ABSTRACT
Compulsive murderers can be envisioned as falling on a hypothetical continuum. On one end are those who plan their crimes in exceptional detail and discharge their compulsion with such care that they often go undetected for long periods of time. On the other end are those individuals who also harbor an internal compulsion to kill but who act out in an unplanned, impulsive, spontaneous fashion, leaving a great deal of evidence at the crime scene; they are often apprehended after the first or second offense. In between these extremes, however, lie most compulsive offenders, who exhibit a mixture of both planning and spontaneity in their criminal acts.
