Deviant Behavior

ISSN: 0163-9625 (Print) 1521-0456 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/udbh20

Application of the Serious Leisure Perspective to

Intrinsically Motivated Serial Homicide

D J Williams & Jolene Vincent

To cite this article: D J Williams & Jolene Vincent (2018): Application of the Serious
Leisure Perspective to Intrinsically Motivated Serial Homicide, Deviant Behavior, DOI:
10.1080/01639625.2018.1461737

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2018.1461737

Published online: 16 Apr 2018.

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DEVIANT BEHAVIOR
https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2018.1461737

Application of the Serious Leisure Perspective to Intrinsically

Motivated Serial Homicide
D J Williamsa,b and Jolene Vincentc
a
Department of Sociology, Social Work & Criminology, ISU College of Arts and Letters, Idaho State University, Pocatello,
Idaho, USA; bCenter for Positive Sexuality, Los Angeles, California, USA; cDepartment of Sociology, UCF College of
Sciences, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article briefly introduces the multidisciplinary field of leisure sciences Received 23 January 2018
before exploring how leisure theory, particularly the Serious Leisure Accepted 13 March 2018
Perspective, can provide important insights into better understanding
some forms of serial homicide. It is well known that many serial homicide
offenders kill for the pleasure and enjoyment that such behavior provides
them. Such expressive cases can be understood as deviant casual, serious,
or project-based leisure experience, which helps account for how particular
offenders plan, structure, and experience their crimes. Examples of specific
serial homicide cases that appear to function primarily as casual, serious, or
project-based leisure are presented and discussed.

Introduction
Years ago in their introduction to a special issue on serial and mass homicide, Meloy and Felthous
(2004) noted that, consistent with the study of human behavior more generally, the scholarly study
of serial homicide is likely to be most fruitful by incorporating diverse types of both nomothetic and
idiographic research methods. Indeed, while the study of serial homicide has commonly applied
traditional positivist and postpositivism methods, scholars have also investigated their topic from
qualitative approaches, such as social constructionism, feminism, and phenomenology (i.e., Bartels
and Parsons 2009; Cluff, Hunter, and Hinch 1997; Skrapec 2001a; Warwick 2006).
Regarding disciplinary perspectives, the study of serial homicide typically has been approached from a
range of fields representing social and behavioral sciences and occasionally the humanities (for reviews,
see Fox and Levin 2015; Hickey 2016; Miller 2014a, 2014b). From a neuropsychiatric perspective, a recent
systematic review by Allely et al. (2014) found that significant percentages of serial murderers have
experienced real or perceived extreme psychological abuse, neglect, or head injuries as children, or show
characteristics of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). A review of 45 studies by James and Proulx (2014)
found that serial sexual murderers, despite low rates of Axis I diagnoses, tended to be socially isolated and
rejected, lacked adequate knowledge of sexuality, yet frequently turned to paraphilic behavior and
masturbation as an apparent means of coping. Scholars have also pointed out important sociological
and cultural factors associated with serial homicide (i.e., Branson 2013; DeFronzo and Prochnow 2004;
Ioana 2013; Warwick 2006), including the strong undercurrent of modernism (Haggerty 2009; Leyton
2005) and a sociological process of becoming a serial killer (Forsyth 2015). After reviewing the multi-
disciplinary research, Lee and Choi (2014) advocate for more theoretical integration in understanding
serial homicide. However, conspicuously absent to the multidisciplinary literature on serial homicide has
been the field of leisure science (often called leisure “studies” outside of North America), yet this field
may yield important insights into understanding the topic.

CONTACT Jolene Vincent JoleneVincent@knights.ucf.edu Department of Sociology, UCF College of Sciences, University of
Central Florida, Howard Phillips Hall, 4000 Central Florida Blvd #403, Orlando, FL 32816
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 D. J. WILLIAMS AND J. VINCENT

