by Scott Bonn
CHAPTER 5
THE MOTIVES, RITUALS, AND FANTASIES OF SERIAL KILLERS
Thus far is this book, we have defined serial homicide, discussed its prevalence in the US, debunked popular serial killer myths, and explained the contributions of criminal profiling and forensic psychology to our understanding of serial killers. We have also explored how certain antisocial personality disorders, particularly psychopathy and to a lesser extent sociopathy, are linked to serial murder, and we explored how antisocial personality traits can be predictive of specific predatory criminal behavior. As discussed, a chronic disregard for the laws of society and an inability to emotionally connect with others characterize psychopathic serial killers. However, psychopathy alone cannot fully explain the diverse patterns, rituals, motivations, and fantasies of serial killers.
This chapter is devoted to an in-depth exploration of the varied and complex motivations and ritualistic behaviors of serial killers. I’ll explain the diverse motivations of serial killers, including differences by gender. Also, I’ll compare and contrast the various categories and sub-types of serial killers such as thrill killers, hedonist lust killers, and power/control killers, which have been identified by the FBI and criminologists. In addition, I’ll present compelling case studies and important new insights into the varied motivations and lurid fantasy lives of serial killers. Expanding on chapters 3 and 4, this chapter also addresses the significant contributions of criminal profiling and clinical psychology to the identification and classification of serial killers.
The Secret Desires and Motivations of Serial Killers
As explained in chapter 3, tremendous attention has been paid to the psychological profiling of serial killers in recent decades by the news and entertainment media. The aspect of criminal profiling that seems to fascinate the general public the most is determining the motivations of serial killers. This is likely due to the fact that many people have a deep and compelling need to understand why someone would stalk and kill other human beings. The almost incomprehensible desires of serial killers elicit morbid fascination among the general population, social scientists, and even the law enforcers who hunt them.
In the criminal justice process, knowing the motivations of an unknown perpetrator helps detectives form a suspect pool in a serial murder investigation. Although the same approach is used to identify an unknown killer’s motivation in any homicide investigation, it is far more complicated in a serial homicide case. As mentioned previously, the majority of homicides are committed by someone the victim knows and, in many instances, knows well. The overall homicide pattern in the US reveals that more than two-thirds of all victims know their killer. In fact, many homicide victims, especially females, know their killer intimately. Such killings are considered crimes of passion due to the intimacy of the relationship between the victim and offender. Recognizing that most homicide victims do know their killer, detectives focus their attention on the relationships closest to the victim, particularly during the early stages of an investigation. This strategy is successful in leading detectives to the killer in the majority of homicide investigations.48
Unlike most murderers, however, serial killers are rarely acquainted with or involved in a relationship of any kind with their victims. Rather than committing crimes of passion, serial killers, especially psychopathic serial killers, are emotionally detached from their victims, and they generally view them as objects. Serial killers are cold-blooded, meticulous predators who are driven to kill by compulsion rather than by passion. Because serial homicide typically involves strangers, there are no relationships between the killer and victims for detectives to investigate. This means that a serial murder investigation is a much more nebulous and complex undertaking than other homicide investigations. Given the lack of an obvious connection between the serial killer and his or her victims, criminal investigators must try to determine the motivations of the killer in order to establish a suspect pool and identify the perpetrator.
In the next few pages, I examine the leading motivations of serial killers and explain the various types and categories of serial killers that have been identified by homicide experts. Many serial killings seem to be completely devoid of meaning or motivation on the part of the criminal. In actuality, however, there is great diversity in the needs and desires of serial killers that lead them to extinguish the lives of others. Sometimes, the act or process of murder can be an end in itself for them. One aspect of popularly held beliefs and media stereotypes that often holds true is that most serial killers derive great satisfaction from the act of killing. The gratification they receive from the act of murder differentiates them from one-time murderers who kill incidentally—that is, to help commit or conceal another crime. Stated differently, serial killers have a chronic and overwhelming need to commit murder that distinguishes them from those who kill one time because it serves other criminal interests.
It may seem to be counterintuitive on the surface but many serial killers are actually insecure individuals who are compelled to kill due to a morbid fear of rejection. In many cases, the fear of rejection seems to result from having been abandoned by their mothers in early childhood. Infamous serial killers who were rejected or abandoned by their birth mothers include David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, and Joel Rifkin. Some serial killers such as Edmund Kemper were tormented, abused, and even tortured by their birth mothers. A neophyte serial killer who was traumatized as a child will seek to avoid painful relationships with other human beings as an adult. He will particularly seek to avoid painful relationships with those he desires or covets. Such fear of rejection may compel a fledgling serial killer to want to eliminate any objects of his affections. He may come to believe that by destroying the person he desires prior to entering into a relationship with them, he can eliminate the frightening possibility of being abandoned, humiliated, or otherwise hurt by someone he loves, as he was in childhood.
