The Impulse Murder

     Murders cannot always be explained or understood. While the majority of criminal homicides are motivated either by greed, lust, power, fear, rage or mental illness, every once in awhile someone takes a life for no apparent reason. These cases are disturbing because there is a need to make sense out of such deviant, violent behavior.

     In 1958 Dr. Marvin Wolfgang (1924-1998) a criminology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, coined the term "victim precipitation" in his classic text, Profiles in Criminal Homicide. 

     According to Professor Wolfgang, in a high percentage of criminal homicides the victim contributed to his or her fate by being the first to begin "the interplay of criminal violence" such as drawing a weapon or striking the first blow. In terms of motive, these homicides are easy to understand.

     In his 1967 book The Subculture of Violence Dr. Wolfgang found that a high percent of criminal homicides are crimes of passion that are "unplanned, explosive and determined by sudden motivational bursts." These killers act so quickly on their impulses there is simply no time for reasoning or restraint. Homicide investigators are familiar with subjects who have killed people for the smallest of reasons such as a casual argument over an insignificant point, a minor insult or a mild frustration over something trivial. Investigators call these killings "simplicity of motive" cases.