Foreign Object Insertion in Sexual Homicide: A New Perspective
Certain violent offenders—especially sexual homicide offenders (SHOs)—have been reported to engage in specific acts at the crime scene that are unnecessary to successfully commit the crime but may serve a psychological need for the offender (e.g., sexual gratification). In studies of sadistic sex offenders—many of whom had killed their victims—the rate of cases where the offender involuntarily inserted an object into any orifice of the victim (foreign object insertion, FOI), reported to be as high as 40% to 65% (Dietz et al., 1990; Warren et al., 1996).