Of the sample, 95 percent were white males and 65 percent came from middle class backgrounds. However, at least half had famility histories that included infidelity and divorce, suggesting that chaotic or unstable early life are more likely to be associated with these offenders that lower class origins. Unlike other types of sex offenders, sexually sadistic serial murderers generally had no arrest record prior to their arrest for murder. This fact, combined with their highly specific criminal intent, makes their identification and apprehension especially difficult.

The sample revealed that these men usually displayed numerous other paraphilias -- such as voyeurism, obscene phone calls, exhibitionism and fetishism -- simultaneously with their sadistic behavior. Consistent violent fantasies, featuring a ritualized, repetitive core, were present in 85 percent of the group. The assimilation of the core fantasy into repetitious behavior across successive murders suggests that the fantasies are the script followed by the offender during his crime. Evidence of such scripted behavior can be useful in linking offenses by the same offender. Similarly, 75 percent of the murderers in the study kept collections of a violent theme, including audiotapes, videotapes, pictures or sketches of the subject's sadistic acts, sexually sadistic pornography or various types of weapons. Discovery of such a collection can help prove the perpetrator's guilt. Finally, the study helped dispel the belief that such men were "insane." Instead, it was shown that the majority of these men engaged in extensive patterns of anti-social behavior in adult life, suggesting that their criminal behavior extends from character pathology rather than psychosis.