The field of leisure science has strong theoretical roots in sociology and social psychology and
focuses on what people do for fun, enjoyment, pleasure, and recreation, along with closely related
questions pertaining to who, how, where, and why. Leisure scholars, then, commonly explore how
people spend their free time, and what types of experiences are intrinsically motivated and thus
personally meaningful and enjoyable. As a foundational concept, leisure has resisted a precise
definition and has been conceptualized as activity (behavior), time, setting, or mental state
(Kleiber, Walker, and Mannell 2011). However, scholars agree that whatever form (in terms of
activity, time, setting, or mental state) it occurs, leisure experience must be relatively freely chosen
and intrinsically motivated by participants. Leisure properties commonly include pleasure or enjoy-
ment, positive emotions, adventure or relaxation (depending on the particular leisure experience),
stress release, and self-expression. Thus, the scholarly analysis, involving the application of leisure
research or theory, of a variety of expressive, intrinsically motivated forms of criminal activity, may
be considered a particular form of an emerging forensic leisure science (Williams 2006, 2017a).
Indeed, exploring serial homicide, specifically, via leisure science is likely to provide valuable new
insights into how offenders plan, structure, and experience homicidal activities, which then comple-
ments existing scholarship from other branches of forensic science and criminal justice.

Serial murder as potential leisure

Experts know, of course, that serial homicide offenders often kill for the pleasure and enjoyment
it gives them, consistent with the German concept of lustmord (Leyton 2005; Skrapec 2001b).
Serial killing frequently is intrinsically motivated (Skrapec 2001b), and the fact that many
offenders spend extensive time planning and sometimes rehearsing murders suggests that such
killings are also, to a large degree, relatively freely chosen. Thus, most forms of serial homicide
meet the two essential criteria for personal leisure experience. Numerous high-profile serial
homicide offenders, of course, have explicitly stated that they greatly enjoyed killing, including
Jack the Ripper, Keith Jespersen, Dennis Nilsen, Carl Panzram, Manuel Pardo, Dennis Rader, and
Lawrence Bittaker (Newton 2006).
A consideration of leisure dimensions (activity, time, setting, or mental state) is directly relevant
for generating insights into understanding mobility differences among serial homicide offenders as
described by Hickey (2016); specifically, (a) those who travel to kill; (b) those who kill locally; and (c)
place-specific offenders who murder in their homes or in their employment settings. For example,
serial murderers with jobs that require frequent travel, such as long haul truck driving, have
opportunities to kill given the nature of their employment, yet they engage in murder as a form
of leisure experience (providing pleasure and perhaps releasing stress), which then complements
their occupational logistics. Conversely, serial murderers who kill locally seem to do so in a manner
consistent with common forms of everyday outdoor recreation, such as hunting, fishing, swimming,
or skiing. Properties of outdoor recreation have been outlined by Clawson and Knetsch (1966),
where recreationalists (a) look forward to an upcoming leisure experience (anticipation); (b) travel to
the nearby recreation site and engage in the recreation activity onsite; (c) travel back home; and (d)
afterward reflect on the enjoyment that the recreational activity produced. It would appear, then,
that serial homicide may be a form of outdoor recreation for some offenders who follow this
particular leisure process in their killings.
In summarizing the literature on place attachments, Kyle (2016) noted that place attractiveness
(or aversion) for leisure has multiple interpretive dimensions, including cultural meanings and
symbolism, collective histories, and most importantly, personal and subjective meanings. These
characteristics of place attachments may help explain, in addition to logistical matters, why some
serial murderers prefer to kill repeatedly in the same specific settings. More research on this
possibility would be valuable. Indeed, innovative research on leisure as activity, time, setting, and
mental state in relation to distinctions of geographic mobility preferences of serial homicide
offenders could provide rich, new insights helpful to both scholars and practitioners.
 DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 3

