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Ressler et al. / MURDERERS WHO RAPE AND MUTILATE raised by MacCulloch and colleagues about acting out sadistic fan- tasies, this article discusses results of an assessment of the relation- ship between sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence and sexual interests, activities, and deviations in convicted sexually oriented killers. METHOD Apprehension of a crime suspect is the job of law enforcement. In many crimes, this task is fairly straightforward when a motive (e.g., robbery, revenge) has been identified. However, in many crimes the motive is not readily apparent. FBI agents became involved in assisting local law enforcement agencies in their profiling of un- solved homicide cases in the early 1970s. ‘These crimes, often referred to as ‘‘motiveless,” were analyzed by the agents to include a sexual component. The agents, sensitive to crime scene information, began their own efforts at classifying characteristics of the murderer by virtue of evidence found at the crime scene. From this evidence they devised a new typology that characterized crime scene patterns as being organized or disorganized. This typology inferred a motiva- tional framework that included expectations, planning, and justi- fication for the criminal action as well as “hunches” regarding postcrime behaviors. As a result, particular emphasis was placed on the thinking patterns dominating the murderer's actions indicating differences in acts committed against the victim and suggesting sub- categories of motivational constructs. The selection of subjects and methodology used to develop the organized/disorganized typology are reported elsewhere (Ressler etal., 1985). Briefly, FBI special agents collected data in various U.S. prisons between 1979 and 1983. The data set for each murderer con- sisted of the best available data from two types of sources: official records and interviews with the offenders. To qualify for the study, a murder had to be classified through crime scene observations and evidence as a sexual homicide. These observations included the following: victim attire or lack of attire; exposure of sexual parts of the victim’s body; sexual positioning of victim’s body; insertion of foreign objects into victim's body cavities; or evidence of sexual intercourse. Primary analysis was conducted on information about the crime scenes of 36 sexually oriented murderers. 84