Multiple Homicide Offenders

• DOI: 10.1177/0093854806286193
• Author: Matt Delisi,Aaron M. Scherer
• Published date: 01 June 2006
• Date: 01 June 2006
• Subject Matter: Articles

MULTIPLE HOMICIDE

OFFENDERS

Offense Characteristics, Social

Correlates, and Criminal Careers

MATT DELISI

AARON M. SCHERER

Iowa State University

Because investigations of multiple homicide offenders (MHOs) are usually case studies, there

is limited understanding of the linkages between them and other criminal offenders. Using

data from an exploratory sample of 160 MHOs and a control group of 494 single homicide

offenders, this study examines MHOs from a criminal career perspective and finds that nearly

30% of them were habitual offenders before their final homicide event. Those with prior rape

convictions, misdemeanor convictions, more extensive prison histories, and current involve-

ment in rape and burglary are more likely to kill multiple victims. Curiously, nearly 40%

of MHOs had zero prior arrests. Overall, arrest onset occurs later in the life course and is not

predictive of offending. In conclusion, the study of MHOs could enrich the criminal career

perspective, while posing some empirical and theoretical challenges to that paradigm.

Keywords: homicide; career criminal; recidivism; violence; criminal career

Multiple homicide offenders (MHOs), defined as criminal

defendants who murder more than one person during a crimi-

nal episode,1occupy a peculiar place in criminology. Because of

their lethality, MHOs are presumably deserving of study, but

367

AUTHORS’ NOTE: This research was partially supported by an Iowa State

University College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty Development Grant awarded

to the first author. This study was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American

Society of Criminology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, November 2005. Correspondence

concerning this article should be addressed to Professor Matt DeLisi, Iowa State

University, 203A East Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1070; e-mail: delisi@iastate.edu.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 33 No. 3, June 2006 367-391

DOI:10.1177/0093854806286193

© 2006 American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

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scholarly investigations of them are far exceeded by journalistic,

popular, or true-crime treatises. Many commentators have expressed

that MHOs receive more attention from popular culture than crimi-

nology (Fox & Levin, 1998; Kraemer, Lord, & Heilbrun, 2004;

Petee & Jarvis, 2000). The scholarly study of MHOs has also been

complicated by some empirical limitations. From 1976 to 2000, the

percentage of total homicides that involved multiple victims ranged

from just 3% to 4% (Fox & Zawitz, 2003). Perhaps for this reason,

criminologists have viewed this low-prevalence phenomenon as less

deserving of attention than the larger study of homicide.2

There are additional reasons why many criminologists have not

embraced the study of MHOs. For instance, detailed records and

other data on MHOs are kept by criminal justice entities and are

sometimes not available to researchers (Kraemer et al., 2004).

Consequently, criminologists must often construct data sets from

news accounts and other media sources. Alternately, some scholars

(e.g., Egger, 2002; Fox & Levin, 1994; Wright & Hensley, 2003)

employ case studies or profiles of MHOs. Although this approach

has yielded fruitful information on individuals who have committed

multiple homicides, the method is limited in its applicability to the

larger study of criminal offenders. Overall, the methods used to

study criminals that murder multiple victims are somewhat lacking.

As expressed by Fox and Levin (2003), typical approaches to study-

ing MHOs “generally lack any measure of reliability and predictive

accuracy. Often they are constructed with items that have no empir-

ical foundation, but merely reflect the characteristics of a troubled

individual” (pp. 61-62).

The current study aimed to enhance the criminological under-

standing of MHOs in several ways. First, a large, purposive sample

of convicted homicide offenders was used to move beyond the

case study approach that characterizes much of the research on

this subject. This allowed for exploratory statistical comparisons

between MHOs and a control group of single homicide offenders

(SHOs). In their review article on multiple homicide, Fox and Levin

(1998) stressed that future research should employ comparison

groups of offenders and investigate lifecycle explanations of mul-

tiple homicide offending that move beyond exploring child-

hood traumas and psychopathology (also see Smith, 2000). Toward

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