Serious leisure perspective (SLP): classifying multiple homicide as leisure

For the past 40 years, Robert Stebbins has worked to describe (and more or less classify) the many
diverse forms of leisure experience, which he calls the Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP). According to
SLP, specific forms of leisure experience can be understood as falling somewhere on a continuum with
casual leisure at one end and serious leisure at the other. Stebbins (1997, 2001a) describes casual leisure
as being immediate, primarily hedonic, intrinsically rewarding, short-lived pleasurable activity that
requires little or no training. Casual leisure is often spontaneous and playful; its benefits are largely
associated with stress reduction, relaxation, and restfulness associated with restoring life balance
(Stebbins 2001a, 2001b). Types of casual leisure include play, relaxation, passive entertainment, active
entertainment, sociable conversation, and sensory stimulation (Stebbins 2001a). On the other hand,
serious leisure is so interesting to participants that they put forth significant time and effort in
acquiring and expressing its special skills, knowledge, and experience (Stebbins 2001b, 2015). Such
leisure pursuits thus become career like and require planning, ongoing effort and perseverance, and
special skills, while producing durable benefits and rewards leading to formulation of a specific leisure
identity (Stebbins 1982, 2001b, 2015). Serious leisure participants include amateurs, hobbyists, and
volunteers, and benefits associated with participation include cherished experiences, gaining new
knowledge and skills, self-expression, self-image, and self-gratification (Stebbins 2001b, 2015).
Leisure scholars building on Stebbins’ research have emphasized that serious leisure pursuits are
diverse and sociopolitical, and thus are influenced by the broader social and cultural environment
(Gallant, Arai, and Smale 2013). Stebbins (2005a) also described a third major form of leisure,
project-based leisure, which is “a short-term, moderately complicated, one-shot or occasional though
infrequent, creative undertaking carried out in free time” (p. 1). Although only a one-shot or
occasional undertaking, project-based leisure incorporates the properties of both casual and serious
leisure and shares benefits with serious leisure (though it is not intended to be career like), but often
has additional social rewards depending on the particular type of leisure project (Stebbins 2005a).
Interestingly, the relevance of classifying leisure according to the typology developed by Stebbins
appears to be useful in providing new insights not only in cases of serial homicide, which is the focus
of the present article and will be addressed shortly, but perhaps also in cases of mass murder that are
expressive and intrinsically motivated. Indeed, some episodes of mass murder appear to function as a
form of leisure for those offenders who enjoy the intense anticipation and actual experience of killing.
For example, the Columbine High School shooters clearly enjoyed planning and executing mass
murder, and eyewitness reports of several mass shootings report that offenders appeared calm, some-
times even smiling or laughing, as they killed victims (Aitken et al. 2008; Fox and DeLateur 2014).
In cases of multiple murder that seem to function as leisure for the offender(s), it appears that a
consideration of the casual-to-serious leisure continuum, along with project-based leisure, is valuable
in assessing potential factors that may contribute to the temporal dimension of homicidal behaviors.
For example, school shootings (mass murders) likely function as a mephitic form of project-based
leisure, in that such events are pleasurable for perpetrators as, to use Stebbins’ definition cited
previously, a “short term, moderately complicated, one-shot or occasional though infrequent,
creative undertaking carried out in free time.” As (leisure) projects, mass murders are carefully
planned (often for weeks or months), require extensive preparation, and most frequently are
motivated by revenge and power (Fox and DeLateur 2014; Fox and Levin 1998, 2015).
Interestingly, one of the personal benefits of participation in typical project-based leisure experi-
ences, such as dramatic plays, elaborate parties, or pageants, is to be recognized as a creator/
participant in the project (Stebbins 2005a), which, in cases of murder-as-leisure, would help satisfy
offenders’ intense cravings for revenge and power. Cases of spree murder engaged in for pleasure
also may reflect project-based leisure if the sprees are carefully planned and prepared, or perhaps
murder sprees may lie somewhere on the casual side of the casual-to-serious leisure continuum if the
murder series is somewhat more spontaneous, involves less planning and preparation, and requires
little knowledge or skill to execute.
4 D. J. WILLIAMS AND J. VINCENT

