Body Part Removal: A Thematic Exploration of U.K. Homicide Offenses

Abstract

Body part removal (BPR) is a rare homicide phenomena which emerges as a result of a variety of motives. Fifty eight BPR UK homicide cases were analysed. Findings indicated key characteristics within BPR murder offenses, with most offender's male, aged around 31 years, knew their victims, with presence of alcohol, drugs and mental health issues and over two-thirds of sample had previous convictions, over 50% for theft. Offense behaviors showed 'multiple wounds' and 'victim naked' as highest frequency, with the head as the most frequently removed body part. Smallest space analysis (SSA) identified two behavioral themes (expressive and instrumental) with 62.1% of cases classified as one of these. The study has provided the largest UK sample of BPR homicide furthering understanding this type of offense and the offenders who commit it.

Dismemberment and Mutilation: A Data‐Driven Exploration of Patterns, Motives, and Styles

“…In nursing research, Burgess and colleagues have explored cases of fetal abduction, which may be considered a subcategory of mutilation . Publications that underpin psychosocial factors are largely based upon a limited number of cases, which creates challenges in generalizing findings and supporting classification systems that explore motivations and patterns .…”

Through fire and flames: post-burning survival and detection of dismemberment-related toolmarks in cremated cadavers

“…Fatal fires are more commonplace in accidents, wildfires, and suicides [7], and postmortem mutilation or dismemberment in armed conflict [8][9][10], or individual domestic cases [11][12][13]. However, there have been cases in which the offender attempted to incinerate the remains after dismembering the victim [14].…”

Masking in murder: An exploratory study into the act of covering the victim’s face in UK homicide

“…The high rates of hybrid and unclassifiable cases observed may also be a function of more complex and inconsistent underlying motivations of the offender. Findings from dismemberment research (Almond et al., 2018) support BIA experience that post‐mortem acts engaged in by the offender might represent a distinct phase of the offence, whereby offenders experience a shift in their motivations between the act of murder and subsequent post‐mortem activity. As such, efforts to interpret the underlying motivation of offenders engaged in such victim face covering based on the sum of their behaviour across the overall offence of homicide may represent a fundamentally flawed endeavour.…”