ABSTRACT
The objective of this study was to compare French and Canadian sexual murderers, in order to identify their similarities and differences. To this end, the developmental antecedents, general and sexual lifestyles, and pre-crime, crime, and post-crime factors of 142 sexual murderers (French sexual murderers, n = 56, Canadian sexual murderers, n = 86) were analysed. Apart from nationality, French and Canadian sexual murderers are more similar than different. This observation may be the result of the choice-structuring properties of the crime, i.e. that there are only a limited number of ways of committing any given crime. Thus, both angry and sadistic sexual murderers were present in the French and Canadian samples, albeit in different proportions. It therefore appears that country-specific socio-cultural factors may favour the development of different types of sexual murderers, by influencing their coping strategies (e.g. drug abuse, deviant sexuality).
