When those are just the precursors to the horrible murder, I’d have to say yes, magnitudes worse.
Because on one hand you get brutally murdered, and on the other you get brutally raped and brutally murdered.
Makes perfect sense to me.
So to be clear, when something is magnitudes more than something else, that means on the scale of 100-1000x more, or even higher powers of ten. If rape + murder is magnitudes worse than murder, then definitionally rape alone must also be magnitudes worse than murder.
Of course multiple atrocities are worse than a single atrocity, but talking about one being magnitudes worse than the other, to me seems to immensely downplay the seriousness of the other.
For example, to me “murder is magnitudes worse than petty theft” would be an appropriate use of the word.
I’m aware of the definition of the word, yes. And I stand by what I said.
Then I think I’m not understanding something here, maybe you can explain (asking genuinely). Because it seems to me that what you said doesn’t make sense with the definition of the word?