The first article examines the incidence of homicide and manslaughter for 1989 in the Netherlands with particular focus on an international perspective. A forensic psychiatric investigation of 124 cases of spouse killing between 1950 and 1980 focuses on the psychodynamic factors that can lead to a spouse killing. Another article presents a tentative topology of religiously motivated killings for West European and North American christians in recent times. An additional investigation attempts to find a cultural explanation for the high incidence of homosexual murders by North African and Turkish boy prostitutes in Amsterdam during the 1980s. Lastly, the increasing frequency of serial murders in the United States is explored looking at the history and features as sources of the causes.