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Resaier ct al. 7 CRIME SCENE ANALYSIS The majority of victims (81% o1 89) were suangels to the offender; 19%, or 21, were known to the murderer. Nearly half (47%) of the victims were closely related in age to the offender. Over one-third of the cases (37%) involved a younger victim than offender, and in 15% of the cases, the victim was older than the offender. More than half of the * victims came from average o1 advantaged socioeconomic levels (62%), 30% had marginal incomes, and 9% had less than marginal incomes. In over one-third of the cases, the victim had a companion (i.e., was not alone) at the time of the assault; 63% were alone at the time of the murder. Victim Response to Assailant Any cause-effect determination in victim resistance reports needs to include the total series of interactions between a victim and assailant, including the dynamic sequencing of victim resistance and offender attack. Offenders were asked to report on their victims’ resistance: in terms of whether they tried to negotiate verbally, verbally refuse, scream, flee, or fight. The offender was then asked to report his own response to the victim’s behavior. It is important to keep in mind that the data represent only the offender's perceptions of the victum- offender interaction. In the 83 cases with victim response data, 23 victims (28%) acqul- esced or offered no resistance as perceived by the offender. As one organized murderer said, ‘She was compliant. I showed her the gun. She dropped her purse and kind of wobbled a second and got her balance and said, ‘All right; I’m not going to say anything. Justdon’t hurt me.’” A total of 26 (31%) victims tried verbal negotiation; 6 (7%) tried to refuse verbally; 8 (10%) screamed; 4 (5%) tried to escape; and 16 (19%) tried to fight the offender. Offender reaction to the victim’s resistance ranged from no reaction in 31 cases (34%) to violence in 24 (25%) cases. In 14 instances (15%), offenders threatened the victim verbally in response to victim resis- tance; in 23 cases (25%) offenders increased their aggression. Thus in two-thirds of the cases assailants countered victim resistance; often (50%) it was met with increased force and ageression. (In 9 cases the offender both verbally threatened the victim and increased his aggression. ) Our analysis of cases, in terms of an organized/‘disorganized di- chotomy, found that of the 83 cases with data on victim response to 74