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.
Psychology of a killer 