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Ressler etal. 7 CRIME SCENE ANALYSIS derers. This interactional component between victim and murderer and its social impact needs to be addressed constantly if there is to be a balance tn the understanding of such violence. The voluminous scholarly and professional literature on murder traditionally has focused on the murderer and has presented a variety of ways to classify murderers (Lester, 1973; Wolfgang, 1958). Simon (1977) emphasizes that identifying personality profile types is crucial to the task of offender treatment and prediction of dangerousness for the prevention of murder. Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1967) identify two basic behaviors of murderers: (1) premeditated, intentional, felonious, planned, and rational murder; and (2) killing in the heat of passion or slaying as a result of intent todo harm, but without a specific intent to kill. They observe, ‘Many authors fail to distinguish between two basic types of murderers” and clarify that their concentration is on the second type, the “passionate”’ killer. In contrast, the type of killer frequently profiled by agents at the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, who investigate unsolved murders at the request of local law enforce- ment officials, are those who not only plan their murders but who repeat their crimes. The professional literature regarding murder victims has been relatively silent. When the interpersonal aspects of murder have been considered, victims are conceptualized in limited ways. One of the most pervasive ways of analyzing victims has been through the concept of victim precipitation and victim Participation, a concept explored by sociologists and criminologists such as von Hentig (1940), Mendelsohn (1963), Wolfgang (1958), and Schafer (1968). The victim is one of the causes of a crime, suggests Hans von Hentig. In 1948 he stated, “In a sense the victim shapes and molds the criminal. ... To know one we must be acquainted with the comple- mentary partner.’’ Mendelsohn (1963, pp. 239-241), in writing of the biopsychosocial personality of the accused and of the victim, elabo- rated on the doctrine of victimology while preparing for the trial ofa man who, had it not been for “the perversity of his former wife,” would never have been found guilty of murdering her and her lover, Wolfgang (1958) has utilized the concept of victim precipitation in his well-known studies of criminal homicide, applying it to those cases in which the “role of the victim is characterized by his having National Institute of Justice (¥82-CX-0065). We wish to acknowledge gratefully Pierce Brooks and Marieanne L. Clark for contributions to earlier drafts of this article. 62