Phase One: Antecedent Behavior and Planning

The first phase of the murder, the initial planning, is influenced by the murderer's precrime stress factors and frame of mind; these factors lead to the behavior expressed by the murderer at this particular time in the vicious murder cycle.

Precrime Stress Factors

The killer's mental and emotional state before he murders are influenced in varying degrees, by his environment and actions that are taking place. Murderers often express the fact that there are overbearing stress factors, or stress factors, that cause their behavior; although they are not always aware of the issues behind the stress factors, that actually in turn play a key part in their motivational processes. Lethal stress factors include: conflict with females, parental conflict, financial stress, marital problems, conflict with males, birth of a child, physical injury, legal problems (which aren't exactly improved once you start killing), employment problems, and stress related to a death.

About 50% of murders by sexual serial killers are due to some form of conflict with females. However, some murderers reveal that although their immediate stressor was due to a woman, there were often times other factors underlying the matter, as described by a serial killer:

I had broken up with my girlfriend three days before, and I was feeling a lot of anxiety and pressure. Then the day after this [the murder] happened, she called to say she was sorry and she wanted to see me. Knowing what I'd done and everything, I didn't want to see her. So I stayed away from her for about two weeks.... I didn't [commit the murder] just because I was mad at my girlfriend... There was peer pressure; there was outside pressure from school. I had been slacking off in my studies because my girl and I started to have trouble a month or so before this all happened. I felt a combination of things as far as [causing] what actually took place. It was pressure from home to bring up my grades, to get a job, etc.

Frame of Mind

Frame of mind is a dominant emotional state that acts as a primary filter and interpreting mechanism regarding external events. The frame of mind of offenders just before the crime revealed highly negative emotional states such as: frustration (50%), hostility and anger (46%), agitation (43%), and excitement (41%). Along with these emotional states were internal turmoil related to nervousness (17%), depression (14.6%), fear (10%), calm (8.8%), or confusion (7%). These data suggest that there is little emotion experienced by the killer that reflects any sense of vulnerability, thereby permitting the killer to interpret the behavior of his victim in the most negative manner. The frame of mind and mood states demonstrate how the killer supports his negative cognitions and is able to justify his criminal acts.

Precrime Planning

50% of killers say that their murder is planned and intentional. They usually know who, when, and where they are going to murder before it actually takes place; when the right combination of the previous variables exists, they commit the crime and label it opportunistic. The precrime plans improve after each murder; each new experience gives the offender insight into his next murder. For example, the man who broke up with his girlfriend right before his first murder. He had not conscious plan for his first murder, but he carefully planned subsequent murders to avoid being apprehended. It is important to keep in mind that the premurder, cognitive processes with each new murder is directly related to development of their sadistic fantasies. Another 34% of killers recognized that they had a congruent mood state to murder and were open to opportunities. The remaining 16% of killers viewed their acts as being spontaneous and unplanned. These men were not aware of any thoughts or emotions building up to result in murder.

Motivations for murder may include a conscious fantasy, plan, directive, or reason to kill (those who are consciously motivated remember their pre-murder thoughts). One killer explains, "I had a compulsion during the day and hoped it would settle down- hoped I could wipe it out drinking." It is important to recognize that results of surveys detailing the mind set of serial killers are likely to be slightly misleading. This is because they are purely based on responses and opinions about the killers, from the killers.

Precrime Actions

The precrime actions of killers in the days and hours before the murder provide clues to their mental states at the time of the murders. Many offenders are involved in criminal or violent activities in the day before the murder. Often times, sexual serial killers commit fetish burglaries, breaking into homes to steal items that for them have some sexual relevance. Some prime examples are: one man assaulted and threatened his wife, forcing her to write a suicide note, later he killed three women; another killed neighborhood dogs shortly before the murder; a killer who killed five people within one week, set several fires and shot off his gun inside his apartment and from his car in the days preceding the first murder. In the hours immediately before the murders, killers go searching for victims: cruising the single bars, parking lots, gay bars, gay districts, or highways for hitchhikers to locate victims. These hours usually involve alcohol and drugs; victims may briefly meet their killers by drinking or smoking-up with them. Precrime behavior leads to the actual act of murder. In this first phase, the victim selection and some triggering factors combine to lead to the murder itself.

Victim Selection

Often times a murderer will select his victim so that they will perfectly fit the characteristics of a victim he had previously visualized in his fantasies. He will go "hunting" every night for a victim. Because they have a specific type in mind, they would wait until an appropriate on appeared. In some cases, the victim will some how relate to a disturbing part of the killers history (disturbing to him that is), or will be symbolic of someone in the murderer's past. For example, one killer had numerous conflicts with his mother, who often reminded him of his inability to develop relationships with a certain type of woman. The killer than hunted attractive, wealthy, female college students - the women his mother claimed were unattainable for him. Some victims are selected by certain actions or subtle movements they make when first happening upon the killer, as described by a killer of hitchhikers: "She was playing up the role, the big beautiful smile and getting in the car, which was kind of tragic, but she had advertised to get blown away." Killers who do not have any notion of premeditation claim that a victim may be selected by eliciting certain responses within him. For instance, someone may remind him of his belief in an unjust world. This manifests the killer in him because of the feelings of unfair treatment, further justifying the crime.

Triggering Factors

Most murders, when describing the serious of events leading up to a murder and the murder itself, express the fact there was something in particular that started the impulse to kill. These factors enforce them to act out their fantasies of killing or to murder in order to preserve fantasies. The murder interprets his acts as being triggered directly by alcohol or the woman herself. Control is the main characteristic of fantasies and it is the desire to gain control that leads to murders. A victim's attempt to flee, may enrage or upset the murderer because it indicated he may lose control. In one case the victim's behavior did not match the rapist's fantasy of an exceptionally good sexual experience. The man kept ordering the woman, which indicates his desired fantasy of how he intended the sexual assault to proceed. Her lack of "cooperation" crushed his fantasy and he proceeded to kill her. Another murderer recalled the triggering factor of all of his murders, but was unable to recall the murder itself. His fantasy was based on control and dominance; the victim's resistance made him murder to preserve his fantasy:

We were upstairs and I was taking my clothes off. That's when she started back downstairs. As a matter of fact, that's the only time I hit her. I caught her at the stairs.... She wanted to know why I hit her. I just told her to be quiet. She was complaining about what time she would get home and she said her parents would worry. She consented to sex..... then I remember nothing else except waking up and her dead in the bed.

As previously described, a killer will hunt for his victim until he finds one the perfectly fits his criteria. The event of actually encountering the ill-fated person acts as the trigger for the murder. Internal dialogue that preoccupies the killer will contain thoughts of anger, discontent, irritability, or depression. Alcohol and/or drug abuse is an attempt to moderate such internal stress, but the sadistic fantasy continues:

It was the same as with the other one. I had been drinking at the bar. I don't even remember leaving. I don't know what made me kill her. I saw her get into her car and I walked up and got in the car with her, yelled at her, took her down there where I raped her. I kept telling her I didn't want to hurt her, but I just started choking her.

This ends our discussion of phase 1, please continue to Phase 2, the murder itself, or check these sites out: