Two or more murders are needed for something to be described as serial murder, but is the Holmes and Deburger typology the only exaplantion for ‘serial murder’, in the case of mass murders one could argue that random killing at one period of time does not constitute for serial murder. Mass killings usually come in the form of a religious standpoint, this can be seen in the Westgate mall attack in 2013, in which the extremist Islamic group al-Shabaab killed 67 people. The purpose of the attack was to kill all non muslims and any muslims who could not recite the shahada, this type of killing can be linked to missionary killing, in which the perportators thought they were ridding the world of evil by murdering.
However mass and spree killings
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Visionary killers tend to be very disorganized and random, one of the most infamous of this type is David Berkowitz otherwise known as the “Son of Sam”. Secondly there is the Missionary killer who kills who they believe to be the unwanted undergrowth of society such as homosexuals, prostitutes, and people of different religions and ethnicities. The murders then to happen in quick succession of each other and are non-sexual in their nature, a popular example of this is Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber) who was anti-technology …show more content…
Further subdivided into lust killers (sex addicts), thrill killers (compulsive risk takers), and profit oriented (hitmen). Peter Vronsky argues that lust killers typically need intimate skin-to-skin contact in their killings and often use a knife or strangulation to murder. Jeffrey Dahmer often fantasied obsessively about lust, this lead him to murder and cannibalize seventeen men and boys in Wisconsin and Ohio between 1978 and 1991. Lust killing is probably the largest section of serial killers. Sexual gratification is their main motivation. Their crimes almost always exhibit a certain element of sadism.
Finally, the Power/Control killers, known as A Jekyll and Hyde killer who wants to totally dominate the victim, and plans crime in extreme detail. This killer derives pleasure and gratification from having control over the victim, and considered to be a ‘master’ at what he does. His motives are driven by the need for power and dominance over another human