Five bizarre motives for murder

As a mystery writer, I’m always thinking of bizarre motives for the murder. There are many reasons to kill people. Some are acceptable; I mean, in self defense. Others, like war, are debated. And then there are those who are just plain weird, weird, bordering on excessively… weird. Because?

Reading the news is proof enough that we are not as sane as we think. There are daily stories of escalating trouble, violent actions, overreactions, and just plain shit spilling over… for the police to clean up.

Here are some examples of bizarre motives for murder:

1. Serial killers

Hannibal, Jack the Ripper and other psychopaths come to mind. These guys are consistent with their operation; basically ordinary men or women, who have developed a rather dangerous fascination with murder; and they do it quite excellently.

The characteristics of the targeted victims can range from age to hair color, or anywhere in between. Even among murderers and convicts, they are the ‘weird kids’ (I mean, the weird kids among the weird kids).

Sometimes they leave clues to experience the ‘thrill of the chase’, making for interesting TV shows, books and movies. Meanwhile, we ignorant citizens go about our daily lives with that serial killer who could be our postman, driver, handyman, or neighbor. Fortunately, we’re not his type. Oddly enough.

2. gang related

When you think about it, this is one of the most stupid and bizarre reasons to murder someone. Most of the time it comes down to revenge or taking back what’s been taken; power struggles and basically rumblings from alpha males. Many gang related murders occur because someone lives on the wrong side of town.

Wait; I mean, the reason they kill is because you live in 14 and the other one lives in 88. Well, if that’s not motivating enough to ‘bust their asses off’, I don’t know what is.

So many teens and teens have been caught up in this form of senseless violence that they nicknamed it Chiraq, a mix of Chicago and Iraq.

3. “He looked at me the wrong way”

These are alpha males who have a problem with their masculinity, or femininity, as the case may be; hanging out with a beer in hand, looking for someone to incite them in some way, violence seekers with an apparent hunger for altercations.

Mostly always in top shape and ready to give away death…for free, I might add.

4. rituals

Yes, there are deadly rituals. Sign. When we think of fatal rituals, we think of Jonestown, where preacher Jim Jones urged 600 of his followers to drink arsenic and kill themselves.

This kind of quasi-ritual mass suicide went down in America’s history of mass death as a black mark on the free world; the tomb was, in fact, a huge mass of debris.

5. Protest

The protests fall somewhere between stupid and brave. A couple of years ago, an Egyptian went to a job interview and didn’t get it. He used his last change to buy gasoline, wrote a suicide letter, and doused himself with fire.

This bizarre and bizarre act led to a nationwide protest that caused the president to resign and an effective revolution to take place. In cases like this, murder or suicide, as the case may be, is not just murder. It becomes an instrument for great change.

So there you have it; Five strange motives for murder. Strange, yes?