A few scholars have suggested that serial homicide is a rare form of deviant leisure (Gunn and
Caissie 2006; Rojek 1999; Williams 2017a; Williams and Walker 2006), and Williams and Walker
(2006) classified serial murder primarily as a violent form of serious leisure, specifically. Warren,
Dietz, and Hazelwood (2013) reviewed numerous cases of sexually motivated serial murder and
reported that many such offenders are “collectors,” that is, they meticulously preserve evidence of
their crimes, such as videotapes, audio-tapes, photographs, sketches, journals, maps, and narrative
stories, and keep various objects (or occasionally body parts) belonging to victims. Regarding the
types of serious leisure pursuits, Stebbins (2001b) classified collecting activities (i.e., coins, stamps,
and sports cards) as a particular category of hobby; thus, perhaps the sample discussed by Warren
and colleagues engage in homicidal behavior as serious, intolerable, criminal deviant leisure
(Williams and Walker 2006) in the form of a unique hobby.
Although Williams and Walker (2006) have classified expressive serial homicide primarily as a
potential form of serious, rather than casual or project-based, deviant leisure, there appears to be
more diversity in cases with respect to SLP than they realized. Indeed, more generally, Ramsland
(2006) has argued that serial homicide offenders are diverse offenders with varying specific motiva-
tions and do not fit neatly into categories. As the present article suggests, such diversity among serial
homicide also applies to killing as a particular leisure activity. While it appears that serial homicide
cases that include collecting behaviors (Warren, Dietz, and Hazelwood 2013) reflect attributes of
serious leisure, other cases may be skewed closer toward the casual side of the SLP continuum. In
other words, a particular offender who repeatedly engages in homicidal activities primarily for
enjoyment, pleasure, and/or fun may do so as a unique form of leisure that is more or less casual
or serious, though each case may be unique in where it falls on the casual-to-serious leisure
continuum. Perhaps in very rare cases, serial homicide may be carefully structured and executed
as a creative project without the intention of killing developing into a serious leisure pursuit.

SLP: serial homicide as casual leisure

Consistent with Stebbins (1997, 2001a) definition of casual leisure, cases of serial homicide that
primarily reflect this form of experience likely would display the following characteristics: sponta-
neity (compared to lengthy planning), little preparation, absence of (or minimal) torture, and
relatively simple methods of victim capture, kill, and body disposal. Offenders who kill as a form
of casual leisure occasionally may take trophies and various simple items from victims as a way to
preserve fond memories, but such behavior is of far less significance compared to collecting behavior
associated with serious leisure cases, and thus are not essential. Cases of serial murder as casual
leisure likely reflect, somewhere in the process of homicide, one or more types of legitimate casual
leisure identified by Stebbins (1997): play, relaxation, passive entertainment, active entertainment,
sociable conversation, and sensory stimulation.

Case example: Gerald Stano

Gerald Stano was born in the state of New York on September 12, 1951. As a young child, Stano was
removed from his mother according to a report by the New York State Welfare Department citing
“extreme neglect” (Kelly and Montané 2011:18). Despite clinical concerns regarding serious devel-
opmental problems, Eugene and Norma Stano adopted the young child. As an infant, Stano was
physically uncoordinated and sometimes ate his own feces, yet was extraordinarily neat and orderly
(Kelly and Montané 2011). During adolescence, he reportedly was teased by girls and sometimes
bullied. He attended military school in Virginia, but eventually was sent to live in Florida where the
parents of his adopted mother lived.
Stano also loved fast cars and listening to music. Newton (2006) quoted one detective on the case
as saying Stano “thinks about three things: stereo systems, cars, and killing women” (p. 249). On
April 1, 1980, police questioned Stano regarding him assaulting and stabbing a sex worker in a hotel
 DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 5

room during the previous week. During the interrogation, he confessed to the attack and also to the
murder of Mary Carol Maher. He eventually confessed to the murders of up to 40 women, mostly
sex workers and hitchhikers, over a span of 11 years (Kelly and Montané 2011).
When asked what made him kill repeatedly, Stano stated, “I would be drinking, and lonely, and
thinking about all the couples having fun together, and here I am single and having no fun at all.
Then I would go out riding around, and I would find a girl walking, and hopefully she would get into
my car…” (Kelly and Montané 2011:5). After picking up victims and driving around in his car, Stano
would often seek sex before suddenly battering them. Most often, victims were quickly shot, stabbed,
or strangled before being covered superficially with branches.
Clearly, Stano enjoyed killing, which was directly connected with his other chronic primary
leisure interests—music and his cars. He took pride in his knowledge of cars and skill at auto care
and accessory, his primary serious leisure pursuit, while listening to music and cruising were his
frequent casual leisure activities. For Stano, the typical process of killing began with a need to do
something fun. He would drive around in his car listening to music (relaxation and passive
entertainment); drink alcohol to help produce pleasant alterations of mood (sensory stimulation);
and look for a young woman to pick up (sociable conversation), have sex (sensory stimulation), and
kill (sensory stimulation and perhaps active entertainment). Although the murder process included
multiple components of casual leisure, the essential component was the killing itself. In this case, the
murder process as a “combined type” of casual leisure (Stebbins 1997:20) was relatively immediate,
pleasurable, and intrinsically rewarding, and the lethal and nonlethal violence inflicted required little
planning or skill by the offender.

