Motives for Immortality

Sean Mactire says, in his book  Malicious Intent: A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists, and Other Criminal Think, that serial killers are looking for notoriety, immortality even. They are nobodies desperately trying to be somebodies. In a previous post, I stated that serial killers are immature sinners with impulse control problems. They also have delusions of grandeur. They want to upstage everyone in order to show how great they are. There's a myth that states all serial killers want to be caught. In reality, they want law enforcement to get close to catching them, then demonstrate their superior intellect by slipping away at the last second and evade capture. They want to be anonymously famous. 

You, as a writer, can use this in your novels. Mactire divided serial killers into four categories, and although he didn't state it in his book, it looks to me like these four categories are linked to motive. And every antagonist needs a great motive to be a believable character. 

1. Vision Killers. These are classic psychotics (or they claim to be). They hear voices telling them to kill. Many times, the claim is that the voice of God has ordered the crimes, but other times the perpetrator blames the devil. Son of Sam/David Berkowitz claimed that his neighbor's dog, Sam, was possessed by Satan and it was the dog who told him to kill. This claim turned out to be a hoax. Genuine psychosis in serial killers is rare, and if they do hear voices, they are most probably the voices of their own violent fantasies and delusions speaking from the dark depths of the shadow side, as in the case of Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler. Psychosis and related visions/delusions can also be produced by drug abuse.

I think this type of bad guy would be extremely hard to craft, but it can be done. If you're not careful, this antagonist can come across as comical, or worse, stereotypical. This type of killer needs to thoroughly believe that what he's hearing is genuine, and that he reacts to those voices in a believable way. He's also got to blend in with society, at least a little bit, to keep attention away from himself - and that's going to be very hard to accomplish for someone in this mental state.

2. Mission Killers. These killers believe it is their duty or destiny to eliminate certain types of people as a way of cleansing society. This could be the motive for London's recent killer of homosexuals. In other cases, prostitutes are the targets. "Angels of Death"/killer nurses prey on their patients in hospitals and nursing homes, committing what they call mercy killings. These killers can be either psychotic or psychopathic.

This type of killer is definitely the easiest to write of the four categories listed in this post, as they blend into society much easier than the vision killers (providing they're not struggling with some sort of psychotic problems at the same time) and they have a motive that readers can comprehend, as opposed to the pleasure killers.

3. Pleasure Killers (also called Hedonists). These are the killers who are typecast as thrill seekers, those who kill for fun, satisfaction, or for profit. They crave a high standard of living and comfort, and have no interest in conventional labor to support their lifestyle. These would be the "black widow" killers like John Haigh, who killed six people solely for their money. Another subgroup is the "lust murderers." They kill to indulge their sexual desires.

I also find this antagonist difficult to write, mainly because most of my readers wouldn't truly understand why this killer kills. He is so selfish, so childish, so sociopathic (no empathy for others) that he comes across almost comical--up until the moment he kills.

4. Power/Control Killers. These are the psychopaths or sociopaths whose desires are generally not sexual but concern deriving pleasure from control and exerting power over life and death. These killers enjoy watching their victims beg for mercy and cower in fear. The murderers feed off the fear of their victims, almost like vampires.

All of these antagonists would be difficult to write, but if you can nail down why your killer does what he does, you come one step closer to creating a believable killer.

-Sonja

The Predatory Types

Serial killers can be classified into categories according to their geographical preference, says Sean Mactire in his book,  Malicious Intent: A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists, and Other Criminal Think. You might find this information useful when creating a believable antagonist. Or it might just be interesting information to file away for future use. Either way, here are the categories:

Territorial Killer: This guy stakes out a defined area (a city, a county, a street, a nearby park) and rarely deviates from his selected game preserve. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) believes 58 percent of American serial killers fall into this category, including 65 percent of all blacks and 44 percent of all female killers. Son of Sam fits into this category. In my current work-in-progress, my serial killer is roaming the streets of Seattle, picking up homeless teens. 

Nomadic Killer: This baddie travels widely in his search for prey, driving law enforcement agencies crazy as they wander from one hunting ground to the next. Such was the case of Christopher Wilder, who hunted from California to New England, abducting women from shopping malls and killing them. According to NIJ, 34 percent of all serial killers are nomadic, with 34 percent of the black killers and 28 perfect of women killers among this group. The fun part of using the nomadic killer is you're not stuck in one place for your novel. You can go anywhere you want, visit any city you want, and confuse the law enforcement good guys until the very end. Of course, you'll have to plant enough clues and evidence to convict once your protagonist catches up with the antagonist.

