Understanding Sexual Serial Killing

This book provides an integrative and jargon-free understanding of the phenomenon of sexual serial killing to a wide readership.

Frederick Toates (Author), Olga Coschug-Toates (Author)

9781316517598, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 June 2022

548 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 3.4 cm, 0.943 kg

'One of the reasons that the book is praised by experts and lay readers alike is that it deliberately eschews jargon. Its reliance on plain language while still accounting for the scholarly literature makes it simultaneously accessible and scholarly. … Although written from a psychological perspective, Toates and Coschug-Toates have incorporated a range of relevant work from biology, law, and sociology. The curious sociologist will find much of value here, particularly in the chapter that locates the psychology of the individual offender within his wider social milieu.' James Oleson, New Zealand Sociology

Why do some people engage in serial killing for sexual pleasure? This book considers the phenomenon of sexual serial killing from the perspective of motivation theory, as advanced in psychology and neuroscience. By examining biological, psychological and social determinants, it develops a model of sexual killing that integrates widely dispersed existing literature. The first part of the book reviews scientific data and theories, while the second part presents biographical sketches of 80 sexual killers and links their early development and later killing to current theoretical understanding. The book examines cases of serial killers from the USA, Western Europe, Iran, Australia and South Africa, and it also includes an account of killers from the USSR, made available to non-Russian speakers for the first time. Deliberately written to avoid jargon, Understanding Sexual Serial Killing is accessible to students, scholars and professionals across psychology, sociology, forensic science and law.

Part I. The Factors that Underlie Lust Killing: 1. How to gain understanding
2. A focus on the individual
3. States of brain and mind
4. A focus on the context
5. Ways of explaining
6. The motivation underlying serial lust killing
7. Inhibition
8. The making of a sex-linked killer
9. Linking normality to abnormality
10. Looking for a thrill
11. Beyond conventional desire: Paraphilias
12. Can it become addictive?
Part II. Biographical Sketches: 13. Similarities and differences
14. A focus on the males in the family
15. A focus on the (ex) wife
16. A focus on the mother: Being given up for adoption
17. A focus on the mother: Uncertainty
18. A focus on the mother: Her behavior
19. A focus on revenge
20. Just for being gay
21. Fetishes and partialisms
22. Imprinting on powerful events
23. Living in farmyard squalor
24. Cross-dressing
25. Attachment-linked killers
26. A desire for child victims
27. Stress and disorganization
28. Problems with sexual potency
29. Paired killers: Male
30. Paired killers: Male and female
31. Drugs and addiction in focus
32. More questions than answers
Part III. Final Word: 33. Bringing things together.

Subject Areas: Criminal or forensic psychology [JMK], Crime & criminology [JKV]