So what is going on in the head of the murderer 132 years ago today?

[Scott Nelson]

By way of understanding the Whitechapel Murders, one could distinguish between “motive” and “reason”. Motive may be thought of as the driving force behind a pre-meditated process to achieve a means to an end – the resolution of the person’s lingering dilemma. These situations usually involve things like jealousy or greed. A more immediate condition can be thought of as a reaction to an overpowering emotion such as rage, a shorter-term adverse response to some spontaneous situation. Reasons for murder may have more to do with a physiological or psychological condition such as schizophrenia or a brain tumor that incites the mind to engage in a criminal act rather than some pondering situation that eventually induces a criminal action. Motives and reasons may be, and typically are, combined in many serial killers.

[Scott Nelson]

This was from "Murder Most Foul" (Tim Mosley and me) in Ripperologist 153 and 154, December 2016 and February 2017. The article goes into motives and reasons for serial murder covering a variety of individual characteristics and circumstances.