Stationary Killer: This is the guy/gal-next-door-type of killer who crouch in wait for victims like spiders in a web. John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer are two of the most famous stationary killers. This killer prefers to commit murder in his or her home or place of employment (like clinics, nursing homes, hospitals...). While only eight percent of all serial killers fit this group, including a small percentage of blacks, NIJ indicates that the majority (28 percent) of these predators are women. Think of Kathy Bates from Misery to see how to use this type of killer in your fiction.

In my next post, I'll discuss four motives in depth.

-Sonja

Killer Stats

I'm pulling all the goodness from Sean Mactire's book,  Malicious Intent: A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists, and Other Criminal Think, in an effort to help other writers create believable bad guys. Today's post might not be very helpful in that arena, but it's sure interesting. I'm talking about the numbers, the stats, the social structure of your basic serial killer.

The media stereotype serial killers as obsessed loners. It's true. Eighty-seven percent of serial killers are loners. Just think of Ted Bundy or Son of Sam. Ten percent hunt in pairs or packs. The media calls them "social killers." Three percent are unknown and may vary their pattern, making them hard to stuff into a category. When you look at these numbers, you can see that it's more likely for your fictional killer to be a loner, but he doesn't have to be. You can create a believable "team" of killers. Check out these numbers:

Of the social killers, fifty-nine percent are composed of men acting in groups that range from two-man pairs to gangs of dozens or more. This includes Dean Corll, who hired other people to procure victims for him. The Hillside Stranglers were a two-man team. Charles Manson had a whole cult to himself. You can go wild with your antagonists, having as many as you want. Just keep in mind that there's always a leader, the one who dominates the team/group, and the more bad guys you put in the group, the higher the likelihood of them turning on each other. After all, they are immature sociopaths with impulse control problems. 

Twenty-three percent of social killers are male/female couples, and eighteen percent are mixed groupings of various sizes. Douglas Clark and Carol Bundy killed several prostitutes together. Alton Coleman and Debra Brown murdered, raped, and robbed over a five-state area in 1984. The thing that makes these male/female groups so horrifying is that many people think women are incapable of these heinous crimes. Sorry to burst your bubble: women can be just as sinful and twisted as men. But readers still picture a male in the role of bad guy, so you can insert some serious twists by having your bad guy end up being a bad girl.

Only two percent of the loner killers are female. They seem to be harder to catch, as the sexual bias that blinds most people to the idea that women are capable of these crimes also extends to law enforcement professionals. Keep this number in mind. If you go crazy and put two female killers in your book, and they're not working together, that'd be an extremely rare case and might not be believable. 

Those are the stats, according to Mactire. Hopefully you can find a use for them.

For what it's worth,

-Sonja

Serial Killers

I'm sharing information from Sean Mactire's book,  Malicious Intent: A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists, and Other Criminal Think, hoping that other writers will find useful information for creating believable antagonists. Chapter 5 is about serial murder. I'm skipping several pages worth of information, so if you want it all, buy his book. Today I'm going to focus on serial murder. I touched on this in a previous post, but now I'll dig deeper.

There are a few similarities between mass murders and serial murders, but there is a difference. Mass murderers kill their victims all at once. They choose a field and try to take the lives of everyone in sight. Serial killers hunt their victims. 

The National Institute of Justice defined serial murder as "as series of two more more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone. The crimes may occur over a period of time ranging from hours to years." Mactire argues that this definition is too broad. He suggests that the working definition of serial murder is any series of murders, committed over any period of time, by either a male or a female, for any motive, and in any location or locations. 

Whichever definition you use, you've always got a perpetrator, two or more  victims, and a motive: everything you need for a great murder mystery. If your antagonist kills his wife in a fit of rage because she didn't vacuum the den, that's not a serial killer. But if your antagonist kills his wife because she didn't vacuum, then he goes out and kills the neighbor's wives to make it look like there's a serial killer on the lose in the neighborhood, then you have the makings of a serial killer. The first victim (the wife) wasn't hunted, but the next several were definitely targeted.

