Although psychological gratification is the usual motive for serial killing, and most serial killings involve sexual contact with the victim, the FBI states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking.

The murders may be attempted or completed in a similar fashion.

The victims may have something in common, for example, demographic profile, appearance, gender or race.

When the serial killer murders his first victim, he activates what is known as cyclical mechanism, entering a circular complex mental process, like an addiction, which leads him to kill again.

The murder becomes the transposition of one or more mental images within a real context and the dynamic process is bound to repeat itself with particular features of rituals.

The imagination is the fundamental elements of human psyche.

Through imagination any mood, such as anger, for example,begins to take shape oriented towards a specific goal and specific direction.

Imagine and kill. - Serial killer.

Distorted thinking phase: The subject is unable to properly assess the impact of a deviant act, as he fails to consider the consequences and is more interested in the emotional gratification that can result from his actions.

Motivational phase: The stimulus is perceived as something personal and the distorted mentality of the subject produces a disproportionate response to incidents.

Inner negative answer phase: at this point the murderer has to deal with feelings of inadequacy, especially when there are negative messages from the society that surrounds him.

External negative response phase: this element helps the subject to confirm his superiority as a person. There is no kind of interest in the possible consequences of his criminal actions.

Restoration process: This phase restores the balance that the subject had at the beginning of the process. The killer also thinks about how to minimize personal risks in upcoming murders.

The subject, therefore, completes the cycle and returns to the distorted thinking phase.

Some individuals show a biological predisposition to violence due to deficits of the brain system which involve a low level of frustration tolerance. In the volatile brain structure, stress events and environmental traumas are added.

He prefers to retreat into a private world of fantasies which satisfy him. After having committed the murder, the killer is ready to start the destructive cycle and become a serial killer. He chooses the victim and after the murder spends a period of relative calm in which he elaborates and relievs the murder he has just committed in his fantasy, until, once more.

Not all abused children become serial killers, and not all serial killers are victims of childhood abuse. However, the connection between the two cannot be dismissed as just coincidence. Personal traumas can affect behavioral choices.