Killers with No Discernible Motives

Anyone who's watched a television crime drama knows that when building a murder case, the police always look for a motive. But what happens when a killer has no motive? As this list of killers with no motives will shows, sometimes people kill out of boredom, curiosity - or simply for no reason at all...

While murderers who commit their crimes for anger, jealousy, revenge, or profit are terrifying, these murderers with no motive are truly the stuff of horror movies.

Donato Bilancia is known as Italy's worst serial killer. He was convicted of killing 17 people in 1997. His first murder victim allegedly cheated while playing cards with Bilancia, but investigators never established a motive for any of his other killings.

While some possible causes have been suggested for Bilancia's behavior - including shame at having a small penis - he seemed to have no particular reason for the murders and no pattern for whom he'd attack and why.

At his trial, Bilancia asked if doctors could explain why he did what he did.

The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs are two teenaged Ukrainian serial killers who killed 21 people in 2007 for seemingly no reason. They recorded many of the murders, and one of the videos ended up on the Internet.

Initially some theorized that the killers were trying to profit from making snuff videos, but police found no evidence to support that claim. Instead, Detective Bogdan Vlasenko said, "We think they were doing it as a hobby," while Deputy Interior Minister Nikolay Kupyanskiy added, "For these young men, murder was like entertainment or hunting."

Israel Keyes confessed to killing eight people all over the United States, and hinted that he had committed more murders. 

Keyes traveled extremely long distances to kill some of his victims, and he maintained weapons caches and body disposal kits in hidden spots all over the US. Yet despite that level of effort and preparation, Keyes could offer no real motive for his behavior. When asked why he killed, he would answer, "Why not?"

Keyes committed suicide in prison while awaiting trial for one of his crimes.

In 1979, sixteen-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer began shooting at students who attended the elementary school across the street from her house. Nine children were wounded, and a principle and a custodian died while protecting the children. Spencer told a reporter that she started shooting because she "didn't like Mondays" and that the shooting "livens up the day."

Craig Walter snapped and stabbed his best friend Maurice Wilson 17 times while he was drunk and high, because Wilson's optimistic outlook made him extremely angry.

Apparently, Walter had recently become paranoid enough to carry a knife around with him everywhere. After murdering his friend, Walter went directly to the police and tearfully confessed his crime.

Sailson Jose das Gracas confessed to killing 38 women in Brazil over a period of 10 years, as well as two men and a two-year-old child. He said he murdered simply because it was fun. He showed no remorse, and claimed that if he were ever released from jail, he'd go back to killing again.

Joanna Dennehy is a British serial killer who murdered for fun and notoriety. She killed three men in just two weeks and attempted to kill two others, all while bragging about her kills to multiple people, before she eventually confessed to the police and pleaded guilty.

According to testimony from one of her victims who survived the attack, she showed little emotion while stabbing him, saying simply, "Oh, look, you’re bleeding, I’d better do some more.”

Alfredo Galan murdered six people in Spain in 2003. He was dubbed the Playing Card Killer because he left a single playing card next to each of his victims.

When police began their investigation, they could find no apparent motive for the killing spree. After Galan was eventually apprehended, he said he just wanted "to know what it felt like to kill."

Nathan Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb were two highly intelligent students at the University of Chicago who kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy in 1924, in order to prove that they were capable of committing the perfect crime.

Leopold and Loeb spent seven months planning every aspect of the crime, from selecting a victim to deciding how to dispose of the body - but despite all their preparation, they still made a mistake. Leopold left his eyeglasses at the crime scene, and police quickly traced them and apprehended the pair.

In their confession, the killers said they committed murder as an "experiment." Leopold said, "It is just as easy to justify such a death as it is to justify an entomologist killing a beetle on a pin."