Case example: Nannie Doss

Nannie Doss, referred to by the media as the “Giggling Grandma,” was born on November 4, 1905,
and like many serial murderers, Doss endured a turbulent childhood. At age 30, Doss began killing
family members across a time span of two decades. To neighbors in her Tulsa, Oklahoma commu-
nity, she appeared to be a friendly and content member of her community. However, on October 6,
1954 she was arrested for the murder of her fourth husband, and authorities then recognized that
three of her previous husbands, along with several other close family members, had died under
mysterious circumstances consistent with poisoning. According to Hickey (2016), although Doss
collected on insurance policies, the amounts were not significant and she killed with morbid delight,
even laughing and smiling while confessing her murders to police. Consistent with criteria for
leisure, generally, Doss chose to kill and she killed for the pleasure and satisfaction it provided her.
Upon investigation, authorities confirmed that Doss’s victims died from simple arsenic poisoning.
Casually adding rat poison to stewed prunes or coffee provided active entertainment and sensory
stimulation for Doss, and required little-to-no skill as an immediately pleasurable activity. Thus, this
case appears to be almost, if not entirely, serial homicide as a form of casual deviant leisure.

SLP: serial homicide as serious leisure

Unlike homicide as primarily casual leisure experience, serial murder as potential serious leisure
involves planning, preparation, sufficient skill, perseverance, and effort. Because serious leisure pursuits
of all varieties require substantial effort and perseverance, the personal rewards must exceed such costs
(Stebbins 2005b). In cases of serial homicide as serious leisure, offenders devote far more time and
energy into the process of murder than those who kill casually. Particular activity components of the
homicide process may require a certain amount of skill, and there is more complexity reflected across
the process as a whole. These offenders may spend large amounts of time reading about other serial
murderers, and they may adopt particular terms specific to the phenomenon of serial homicide.
Acquiring expertise is an essential aspect of serious leisure, generally (Stebbins 2001b, 2015), and
forensic scientists recognize that some homicide offenders intentionally seek specific skill and expertise
6 D. J. WILLIAMS AND J. VINCENT

to successfully execute their crimes, including avoiding detection (Brookman 2015; Collins 2008).
Offenders who enjoy killing as form of serious leisure strongly identify as a unique serial killer, and
they murder as a form of personal expression. Like many legitimate leisure activities, some offenders
may begin dabbling in killing (casual leisure) with no initial intention of turning it into a serious
pursuit. Many, however, begin killing as an operationalization of a specific fantasy; thus it is a serious
leisure activity from the beginning of their killing careers.

Case example: Robert Hansen

Robert Christian Hansen was born in Iowa on February 15, 1939. As a child, Hansen was very shy
and had a stutter. He had a severe case of acne during adolescence, which contributed to a lack of
desirable attention from attractive girls at school (Newton 2006). During his youth, Hansen worked
at his father’s bakery, and later opened his own successful bakery in Anchorage, Alaska. In Alaska,
Hanson became a skilled outdoorsman and big game hunter, and he taught himself to fly a small
airplane to help navigate inaccessible Alaskan terrain.
At age 44, Hansen was investigated for the kidnapping, rape, and torture of a woman who had
escaped from his plane prior to flight (Warren, Dietz, and Hazelwood 2013). Earlier that summer, he
apparently had sent his wife and son on a European vacation so that he could more easily engage in
killing women (Newton 2006). Eventually, authorities discovered that Hansen had murdered 17
women between 1973 and 1983, while raping 30 more who survived (Newton 2006). Police
discovered an aviation map hidden behind the headboard of his bed, marked with locations where
the bodies of some of his victims had been found (Warren, Dietz, and Hazelwood 2013). They also
discovered a hidden space in Hansen’s attic where guns, jewelry, various items stolen from victims,
and newspaper clippings of the murders were located (Warren, Dietz, and Hazelwood 2013).
Hansen enjoyed killing victims who had resisted his demands for sex. His unique murder process
included elements of his other serious outdoor leisure pursuits, big game hunting, and flying.
Hansen would abduct victims, fly them in his two-seater plane to remote wilderness locations,
then turn them loose and quietly hunt them down, and shoot them. Warren and colleagues (2013)
noted that Hansen gave some jewelry belonging to victims to his wife and daughter, thus allowing
him frequent proximity to his trophies during normal family interactions, and he could cherish
memories of his homicidal activities without being noticed.
The murder process followed by Hansen is quite sophisticated and required considerable plan-
ning, preparation, and skill to execute. For Hansen, abducting and raping women, then killing many
of them, was an exciting game that often combined his favorite leisure activities. His murder process
was relatively sophisticated, and as Warren, Dietz, and Hazelwood (2013) imply, his collecting
behavior associated with specific homicides was more serious in nature than casual.