As explained by the FBI in its 2005 report on serial homicide, a serial killer selects victims based on availability, vulnerability, and desirability.49 Availability is primarily determined by the lifestyle of the victim or circumstances in which he or she is involved that may provide the offender access for an attack. For example, a single female who regularly spends her evenings alone at home is available for a break-in attack by a serial predator. Vulnerability is defined as the extent to which the victim is at-risk or susceptible to attack by the offender. A single female walking down the street at night is less vulnerable to attack if she is accompanied by a large dog. Desirability is highly subjective and is described as the attractiveness or appeal of the victim to the offender. Victim desirability involves numerous factors related to the motivation of the offender and may include characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, body type, or other specific criteria established by the serial killer.
The FBI Perspective on Serial Killer Motivations
At its symposium on serial homicide in 2005, the FBI and other experts in criminology and forensic psychology had an in-depth discussion about the motivations of serial killers. The attendees made a number of observations and recommendations for serial homicide investigations related to these motivations. As presented by the FBI in their report entitled Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators, the specific observations made by attendees at the symposium were:50
• The motive can be very difficult to determine in a serial murder investigation.
• A serial murderer can have multiple motives for committing his or her crimes.
• A serial killer’s motive(s) can evolve both within a single murder and throughout the series of murders.
• The classification of motivations should be limited to observable behavior and conditions at the scenes of the murders.
• Even if a motive can be identified, it may not be helpful in identifying a serial murderer.
• Utilizing investigative resources to discern the motive instead of identifying the offender can derail or bog dow
n an investigation.
• Investigators should not necessarily equate a serial murderer’s motivation(s) with the level of injury.
Finally, regardless of the specific motive(s), most serial killers commit their crimes because they want to. The exception to this would be those few serial killers suffering from a severe mental illness for whom no coherent motive exists.
Categories of Motivation Defined by the FBI
The attendees at the 2005 FBI symposium on serial murder suggested that broad, non-inclusive categories of motivation be utilized as guidelines for criminal investigation. They argued that such categories can assist law enforcement authorities in narrowing the pool of suspects in a serial homicide case. The attendees at the symposium identified seven general categories of motivation to be used as guidelines for investigative purposes. The categories are not intended to be a complete measure of serial offenders, nor are they intended to comprise a theory of their motivation. As concisely reported by the FBI in 2005, they are: 51
• Anger is a powerful motivation in which the offender displays rage or hostility toward either a certain subgroup of the population such as the homeless or society as a whole.
• Criminal enterprise is a motivation in which the offender benefits in status or monetary reward by committing murder that is drug, gang, or organized crime related. For example, murder may be perpetrated by a drug gang in order to eliminate its competition.
• Financial gain is a motivation in which the offender benefits monetarily from killing that is not drug, gang, or organized crime related. A few examples of these types of crimes are “black widow” killings (explained in the next section), robbery homicide, or multiple killings involving insurance or welfare fraud.
• Ideology is a motivation to commit murder in order to further the goals and ideas of a specific individual or group. Examples of these include terrorist groups or individuals who attack a specific racial, gender or ethnic group out of sheer hatred for the group.
• Power/thrill is a motivation in which the offender feels empowered and/or exhilarated when he kills his victims. The act of killing is an end in itself.
• Psychosis is a rare situation in which the offender is suffering from a severe mental illness and is killing specifically because of that illness. The condition may include auditory and/or visual hallucinations and paranoid, grandiose, or bizarre delusions.
• Sexually-based is a motivation driven by the sexual needs or desires of the offender. There may or may not be evidence of sexual contact present at the crime scene.
Holmes and Holmes Typology of Serial Killer Motivations
There are several recognized theories of serial killer motivation. Perhaps the most widely accepted and most comprehensive involves a four-fold typology of serial homicide developed by criminologists Ronald Holmes, Stephen Holmes, and James De Burger.52 Based on in-depth interviews with a number of incarcerated serial killers, these criminologists concluded that serial killers are generally either act-focused or process-focused.
