Abstract
Sexually motivated serial killers have been the focus of copious amounts of research, however, due to the idiosyncratic nature of their crimes, additional examination of the perverse sexual desires that provoke their offenses is warranted. Overall, research on necrophilia (engaging in any behavior with a corpse that is sexually or psychologically gratifying) and necrophagia (consuming the flesh of a deceased human for sexual or psychological gratification) is lacking. This presents an opportunity to further explore and better understand how these paraphilias fit into the motivational gamut of these serial offenders. This study examined 16 cases of sexual serial killers and three cases of nonserial offenders who engaged in these behaviors. The 19 offenders were divided into three groups: necrophagic (N = 6), necrophilic (N = 6), and comorbid (N = 7). It was hypothesized that through analysis of these case studies, it would be possible to determine if necrophagia presents as either a specific sexual motivation or throughout a spectrum of sexual motivations for necrophilic serial killers. The results indicated that offenders in each of the three groups often had more than one impetus for participating in necrophagia and/or necrophilia, however, power and control was the most common motivator for both eating their victim and engaging in sexual activity with their victim’s corpse. Keywords: Sexual serial killers, paraphilia, necrophilia, necrophagia