Case example: Gerard John Schaefer

Gerard John Schaefer was born on March 25, 1946. From the beginning of his life, Schaefer could
never seem to please his father, and the child struggled with sexual identity and unusual sexual
interests (Newton 2017). By adolescence, Schaefer was experimenting with bondage and discipline,
dominance submission, and sadomasochism activities, which he later claimed were connected to his
interest in killing women (Newton 2017). Similar to Robert Hansen, Schaefer loved the outdoors and
spent considerable time exploring, hunting, and fishing as serious leisure pursuits.
Schaefer was a serial offender and former sheriff convicted of murdering two teenage girls, but
suspected of killing several more women. The escape of two women from likely death by hanging led
to Schaefer’s dismissal from his law enforcement career. While investigating Schaefer for the two
murders (later convicted), police found a stash of items including photographs, newspaper clippings,
and jewelry, linking him with the deaths of six women (Newton 2017). Eventually, Schaefer would be
connected with the deaths of 15 women and girls (Hickey 2016).
 DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 7

Schaefer thoroughly enjoyed carefully planning and completing murders. He authored several
stories of murder, titled Killer Fiction, which are believed to be descriptions of his actual killings
(Newton 2017). In his stories, Schaefer discusses planning the specific outdoor location to complete
the murder, the preparation of a grave beforehand, and describes his style in conversing with the
particular potential victim to purposefully increase their fear before she is slowly strangled (Hickey
2016; Newton 2017; Warren, Dietz, and Hazelwood 2013). Schaefer once wrote that “doing doubles
(killing two women in one event) is far more difficult than doing singles, but on the other hand it
also puts one in a position to have twice as much fun” (Newton 2017:25). The process of killing
women, as an operationalization of fantasy, was a serious leisure pursuit for Gerard John Schaefer.
His murder process required considerable planning preparation, effort, and skill, and specific
components included bondage and hiking (legitimate serious leisure). His writing about the murders
also reflects serious, rather than casual, leisure.

SLP: serial homicide as project-based leisure

Project-based leisure pursuits are one-time (or occasional), moderately complicated leisure endea-
vors that include elements of both casual and serious leisure (Stebbins 2005a). While project-based
leisure requires effort and perseverance similar to serious leisure, it utilizes routine knowledge and
skills that are not intended to develop into a serious leisure pursuit (Stebbins 2005a). Common
examples of legitimate project-based leisure endeavors include hosting an important party, putting
on a play, or organizing a community volunteer event. Extremely rare cases of serial murder,
patterned as unique productions, may reflect mephitic forms of project-based leisure (at least
initially), rather than being primarily casual or serious leisure.

