What are the different classifications of murder for Law enforcement and corners? I have often wondered this as a true crime enthusiast or armchair detective. Since I have been interested in this particular topic for a long time, I have seen changes in verbiage and numerical values. This does not help my OCD of wanting everything to have its place. But understanding what has changed does. Especially when looking at hundreds of newspaper articles, case files, and other resources.

Murder of An Individual

Let’s start with the simplest a single murder is plain murder. This is not to say that there aren’t different types of murder, but for classification purposes, it is one-and-done.

Murder of More Than One Person

Now, this is where it gets complicated, and the confusion begins. So, let’s see if we can break it down into a more relatable format to define.

Mass Killing

The FBI currently defines a mass killing as multiple victims killed in a single incident. An example would be our previous post, High Flying Murder; in this particular case, numerous people were killed in a single act of violence. This could include mass shootings like the Aurora Theater, Oklahoma City bombing, or the Tylenol tampering case from back in the day. Next, mass killing can be carried out by a single person or multiple people.

Spree Killing

And this is where we will encounter a bit of mud, sorry y’all. The FBI’s generalized definition of a spree killer is a person who commits two or more murders without a cooling-off period. The “lack of cooling off” period is the difference between a spree killer and a serial killer.

Here is the mud, a plain and simple definition of a cooling-off period. There isn’t a specific number of days or any particular time frame that I could find to define this portion. What I can say I relate this to more like a killer that perhaps goes from one location to another and commits murders at different locations on a single day or that their “spree” can be over multiple days but in a relatively short amount of time.

For this second one, we are working on an upcoming post(s) about some spree killings that happened in 1975 in Colorado Springs. There were about seven murders in the course of six weeks. Twisted Trail is the post mentioned previously. Spree Killings are carried out by a single person or by a group of people.

Serial Killings

Serial Killings are defined as three or more murders committed over time, with separate incidents. This type of killing has a cooling-off period between incidents. Usually, serial killings have a specific modus operandi, or MO, such as strangulation, stabbing, or shooting off their victims.

Serial killings are further defined as stable killers vs. transient killers. Then these are separated into three subcategories of serial killers, and each of these is classified further by the murderer’s motivations (anger, criminal enterprise, financial gain, ideology, power/thrill, psychosis, and sexually based). Next, we are going to break each of these down.

Stable Killers

Stable killers hunt and kill within a local area and live and work in one geographic location for an extended period; they also tend to have a specific area they dispose of bodies. The stable killers often return to visit murders or body dump sites. An example of a stable killer would be Jeffrey Dahmer. He hunted, killed, and disposed of his victims in a specific geographic area over a long period of time.

Transient Killers

Transient killers move from place to place, and their murders are spread out over large geographic areas; their disposing of bodies is more random; they seldom return to visit crime scenes. An example of a transient killer would be Ted Bundy. He started in the Pacific Northwest and moved across the country, leaving bodies in his wake in multiple states.

Serial Killing Motivations

We will further break down serial killings by motive or motivations for murder; this is where the vocabulary will change significantly, depending on the source of information. FBI lists these as motivations with “categories” of anger, criminal enterprise, financial gain, ideology, power/thrill, psychosis, and sexual-based. Newspapers or other media use “types” and list these as visionary, mission, hedonistic, power/thrill. Yet, other sources break these down as “classifications” of serial killers with organized, disorganized, and mixed lists.

As a blogger or a storyteller, my job is to translate these subcategories consistently. Hence, the whole reason I felt this post was needed, I will typically follow the law enforcement breakdowns with clarification on the broad spectrum of individual cases. For me, this works for the logical side of my brain in sorting information. Before switching to healthcare, I briefly studied criminal justice in my early college days.

I tend to want to be fact-based in my storytelling, with a bit of my perspective thrown in from time to time. Letting the Grim folk know about some of the verbiage differences I will use should help make the experience more enjoyable and easy to follow.

FBI Motivation Categories:

• Anger – is a motivation in which an offender shows rage or hostility towards a particular group/subgroup of the population or society.
• Criminal Enterprise – a motivation in which the offender benefits in status or monetary compensation by committing murder that is drug, gang, or organized crime-related.
• Financial Gain – a motivation in which the offender benefits monetarily from killing. Examples are “black widow” killings, robbery homicides for insurance payouts, retirement benefits, or welfare fraud.
• Ideology – a motivation to commit murders to further the goals and ideals of a specific individual or group. Examples are terrorist groups or individual(s) who attack a specific racial, gender, or ethnic group.
• Power/Thrill – a motivation in which the offender feels empowered and/or excited when they kill their victims.
• Psychosis – an offender with severe mental illness and committed murder due to their disease. This may include auditory and/or visual hallucinations and paranoid, grandiose, or bizarre delusions.
• Sexually – The sexual need or desire is what motivates these murderers. There may or may not be overt sexual contact at the crime scene.

Subcategories

Additional subcategories are organized, disorganized, and mixed.

Organized Killer

An organized killer has an average to above-average intelligence level. Puts effort into their appearance and hygiene and is able to function in society and have long-term relationships. They can even seem charming and outgoing, and their crime scenes tend to be clean and tidy with little to no evidence.

Disorganized Killer

A disorganized killer has an average IQ, and they don’t function well in society. They have issues with relationships. They tend to commit more crimes at night, their crime scenes are chaotic, and they have a good deal of evidence left behind. In addition, they tend to be opportunistic and not preplanned.

Mixed Killer

Mixed killers leave very little evidence behind, and they tend to be opportunistic. Often, a mixed crime scene shows a psychological evolvement. Law enforcement and profilers will also use mixed if they believe there is more than one killer at a crime scene.

I hope all of the Grim folk that took the time to read this will find it helpful and a good reference when confusion arises in future posts on a true crime that we do here on Grimming It Up. Also, please note we will be updating this post with links to cases we feel illustrate some of these definitions.

We plan to do separate posts similar to this one for forensics and legal charge definitions. Aspirations are high. We have already done one on the forensic side called True Crime Lovers Guide to Forensic DNA.

Thank you for spending time with us today. We appreciate each and every one of you!