How Can They be Organized?

The definition of a serial killer (different from mass and spree murderers) is a person that murders three or more people with "cooling off" periods in between the killings. These cooling off periods are different for each killer, and could last anywhere from hours to years. They generally do not kill for greed or jealousy, work alone, and do not just "go crazy" one day and decide to kill multiple people.

Most serial killers have been classified in two ways: motive, and organization and social patterns.

The motive method can be further broken down into a system known as the Holmes typology. The Holmes typology is broken down into "act-focused" killers and "process-focused" killers. For act-focused killers, it is all about killing itself. They kill quickly, and are separated into two groups: visionary, who kills because he hears voices or has visions that tell him to do so, and missionary, who kills because he believes he is meant to get rid of a particular group of people. The process-focused killers enjoy the torture of the victims, and kill slowly. Some of them are power-seeking, who want to "play God" or be in charge of someone's life or death, or hedonists. Among the hedonists, there is the one that kills for lust, who receives sexual gratification, the one that kills for thrill, who gets a "kick" from killing, and the one who kills for gain, because he believes he will profit from killing someone. The system is slightly flawed and will not fit all killers, but it has been useful in classifying some.

As for the organization and social patterns, there is organized and disorganized and nonsocial and asocial. The majority that have been identified are organized and nonsocial.

Many serial killers keep killing until they are caught, die, kill themselves, or burn out.

Thankfully, the Behavioral Analysis Unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a special team that is trained to create profiles for serial killers to help determine where they might strike next, and to help stop them in their tirade of immoral activity. The more information they collect, the closer it may bring the world to help discover methods that can help discern who might be a serial killer before they begin killing, and to greatly decrease the death rate due to these killings.