- They do not have motives for their murders.
- They have no personality structures and do not fit into the usual theories of development espoused by people like Freud or Kohut.
- They are not psychopaths because psychopaths can have the ability to control what they do, think, and feel.
- They are not mentally retarded; most of them have an above-average intelligence.
- They are not psychologically complete human beings, even though they can mimic and play roles.
- They have not all been sexually abused, nor have they all been physically abused.
- They are addicted to killings and they cannot control their actions.
- Serial murder is not a phenomenon only of Western society. It happens around the world.
- Serial murder is not a new phenomenon. It probably began with the most primitive of societies thousands of years ago.
Source: My Life Among Serial Killers. Inside the Minds of the World’s Most Notorious Murders (2004) by Helen Morrison, M. D. and Harold Goldberg
Point 8 is interesting. The old Soviet Union had a serial killer. Keep in mind USSR back then was one of the most controlled society. They were supposed to represent a socialistic utopia. And then there was Jack the Ripper.
I believe most serial killers don’t use guns to commit murder. Why? Because most serial killers are hands on. They want to watch their victims die. And they want to cause a lot of pain. It’s hard to do that with a gun.
As I was reading this book, simultaneously I was reading the novel Kiss The Girls by James Patterson. If you don’t know it’s a novel about two serial killers that became “buddies.” If you can believe that.