Case example: Dennis Rader

Using a forensic leisure science approach, Williams (2017b) recently evaluated documents pertaining
to the case of Dennis Rader, known as the “BTK Strangler.” Rader, who served in the military for 4
years, killed 10 people in the Wichita, Kansas area from 1974 to 1991 before finally being appre-
hended in 2005 at the age of 59. During the decades when he was committing murders, he was a
husband and father, active in the scouting program, and a leader in his local church.
Rader structured his killings as separate “projects,” and he taunted police and sent communica-
tions to the media. Thus, while he was the director and star in each murderous project, his victims,
the police, and the media also had important roles. In his own mind, Rader had developed special
relationships with those involved in his homicidal activities; his reactions to police upon capture,
treating them as if he knew them and had a special relationship with them, was unexpected and
bewildering (Williams 2017b). Indeed, social rewards (i.e., participating with others, group accom-
plishment) and self-image (recognition from creating or participating in the project) are important
benefits of project-based leisure, generally (Stebbins 2005a). Of course, Rader received additional
publicity and recognition, beyond simply killing, by terrorizing the public via communicating with
the media and taunting police. Similarly, in a recent article titled The Role of Sexual, Sadistic, and
Misogynistic Fantasy in Mass and Serial Killing, Murray (2017) found that a sexual fantasy does not
just appear, it develops over time, and in her analysis of Rader, she noted that the killer had a fantasy
that desired torturing and murdering on a massive scale.
Because leisure projects of many varieties require much more planning and preparation than
other forms of leisure, serial homicide that reflects project-based leisure is likely to be associated with
relatively long cooling-off periods. Such mephitic projects are clearly structured and are likely to
follow detailed scripts that involve multiple people. In other words, because project-based leisure
pursuits are associated with social rewards (i.e., group participation, interpersonal interaction, and
personal recognition from others), serial murder as project-based leisure is likely to follow elaborate
scripts that involve multiple people beyond the offender–victim dyad. As noted earlier, Stebbins
8 D. J. WILLIAMS AND J. VINCENT

(2005a) notes that an important distinction between project-based leisure and serious leisure is that
the latter is career like, whereas the former is not. It may be that some serial homicide offenders
begin killing as a single or occasional desired project, yet they derive sufficient leisure benefits that
quickly progress into the realm of serious leisure.

Discussion
The process of defining serial murder remains controversial, and scholars disagree on the number of
victims required to establish a pattern, necessity and length (or not) of a cooling-off period, and
whether or not murder is primarily intrinsically motivated (Adjorlolo and Chan 2014; Fox and Levin
2015; Skrapec 2001b). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (2008) significantly broadened its definition
to require two or more murders in separate events (no cooling-off period mentioned), while other
scholars (i.e., Fox and Levin 2015) maintain that killing two victims does not establish a series and that
motivational considerations remain important (i.e., Skrapec 2001b). However, regardless of specific
definition of serial murder, scholars remain in agreement that many offenders, though not necessarily
all, seem to enjoy killing. Indeed, a recent empirical investigation exploring hundreds of case descrip-
tions of serial homicide across countries found that many offenders kill based on four broad themes:
(a) as a unique game; (b) for simple fun and enjoyment; (c) for intense thrills and sensations; and (d)
as a form of personal celebration (Williams, Thomas, and Arntfield in press). Such leisure themes are
not necessarily mutually exclusive, and are connected to SLP in complex ways. Depending on its
properties, a particular game may be more or less casual or serious leisure: simple fun and enjoyment
reflect casual leisure; intense thrills and sensation often may require serious leisure; and personal
celebration could involve any form of SLP.
Specific serial homicide offenders may kill as a unique form of leisure as reflected in theoretical
discussions of SLP. However, keeping in mind Ramsland’s (2006) observation that each offender is
unique, it is likely that much of the time a specific offender kills in a particular leisure style across the
series (as in the cases presented herein), though this is not always the case. For example, after
shooting his grandmother, Edmund Kemper then shot his grandfather before his grandfather could
discover his wife’s murder, which was particularly atypical compared to Kemper’s other murders.
Additional cases may also involve occasional opportunistic killing to eliminate potential witnesses,
despite a primary motivation of killing as a form of leisure. Sometimes specific features of murders
may vary, yet there may be a similar underlying leisure consistency as examined according to SLP.
For example, Donald Henry Gaskins distinguished his random pleasurable “coastal kills” from his
more “serious murders” (Newton 2006:92), yet both types reflected aspects of serious leisure.
Consistent with a wide range of legitimate serious leisure pursuits, offenders who kill as a form of
serious deviant leisure seem to attain more skill as they gain more experience, or in other words,
develop specialized expertise (Brookman 2015).
Because SLP has been applied across a diverse array of leisure pursuits, it is capable of offering
insights into diverse types of serial homicide, including cases that may be difficult to classify. For
example, although many cases of sexually motivated serial homicide are difficult, if not impossible,
to classify with high validity (Beauregard and Martineau 2017), cases can be explored via SLP to help
generate additional insights regarding how particular homicides may be structured and experienced,
including leisure benefits attained, by particular offenders. Similarly, SLP may be useful in exploring
cases involving solo female offenders and team killers. Many serial offenders who kill in healthcare
settings seem to do so as a form of leisure that, perhaps, is toward the center of the SLP continuum.
In such settings, vulnerable potential victims are easily available and accessible; thus, there is
relatively little planning, skill, or effort required as these pertain to finding and securing victims
before discreetly killing them. However, despite the above speculation, empirical studies are needed.
The fact that SLP is theoretically broad is both a strength and limitation as a forensic leisure science
application to serial homicide research. As noted above, it applies across diverse types of expressive
serial homicide cases, and although leisure scholars often view various leisure pursuits as project based,
 DEVIANT BEHAVIOR 9