W. Wille, in the book Citizens Who Commit Murder, identified ten different psychosocial categories of murderers. You can look them up if interested, but I didn't find them helpful in my attempt to create a believable antagonist. However, the Justice Department came up with eleven motives for serial murderers that I think are worth sharing:

1. Profit

2. Passion

3. Hatred

4. Desperation

5. Revenge

6. Opportunism

7. Fear

8. Contract killing

9. Power/Domination

10. Compassion (as in mercy killing)

11. Ritual

The last four were flagged as specific motives associated with serial killing. The thing I found most interesting in this list is that everyone experiences these emotions, but most people in society won't let these become a motive for murder. When fashioning your bad guy, he's going to feel at least one of these so strongly that the desire to kill overcomes any desire to avoid the consequences of murder (jail time or execution). 

This is getting long, so I'll continue this discussion in my next post.

-Sonja

FBI Profile - Disorganized Criminals

Sean Mactire's book,  Malicious Intent: A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists, and Other Criminal Think, contains useful information for writers to create believable antagonists. The FBI has classified violent criminals into two main types: organized and disorganized. Today I'll cover the personal characteristics of disorganized violent offenders and their behavior after the crime.

The disorganized offenders characteristics include:

• Having a low to average intelligence (IQ 80-100)
• Being an unskilled worker (maybe  a school dropout)
• Being socially immature
• Having had a rough childhood with a father whose work history was unstable
• Having suffered abuse in childhood
• Being anxious during the crime
• Using drugs or alcohol minimally
• Living alone
• Living and/or working near crimes
• Paying little to no attention to news media
• Being dominated by significant behavioral change
• Being a nocturnal person
• Having poor personal hygiene
• Having secret hiding places
• Not usually dating

The disorganized criminal's behavior after the crime may include:

• Returning to the scene of the crime
• Attending the victim's funeral
• Clipping the obituary
• Turning to religion
• Keeping a diary and/or collecting news clippings
• Changing residence
• Undergoing a personality change

The disorganized criminal:

• Acts spontaneously
• Targets people he or she knows
• Depersonalizes the victim
• Keeps conversation with victim to a minimum
• Creates a chaotic crime scene
• Attacks victim with sudden violence
• Does not use restraints
• May have sex with corpse
• Leaves weapon
• Leaves a variety of evidence

You can see the vast differences between the organized and disorganized criminal (compare to last post, if you've forgotten the organized criminal's characteristics). The disorganized criminal is more likely to get caught, as he's not careful about what kind of evidence he leaves behind, and he feels compelled to revisit the scene of the crime. He's also more likely to possess evidence for the District Attorney once he's been caught. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. However, he's got to be smart enough to get away with it for a while so your book doesn't end half way through chapter three. That's where you as the writer must be clever. Your perp has the means, motive, and opportunity, but so do three or four other characters. The fun part for the reader is sifting through all the clues you offer and trying to figure out who the real bad guy is. Keep this in mind when crafting your disorganized killer. He may have acted out of rage when he killed his sister with a hammer, but he definitely doesn't want to get caught.

Sean Mactire put a profile of Jack the Ripper at the end of chapter 3. Purchase the book (or check the local library) if you're interested in seeing what the FBI came up with for that infamous killer. For my next couple of posts, I'm going to skip chapter 4 and move into chapter 5, The Serial Killer. 

-Sonja

FBI Profile: Organized Criminals

Sean Mactire's book,  Malicious Intent: A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists, and Other Criminal Think, contains useful information for writers to create believable antagonists. I've already covered the FBI's Profile Matrix in the last several posts. In my next two posts, I'll cover areas not included in the matrix, things that move beyond the crime, the crime scene, and the physical evidence. The FBI has classified violent criminals into two main types: organized and disorganized. Today I'll cover the personal characteristics of organized violent offenders and their behavior after the crime.

(Side note: I'm copying this next part word-for-word from Sean's book, and part of me feels that I'm cheating him by giving away his book in blog format. However, I skipped a ton of material near the beginning of the book, and I know I'll skip more in other places, so to get ALL the information, purchase his book. It's worth the investment.)

