The overview chapter discusses definitions of murder, legal degrees of murder, manslaughter, justifiable and excusable homicide, homicide statistics, homicide victims, killers' characteristics, regional differences in murder rates, weapons used, and general typologies of murderers. The chapter on partner homicide examines statistics on spousal homicide, who is at risk, where the crimes occur, weapons used, perpetrator profiles, legal defenses, and policy implications. A chapter on the murder of children considers the prevalence of this crime in the United States, fatal child abuse, the characteristics and treatment of pedophiles, and parents and stepparents who kill. A chapter on mass murder examines the definition of mass murder, its incidence, and the classification and typology of mass murderers. The remaining chapters, which discuss hate-group homicide, mass murder, serial murder, homicide by terrorists, sex-related homicide, and juvenile murderers explore trends, methods, motives, statistics, and other descriptive information. Each chapter concludes with suggestions aimed at prediction and prevention. 250 references and a subject index