed the murder,” the mullah asks, “or is it because someone saw him do it, or because nobody stopped him?” (p. 112).

Psychiatric diagnoses per se cannot be used as a sole common denominator in the classification of crime or homicide, since crimes committed under the influence of delusions and the occasional violence resulting from organic and toxic-confusional states are primarily relevant. Psychoanalytic penetration into various nonconscious levels is frequently too theoretical and esoteric. On the other hand, the legal method, although appropriate for assigning moral responsibility and extent of punishment, is not always helpful in understanding all types of criminal behavior or the varying levels of motivation and dynamics of a homicide.

In an attempt to develop a method to classify crime, in general, and homicide, in particular, Revitch and Schlesinger developed a system of classification based on an analysis of the motivational dynamics of the antisocial act itself (Revitch, 1977; Revitch and Schlesinger, 1978, 1981, 1989). The remainder of this chapter—following a discussion of organic, toxic, and paranoid homicides—describes the motivational spectrum, in order to place sexual murder within the overall classification of crime and homicide.