My apologies for snipping most of your excellent post but I wanted to focus on just this sentence, because this is what I don't get. Why does killing satisfy them? Do they project something onto the victim that has to be eliminated (in their minds)? Or what goes on in their minds? I just never get it.
No apologies necessary Elainera. The reason that I have posted the article 'Serial Killers - A Homicide Detective's Take' By Nelson Andreu, is because it is one of the most comprehensive articles that I have read over the past decade. It contains most of the answers to the questions that arise when studying the nonhuman soulless creatures like JDW. Hope this helps..
Denouement
Once a serial killer is in possession of a living victim, and has this victim where he feels safe enough to act out his fantasies, the acts he carries out are often performed as if on "auto-pilot." The killer's acts appear to be a close reenactment of what he previously did in his imagination. So, from among an array of violent fantasies, he picks and chooses the individual cruelties that he feels will assure the most in the way of "self-fulfillment.
" Yet, if a serial killer places this kind of special emphasis on the careful and systematic acting out of his favorite mind pictures, it is only because of the tremendous meaning and pleasure he derives from watching the degrading, dehumanizing effect they have upon his victim as he methodically carries them out. To him, nothing is more important than to see his victim reduced to the very lowest depths of misery and despair. For if there is any single reason that a serial killer does what he does, it is so that he may feel enlarged and magnified in his own eyes-through the willful and violent degradation of another human being. This need for self-magnification is always, I believe, a mandatory pre-requisite to any episodes of violence.
As for the actual commission of the murder itself, I believe this is usually nothing more than a postscript to a serial killer's overall scheme of violence. His real gratification comes from the subjugation, terrorizing, and brutalization of his victim, and almost not at all from the actual murder itself.
Thus, from a serial killer's viewpoint, his victim might be likened to a disposable paper cup, from which he takes a long and satisfying drink of water. Once the water is gone, his thirst quenched, the cup has served its purpose; it is useless, and therefore can be crushed without thought and thrown away without concern. Since he has met his need to terrorize and abuse, his victim is perceived as an object of inconvenience, a worn-out and no-longer-needed piece of baggage.
So, his only concern now is for quick extermination and safe disposal of the victim he no longer needs or wants.
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/investigators/serial_killers.html#denouement