or more or less casual or serious leisure, SLP views casual and serious leisure as ends of a continuum
rather than as dichotomous constructs. However, while this breadth increases its utility across diverse
homicide types, its usefulness may be limited in generating specific knowledge in particular cases.
While particular offenders, such as the examples included herein, may often follow a general
leisure pattern composed of specific casual or serious leisure activities associated with the murder
process, it is important to consider the entire homicidal process via SLP. In other words, assessing
various leisure activity components within the process is valuable and can generate important
information; it is the murder process as a whole that seems to be ultimate leisure experience for
the offender. Regarding serial homicide as primarily casual leisure, possibilities include murder as a
form of play, relaxation, active entertainment, sensory stimulation, or some combination of these
types. While casual leisure elements in the process may include passive entertainment or sociable
conversation, the process as a whole does not fit these two casual leisure types. Similarly, serious
leisure types include amateurs, volunteers, and hobbyists (Stebbins 2001b, 2015), yet serial murder as
a serious leisure type is necessarily a particular form of hobby, though specific components, in some
cases, may be associated, directly or indirectly, with one or more of the other forms.

Conclusion
The complex phenomenon of serial murder has received considerable scholarly attention from
multiple forensic science disciplines, yet understanding the motivations and behaviors of these
offenders remains difficult and incomplete. At the same time, while experts commonly acknowledge
that many serial homicide offenders kill for the pleasure and enjoyment it provides them, there has
been very little theoretical or empirical work devoted to understanding this phenomenon.
Contemporary leisure science, with roots in multiple disciplines, may be valuable in providing
unique insights into the motivations and behaviors of serial homicide offenders, while perhaps
facilitating theoretical integration among the social and behavioral sciences.
Ultimately, serial homicide offenders seek complete power and control over victims and may be
overcompensating for lack of psychological control, perhaps in many cases due to experiencing
significant trauma during childhood (Hickey 2016), how such overcompensation gets operationa-
lized, structured, and experienced as a potential form of leisure has yet to be considered by scholars.
Indeed, the application of leisure theory and research to serial homicide, including SLP, appears
to be extremely valuable in helping understand this complex psychological process. Thus, innovative
research in the emerging area of forensic leisure science is warranted.

Notes on contributors
DJ WILLIAMS is the Director of Research at the Center for Positive Sexuality in Los Angeles and an Associate
Professor of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminology at Idaho State University. His expertise focuses on intersections
between criminology, sexology, and leisure science. Dr. Williams received a B.S. (1992) from Weber State
University; M.S. (1998) and M.S.W. degrees from the University of Utah; and completed a Ph.D. and postdoctoral
research fellowship from the University of Alberta, Canada. Over his career, Dr. Williams has conducted forensic
assessments on over 1,000 offenders. His research is published in numerous academic books and journals, and he is a
current member of the Homicide Research Working Group and the Atypical Homicide Research Working Group.

JOLENE VINCENT is a Doctoral Candidate and the Assistant Director and Senior Data Analyst of the Crime Lab in
the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. As a sociological criminologist, Jolene’s research
focuses on lethal and nonlethal violence, deviant behavior, and human trafficking. Jolene’s research appears in a
refereed book Human Trafficking: A Systemwide Public Safety and Community Approach. Her memberships include
the Homicide Research Working Group, the Atypical Homicide Research Working Group, the American Society of
Criminology, and the Southern Sociological Society. Jolene plans to use her Ph.D. to further her knowledge in
sociology and criminology with a career that will allow her to continue teaching and doing research following her
expected summer 2018 graduation.
10 D. J. WILLIAMS AND J. VINCENT

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