In the case of act-focused killers, who typically kill quickly, the motive for murder is the act itself. Within the act-focused group, there are two different types: visionary killers and mission-oriented killers. Process-focused serial killers, on the other hand, derive satisfaction from the torture and prolonged suffering of their victims, so they typically kill slowly. Within the process-focused group, there are two types: hedonists and power/control killers. Hedonistic serial killers are thrill seekers who derive immense pleasure from their murderous exploits. Additionally, there are three sub-types of hedonists: lust, thrill, and comfort/gain killers. The second type of process-focused serial killer—that is, the power/control killer—is highly organized and primarily motivated by dominating and controlling the victims. Such predators often use pain as a method of control and torture as a ritualistic token of it.
Holmes, Holmes, and De Burger astutely noted that not every serial killer fits neatly into the typology they designed, and some killers can represent more than one type. Nevertheless, their typology provides an insightful and useful framework to analyze the complex motives of serial killers. Let’s look at each serial killer found in the Holmes and Holmes typology (as it is now called) in order to understand his or her unique motivations. The following discussion of the Holmes and Holmes typology is expanded from the discussion presented by Peter Vronsky in Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters.53
Visionary Killers
Visionary serial killers are act-focused. They commit murder at the command of imagined internal or external voices, which they experience and perceive to be real. Such individuals are often suffering from either psychoses or some other form of mental illness. Visionary killers typically experience a psychotic break from reality that leads them to murder. While most serial killers have an ideal victim they seek out (e.g., white female prostitutes), visionary killers select their victims seemingly at random based on logic that is indiscernible to either investigators or forensic psychologists. Their murderous agenda is entirely synchronized to their internal madness. Consequently, visionary killers almost always fall into the FBI’s disorganized category of serial killers because of the mental illness that typically drives their criminal offenses. Some visionary killers come to believe that they are someone else while others feel compelled to murder at the behest of entities such as the Devil or God. Both “God mandated” and “demon mandated” serial killers are fairly common and well documented.
Herbert Mullin, a visionary serial killer who murdered thirteen people in the early 1970s, believed that American casualties in the Vietnam War were somehow preventing a catastrophic earthquake in California. As the war wound down and US casualties decreased, Mullin claimed that a supreme voice had told him to raise the number of “human sacrifices” in order to delay an earthquake that would plunge California into the ocean. Following his eventual capture, Mullin confessed to his crimes and claimed that the reason there had not been a catastrophic earthquake in California was due to his murderous handiwork. After interviewing him in prison, the late FBI profiler Robert Ressler asserted that Mullin was a paranoid schizophrenic and his mental illness may have been accelerated by the use of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD in his youth.
David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam,” is frequently cited as a classic example of the visionary serial killer. Berkowitz, also known as the “.44 Caliber Killer,” shot thirteen people during his reign of terror in New York City during 1976 and 1977. In handwritten letters he sent to the police and press prior to his arrest, Berkowitz claimed that Satan was ordering him to kill. There has been a persistent claim by certain law enforcement officials and journalists over the years that Berkowitz killed at the behest of Harvey, a black Labrador retriever owned by his neighbor Sam Carr, believing that the dog was a demon sending him murderous messages through its incessant nocturnal barking. I debunk this popular myth in chapter 6 based on my personal correspondence and in-depth interview with David Berkowitz.
Mission-Oriented Killers
The second type of act-focused serial killer is the mission-oriented killer who seeks to improve the world according to his own biased and self-serving standards. Mission-oriented killers will typically justify their murders as being necessary to rid the world of a group of people that they perceive to be undesirable. Such groups may include prostitutes, the homeless, or those who are different from the killer in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
Unlike visionary killers who are often mentally ill, mission-oriented serial killers are rarely clinically insane. They are likely to be perfectionists and highly compulsive. They are often stable, gainfully employed, and long-term residents of the geographical territory in which they kill. Mission-oriented killers are highly meticulous in their crimes. They plan their murders with great precision and they kill their victims quickly and efficiently. Thus, mission-oriented killers generally fall into the FBI’s organized category of serial killers.
A classic mission-oriented killer is Joseph P. Franklin, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, who was convicted in 1980 of four homicides, including a sniper shooting of two black men who were jogging with a white woman in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the shooting of an interracial couple in Madison, Wisconsin. Franklin justified and rationalized his compulsive and ritualistic killings by saying, “Race mixing is a sin against God and nature . . . I feel it is my duty as a servant of God to protect white womanhood from injury or degradation,” as reported by Peter Vronsky.