Low Down

The actions of serial murderers from a behavioral approach - looks at behaviors that can be observed rather than the individual’s internal workings, moreover, “only individuals can observe their perceptions and feelings, but someone else can observe your actions.” Consequently, it seems more reasonable to consider crime scene actions as experiences of behavior rather than particular manifestations of intrinsic psychopathology. The behavioral approach to classifying serial murderers’ actions suggests that an individual’s actions are the result of interaction between personality characteristics and the social and physical conditions of the situation. An inductive behavioral approach to modeling serial murderers sees behavior as mostly being consistent across a number of situations rather than specific to a  particular environmental context. By employing the inductive behavioral approach, trends in how serial murderers behave from one crime to the next can be explored. Researchers oft...

Freud concluded in his Theory of Sexuality that such perversions as sexual murder and necrophilia as in this quotation “It is impossible to deny that in their case a piece of mental work has been performed which, in spite of its horrifying result, is the equivalent of an idealization of the instinct.” Freud’s statement seems to set the direction for the classification of the serial murderer’s aggression as a sexual perversion, and many theorists have argued that the disorganized murderer kills primarily for sexual gratification. The asocial (disorganized) serial murderer is described as a loner, withdrawn,and more cowardly in his crimes. His crimes are often committed without aplan, and the victims are usually attacked in a blitz style. Some researchers suggest that the disorganized crime scene reflects a serial murderer whose motivation consists of uncontrolled sexual drives, reflected by the murderer’s inability to control impulsive behavior or change his action in consideration of o...

The FBI’s initial project on serial murder began in 1978. The impetus for the project was to conduct personal interviews with serial murderers about their crimes in order to find out how they were successful at avoiding capture. The primary purpose of the serial murder project was to use interviews with convicted killers as a basis for constructing future classifications, which then could be used to aid police investigations. A series of interviews with 36 incarcerated offenders, of whom 25 were defined as serial murderers.    Prior to the interviews, data sources on each offender and his crimes were obtained by reviewing crime scene photos, physical evidence, court transcripts, victim reports, autopsy reports, prison records, and psychiatric reports. However, no detailed analysis of this material has ever been presented. Instead, a simple dichotomy was claimed to emerge from the project by which offenders were classified either as organized or disorganized. The assignment of ...