They were motivated primarily by sex (71%), were not motivated by financial gain (0%), and did not abduct their victims (0%). SHOs who mutilated their victims, compared with those who did not, were significantly more likely to have a previous sexual offense conviction (16.1%). To further examine patterns of victim-mutilation in sexual homicides, Chan and Li (2019) analyzed 82 cases (31 mutilation and 47 non-mutilation cases) spanning 31 years (1988–2018), using Chinese case reports and police data from three selected regions of China (Municipality of Shanghai, Guangdong Province, and Hubei Province). Those who were primarily motivated by sex, power and control, and anger had a higher propensity to mutilate their victim. Compared with sexual killers with other motives, those who were financially motivated were more likely to abduct their victim.
Pertaining to their offending patterns, SHOs whose offenses were mainly motivated by sex, money, and anger were more likely to target strangers, while those primarily driven by power and control were more likely to target intimate partners. The remaining cases, identified as homosexual-oriented, were mainly motivated by financial gain (40%), anger (15.8%), and sex (6.1%). The findings indicated that heterosexual-oriented sexual murders were committed by SHOs whose primary motivations were power and control (100%), sex (94%), and anger (84%), with slightly over half of the sample (60%) being driven by financial gain. The study used published Chinese case reports and police data from three selected regions (Municipality of Shanghai, Guangdong Province, and Hubei Province) over a 24-year period (1994–2017). In their follow-up study, Chan, Li, Liu, and Lu (2019) further examined the primary motivations of 67 Chinese sexual murderers.
Chinese sexual murderers were primarily sexually motivated (49%) to commit their offense. SHOs tended to target strangers (63%), used con tactics (i.e., a ruse) to approach their victims (57%), used personal weapons (e.g., killing with hands and feet, strangulation, beating with bare hands, drowning, and defenestration) to murder their victim (41%), engaged in vaginal penetration (88%), and mutilated their victim (47%). Their victims were mostly female (83%), with a mean age of 35.35 years. They found that heterosexual-oriented homicides (86%) were most prevalent, and that the majority of sexual homicide offenders (SHOs) were male (97%), single (67%), and educated to at least secondary school level (86%), had no prior overall conviction (80%) or sexual conviction (97%), and had a mean age of 32.44 years at the time of offense. Using published Chinese case reports and police data, Chan, Li, Liu, Lu, and Jia (2019) examined 59 sexual homicide cases that occurred over 23 years (1994–2016) in three regions of China (Municipality of Shanghai, Guangdong Province, and Hubei Province). The present study also analyzed this dataset with additional cases added to the project. These three studies were linked to the same research project, with additional sexual homicide cases were added to the dataset each year. To date, only three empirical studies have been published on sexual homicides in China (Chan, Li, Liu, & Lu, 2019 Chan, Li, Liu, Lu, & Jia, 2019 Chan & Li, 2019). Important to this study, little is known about the offending dynamics of sexual homicides occurring in China.
Hence, it remains uncertain if findings generated from studies conducted in Western countries can be equally applied in non-Western countries, specifically in the Asian context. To our knowledge, only a handful of studies to date have examined the offending dynamics of sexual homicides occurring beyond the Western hemisphere – e.g., South Korea (Sea, Beauregard, & Martineau, 2019). Academic interest in the topic has grown: 32 empirical studies were published between 19 (Chan & Heide, 2009), increasing to 47 between 20 (Chan, 2017). Based on the extant literature, the rate of sexual homicides across countries is estimated to be between 1% and 5% of all reported homicide cases (e.g., North America, Europe Chan, 2019). Research into this topic was pioneered by a group of FBI agents, who defined sexual homicide as “killing another in the context of power, control, sexuality, and aggressive brutality” (Burgess, Hartman, Ressler, Douglas, & McCormack, 1986, p. While in severe instances sexual assault can lead to the death of the victim, sexual homicide is a low base rate event.
Sexual violence is a serious criminal offense and is generally regarded as both a violation of human rights and a public health concern.