ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one specific aspect related to elderly sexual abuse: the lethal outcome. As discussed in previous chapters, some cases of elderly sexual abuse result in the death of the victim. Although some have suggested that the death of the victim was largely due to the fragility of elderly females, the circumstances around how and why the offender kills the victim during the sexual assault remains unclear. To shed some light on an understudied phenomenon, we are examining three specific aspects related to cases of elderly sexual abuse that result in the death of the victim. First, to better understand why some offenders kill the victim during the sexual assault of an elderly victim, we compare cases with a lethal outcome to cases of violent sexual assault of elderly females. Second, we compare cases of elderly sexual homicide with cases of younger adult sexual homicide. Such comparisons are undertaken to examine whether elderly sexual homicide is a distinct criminal event that involves a specific crime-commission process. Third, the chapter looks at a specific classification of elderly sexual homicide to investigate whether this type of crime involves different motivations, similar to elderly sexual abuse. Overall, the findings show that offenders who kill the victims during elderly sexual abuse use a distinct crime-commission process. Moreover, sexual homicide offenders of elderly victims are different from sexual homicide offenders of younger adult victims. Offenders targeting elderly victims use a specific crime-commission process, different from when the victim is younger. Finally, elderly sexual homicide involves four different motivations, similar to elderly sexual abuse. Moreover, these four motivations are related to specific victim and crime characteristics.
