The Six Motivations of a Serial Killer

Determining the motive of a serial killer can be an extremely difficult task. All manner of factors may be involved, with many of them stretching back into the killer's childhood. But, broadly speaking, the primary motivation tends to fit into one of 6 categories.

Visionary

The visionary serial killer is the stereotypical (though actually surprisingly rare) mentally ill murderer who kills on the instruction of auditory and/or visual hallucinations. Of course, most people who suffer from severe mental illness are not serial murderers, and even some schizophrenic serial killers are judged to be legally sane.Take the case of Herbert William Mullin, for example. In the 1970s, he killed 13 people after hearing voices that told him he had to kill in order to prevent California from being struck by a massive earthquake. Everyone agreed that he was schizophrenic, but he was still judged to be responsible for his actions, and was declared legally sane by the courts. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mission-oriented

The mission-oriented serial killer kills out of a warped sense of duty. He believes that it is his mission to rid the world of a certain type of person (e.g. prostitutes or homosexual people). He might suffer from delusions, but he differs from the visionary killer in that he is not acting on the instructions of hallucinations.

Gain

Gain motivated serial killers are simply people who kill for profit. They believe that the act of murder will bring them some sort of material gain, whether in the form of money, property, or something else (people who kill for the attention that they think it will bring them would also fall into this category). A good example of this type of serial killer is mafia hitman Richard 'The Iceman' Kuklinski, who is thought to have killed over 100 people on the orders of mob bosses. He charged thousands of dollars for each 'hit', and money appears to have been his primary motivation.

Lust

A very common motivation for a serial killer is lust/sex. Some serial killers of this type are essentially rapists who kill in order to cover their tracks (after all, a dead victim can't talk to the police). But there are also serial killers for whom the actual act of murder is sexually arousing. And a surprising number of serial killers have a sexual attraction to corpses. Ted Bundy, for example, would often return to his dead victims to perform sexual acts on their corpses, only stopping when decomposition made further sexual intercourse unfeasible.

Thrill

Many serial killers find that the act of taking another life gives them a kind of adrenaline rush or 'high'. For some, it is this 'high' that serves as the primary motivation for their ghastly crimes. It is, it seems, literally possible to become addicted to murder.

Power/Control

Lots of people feel a need to be in control, and there is nothing wrong with that in moderation. But some people take it to extremes. There is a certain type of serial killer who feels the need to completely and utterly control and dominate another individual to such an extent that they are willing to kill for this experience. Such killers may have experienced severe abuse/neglect as a child. This makes them feel powerless and angry. They start to fantasize about taking revenge on the people who wronged them (or people who remind them of their abusers), of having complete control back, and mending their own damaged egos in the process. For most people, this never goes beyond fantasy. But for some, the fantasy gets stronger and stronger until the desire to act upon it can no longer be resisted. Then a serial killer is born.

Serial killers are complex individuals, and as such it should not come as too much of a surprise that a large number of them fail to fit neatly into any single category. For example, Ted Bundy would attack and sexually assault attractive young females in a manner characteristic of a lust killer. But he also exhibited a need for a level of control and dominance characteristic of a power/control motivated murderer.

You might also be interested in:
Jeffrey Dahmer - The Milwaukee Cannibal, Ted Bundy - The Charismatic Killer, John Wayne Gacy - The Killer Clown