What Are Different Motives of Serial Killers?

Serial Killers have many different reasons for what they do to people, these reasons are called motives. Motives are the things that cause people to act a certain way or do a certain thing. Different motives give serial killers the lust to kill; motives can be as simple as anger or as complex as the fear of rejection by a specific age group. The most common motives are, “visionary…Power/Control…Mission…Hedonistic”(Holmes). If we were to break down each of these categories into simpler terms: visionary would be hallucinations, power/control would be control over people, mission would be revenge or elimination, and hedonistic would be thrill. Almost all killers fit into one of these categories, as a reason for their actions of murder. According to a study done at Radford University and FGCU, about 1% of motives are visionary, about 40% kill because of Power/Control, about 12% kill because of a mission, and about 50% kill because they are hedonistic(Aamodt). If you look at these statistics it shows that most killers kill because of the thrill or lust. What this means is that the killer gets a natural high from the blood or the act of taking a life. The killer will become addicted to this high and so they will start to kill more. Most of the time, if this is their motive, they will find this high by starting at the bottom. They will start by killing small animals and when they realize how good it makes them feel they will start to kill bigger animals more often. This killing eventually escalates to the kill of people on a regular basis. One of the least mentioned motives is a gang or cult. Some murders happen just because of people that get involved in gangs and so they have to kill to prove they’re worth being in the gang. As for cults some people are raised in an area or family that has a very strong prejudice towards a race. This sometimes leads them to join a cult which is a type of group or gang that dislikes or has a hatred towards a certain type of person. These cults can become very violent to the point of killing this type of person.One example of a cult is the KKK, also known as the Ku Klux Klan. This cult has a hatred towards African american people, on their personal website they refer to African Americans as: “to destroy these things.”. Many cults like this become vicious and end up murdering the people they hate. Those are the broad categories of motives for killers, a simpler motivation can be emotion. Some of the serial killers in the world will kill from pure emotion without a true motive that fits into one of those categories. When certain people experience an emotion stronger than they’ve ever felt they do not know how to express it so they end up murdering someone. These kinds of serial killers tend to regret their kill more than a usual killer, because they did not expect to be a murderer. Serial killers have too many reasons to kill, but the motivations tend to be similar between them.

Works Cited

Holmes, R., and J. DeBurger. “The Serial Killer.” The Mind of a Serial Killer. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.

Aamodt, M. G. (2014, September 6). Serial killer statistics. Retrieved 11 November, 2015 from http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/serial killer information center/project description.htm

Robb, Thomas. “America, Our Nation Is Under Judgement from God!” Welcome to the Ku Klux Klan. Rachel Pendergraft, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2015.

Are There More Male or Female Serial Killers? Why?

There are some myths on this topic, saying that there are only male serial killers and this is not the case. Although there are female serial killers, there is a very large difference between the number of male serial killers and the number of female serial killers. Some studies say that there is so much difference simply because of the hormones inside of females versus the hormones in males. According to studies done by Radford University and FGCU, from 1900 to 2013 there were 3,514 male serial killers and 356 female serial killers (Aamodt). These statistic represent serial killers inside the U.S. and International serial killers. Many different websites have a different number of the total amount of female serial killers but they are all in close proximity. The book Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters, Author Peter Vronsky says: “between 1800 and 1995….females — a total of 62 killers.”(Vronsky). It is clear that men take up the larger amount of serial killers, but why is this? Not many websites or books can explain exactly why this is the case, but one website had an explanation. The explanation stated that, “which can have markedly different effects on men and women – gender construction.”.(Hughes) Gender construction is the minor things we are taught as children. The fact that we give boys toy guns and girls flower dresses actually has an effect on how they act. According to many sources women are not born more caring than men but instead women get to use the emotion of compassion more often were as men use the emotion of anger and violence. So yes, it is the way people teach their children that cause more violence in men. Most likely there will always be more violence in men than women but we may never know.

Works Cited

Hughes, Ian. “Why Are Men More Likely to Be Violent than Women?”TheJournalie. N.p., 26 Feb. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.Vronsky, Peter. “Female Serial Killers: How Many?” Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters. New York: Berkley, 2007. N. pag. Print.
Aamodt, M. G. (2014, September 6). Serial killer statistics. Retrieved (insert date of retrieval) from http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/serial killer information center/project description.htm