Nine Things That are Common Among Serial Killers

1. They do not have motives for their murders.
2. They have no personality structures and do not fit into the usual theories of development espoused by people like Freud or Kohut.
3. They are not psychopaths because psychopaths can have the ability to control what they do, think, and feel.
4. They are not mentally retarded; most of them have an above-average intelligence.
5. They are not psychologically complete human beings, even though they can mimic and play roles.
6. They have not all been sexually abused, nor have they all been physically abused.
7. They are addicted to killings and they cannot control their actions.
8. Serial murder is not a phenomenon only of Western society. It happens around the world.
9. 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.