Much of Shelley's use of violence is simply in keeping with the Gothic elements of Romanticism. Gothic works possess mysterious settings, dark deeds, and tortured souls. While many high school students think of Poe as insane (he was a little strange), much of his writing stems from what was popular for his time. The British Romanticists such as Shelley came before Poe and established the violence and mystery associated with Gothic writing.
So, while Shelley does include the senseless murders to fit her Gothic genre and to entertain, she also had additional motivation for doing so. The author grew up in a setting where learning, even on the part of women, was encouraged. She often sat in on conversations between her father and scientists/philosophers of the day. Readers can see their influence on Shelley's writing. She uses this insatiable quest for knowledge, both on Victor's and Walton's parts, to illustrate the dangerous consequences of obsession.
Victor, of course, believes that he is guilty for much of the violence because he created the murderer. The Monster's murders are perhaps an exaggeration of how science can go wrong, but they do make a point. Shelley, as a Romanticist, would have been more interested in showing how humans should go to nature for answers about life. She was writing against the modern thinking of her day that proposed that pure science could answer man's questions about the meaning of life, etc.
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