The personal characteristics of the organized violent offender may include:

• High intelligence (IQ 135+), may be college educated
• Social competence
• Sexual competence
• Living with a partner
• Being an only child or most favored child in family
• Having suffered abuse or harsh discipline in childhood
• Controlled moods
• Maintaining a stereotypical masculine image (note: I'll discuss female criminals at a later time)
• Being charming
• Having moods subject to situational cause
• Being geographically and occupationally mobile
• Following media coverage

The behavior of the organize criminal may include:

• Returning to the crime scene
• Volunteering information
• Being a police groupie
• Anticipating being questioned
• Moving the body
• Disposing of the body to advertise the crime

The organized criminal also:

• Plans the offense
• Personalizes the victim
• Controls conversation with victim
• Controls crime scene
• Requires victim to be submissive
• Uses restraints
• Acts aggressively
• Moves body
• Removes weapon
• Leaves very little evidence

There is a wealth of information here for the writer who is crafting a bad guy (please note the "may" before each bulleted list - not every organized killer will have all these traits). The organized violent criminal appears normal to the rest of the world. He's intelligent. He's socially competent. He's charming and in a relationship. He's got a job. Think of Ted Bundy. The fun (and creepy) part of fashioning this bad guy is the aftermath of the crime. He'll come back to the crime scene, and he'll have his answers well rehearsed when the detectives start asking questions. Good detectives know that sometimes the perpetrator returns to the crime scene, so they take pictures of the crowds and careful notes of who they interviewed. So how does the bad guy get away with it? How does he throw attention away from himself? How does he "take control" of the investigation without pointing a big neon arrow at his own head? That's the fun part! You, writer friend, must come up with a carefully woven plot to throw suspicion on other unsavory individuals who have sufficient means, motive, and opportunity, yet insert enough damaging information that the detective can nab the correct perp in the end--and have the reader think, "yes, that works perfectly, I should have seen it myself."

In my next post I'll discuss the disorganized violent offender.

-Sonja

FBI Profile: Organized Criminals

Sean Mactire's book,  Malicious Intent: A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists, and Other Criminal Think, contains useful information for writers to create believable antagonists. I've already covered the FBI's Profile Matrix in the last several posts. In my next two posts, I'll cover areas not included in the matrix, things that move beyond the crime, the crime scene, and the physical evidence. The FBI has classified violent criminals into two main types: organized and disorganized. Today I'll cover the personal characteristics of organized violent offenders and their behavior after the crime.

(Side note: I'm copying this next part word-for-word from Sean's book, and part of me feels that I'm cheating him by giving away his book in blog format. However, I skipped a ton of material near the beginning of the book, and I know I'll skip more in other places, so to get ALL the information, purchase his book. It's worth the investment.)

The personal characteristics of the organized violent offender may include:

• High intelligence (IQ 135+), may be college educated
• Social competence
• Sexual competence
• Living with a partner
• Being an only child or most favored child in family
• Having suffered abuse or harsh discipline in childhood
• Controlled moods
• Maintaining a stereotypical masculine image (note: I'll discuss female criminals at a later time)
• Being charming
• Having moods subject to situational cause
• Being geographically and occupationally mobile
• Following media coverage

The behavior of the organize criminal may include:

• Returning to the crime scene
• Volunteering information
• Being a police groupie
• Anticipating being questioned
• Moving the body
• Disposing of the body to advertise the crime

The organized criminal also:

• Plans the offense
• Personalizes the victim
• Controls conversation with victim
• Controls crime scene
• Requires victim to be submissive
• Uses restraints
• Acts aggressively
• Moves body
• Removes weapon
• Leaves very little evidence

There is a wealth of information here for the writer who is crafting a bad guy (please note the "may" before each bulleted list - not every organized killer will have all these traits). The organized violent criminal appears normal to the rest of the world. He's intelligent. He's socially competent. He's charming and in a relationship. He's got a job. Think of Ted Bundy. The fun (and creepy) part of fashioning this bad guy is the aftermath of the crime. He'll come back to the crime scene, and he'll have his answers well rehearsed when the detectives start asking questions. Good detectives know that sometimes the perpetrator returns to the crime scene, so they take pictures of the crowds and careful notes of who they interviewed. So how does the bad guy get away with it? How does he throw attention away from himself? How does he "take control" of the investigation without pointing a big neon arrow at his own head? That's the fun part! You, writer friend, must come up with a carefully woven plot to throw suspicion on other unsavory individuals who have sufficient means, motive, and opportunity, yet insert enough damaging information that the detective can nab the correct perp in the end--and have the reader think, "yes, that works perfectly, I should have seen it myself."

In my next post I'll discuss the disorganized violent offender.

-Sonja