A lust murder is a homicide in which the offender stabs, cuts, pierces, slashes, or otherwise mutilates the sexual organs or areas of the victim's body. The mutilation of the victim may include evisceration and/or displacement of the genitalia. It also includes such activities as posing and propping of the body in different positions, generally sexual ones; insertion of objects into bodily orfices; anthropophagy (the consumption of human blood and/or flesh) and necrophilia (the performing of sex acts on a human corpse).

A lust murder begins with the obsessive compulsions of the offender. Generally, they have a sexual obsession with their victims, and organized lust murderers may stalk their victims for months or weeks before the actual killing. The signature component of the crime, that which names it a lust murder, is the killer acting out their fantasies with their victims and the bodies of those victims.

References

• Vernon J. Geberth, M.S., M.P.S. (1998). Anatomy of a Lust Murder. Retrieved Dec 27, 2003 from http://www.practicalhomicide.com/articles/lustmurder.htm