Criminal mutilation homicides in Japan: Corpse dismemberment and disposal pattern types, and offender characteristics

Abstract

This study examined the offender characteristics of criminal mutilation homicides in Japan for offender profiling. The current sample (N = 108) showed that the most typical offender was a male, in his 30s (age that observed most often), one-person, and acquainted with the victim. This study highlighted that the cases of mutilation homicide differed in comparison with the regular homicide group in terms of the victimoffender (VO) relationship and the number of offenders. Furthermore, the multiple correspondence analysis classified mutilation homicides into four behavioral pattern types based on two dimensions (level of "efforts of corpse dismemberment" and "efforts of corpse disposal"). In the first type "high evidence destruction effort (n = 29)", having the greatest efforts to destroy evidence, all offenders were men. The rates of no VO relationship and serial murders were higher. In the second type "convenient disposal (n = 32)", likely to abandon victim body in home and trash, the rate of female offenders who assaulted family members was statistically significantly higher among the four types. In the third type "high geographic distance (n = 23)", traveling long distances for corpse disposal, the percentage of cases by co-offenders was likely to be higher than in the other types. Lastly, the offenders in "low evidence destruction effort (n = 24)" were likely to kill other acquaintances and have the least efforts for corpse dismemberment and disposal. From these results, the criminal profilers can estimate mutilation homicide offenders on the basis of efforts of corpse dismemberment and disposal.

Concealed Homicides—A Postmortem Study and Review

“…1). The location is often familiar to the perpetrator, 9,10 although this is not always the case 11 . Rarely, concealment and retention of remains may be part of the complex rituals of a sexual serial killer who wants access to the bodies or parts of them after their deaths 12…”

“…The location is often familiar to the perpetrator, 9,10 although this is not always the case. 11 Rarely, concealment and retention of remains may be part of the complex rituals of a sexual serial killer who wants access to the bodies or parts of them after their deaths. 12 Concealment may also be undertaken to delay the finding of a body to allow putrefactive changes to occur, sometimes to the point of skeletonization, so that pathological assessment of particularly soft tissue and organ injuries is compromised.…”

Counting the days: Exploring the post‐mortem interval factors in sexual homicides

“…For example, body disposal methods have been associated with specific offender “types” (e.g., Holmes & Holmes, 1998; Keppel & Walter, 1999; Kocsis et al., 2002; Ressler et al., 1986). In other studies, body disposal sites have been examined in conjunction with other aspects of the crime, such as body concealment (De Matteis et al., 2021), body transportation (Beauregard & Field, 2008; Chai, Beauregard, & Chopin, 2021), and mutilation or dismemberment (Konopka et al., 2016; Zaitsu, 2022). However, temporal factors, such as the time it takes to body discovery, are often overlooked.…”