According to a recent study by the Violence Policy Center based on information from Jan-June of 2007 estimated 9 murder-suicides per week in the US.
http://www.vpc.org/studies/amroul2008.pdf
Medical studies estimate that between 1,000 and 1,500 deaths per year in the United States are the result of murder-suicide.3 This VPC analysis reveals that in the first half of 2007: There were 554 murder-suicide deaths, of which 234 were suicides and 320 were homicides. Using these figures, nine murder-suicide events occurred in the United States each week during the study period. Of the 234 suicides, 218 were male, 11 were female, and five were of unidentified gender. Of the 320 homicides, 227 victims were female and 74 victims were male, and 19 were of an unidentified sex. Forty-five of the homicide victims were children and teens less than 18 years of age. Forty-four children and teens less than 18 years of age were survivors who witnessed some aspect of the murder-suicide. By doubling the total number of fatalities during the six-month period for a yearly estimate, there were an estimated 1,108 murder-suicide deaths in 2007. This is within the standard range of estimates for murder-suicides.
Nine states had 10 or more murder-suicides in the six-month period of the study. In order, these states were: Florida (24), Texas (24), California (17), Pennsylvania (14), Arizona (12), Georgia (12), New York (11), North Carolina (10), and Ohio (10).
Most murderers in murder-suicides are male In this study, 95 percent of the offenders were male. Other studies analyzing murder-suicide have found that most perpetrators of murder-suicide are male???more than 90 percent in recent studies of the United States.5 Another study which only looked at murder-suicides involving couples noted that more than 90 percent were perpetrated by men.6 This is consistent with homicides in general, in which 89 percent of homicides are committed by male offenders.7 However, most homicides involve male victims killed by male offenders (65 percent), whereas a male victim being specifically targeted by a male offender in a murder-suicide is relatively rare. Most murder-suicides involve an intimate partner The most prevalent type of murder-suicide was between two intimate partners, with the man killing his wife or girlfriend. Such events are commonly the result of a breakdown in the relationship. The average age difference between the offender and primary victim was 6.0 years. Overall, the age difference ranged from none to 23 years. (Other studies on fatal violence for spouses have found that there is a greater risk of homicide victimization as the age difference between the husband and wife increases.9) In this study, 73 percent of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner. Of these, 94 percent were females killed by their intimate partners.
- 1
- 2
Annals of Filicide
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
Why do mothers like Andrea Yates or Susan Smith get so much national media attention while it appears that fathers who kill don't make nearly as much news?
We tend to see mothers as having much closer bonds with their children. And, the dependence and the helplessness of a child on its primary caregiver suggest to us that the mother is closer to a child and hence the crime is more monstrous. And from an evolutionary perspective where in a Darwinian sense the purpose of life is to perpetuate their own genetic endowment, there's nothing that seems more unnatural then ending the lives of one's own children and ending one's future in a genetic sense. And also from an evolutionary perspective, it's more certain who a child's mother is rather than the father. It's said that 5 percent of the population don't know who their father is in the sense that the father they think they have isn't their father. So the biological relationship and the dependence leads people to assume this act committed by a mother is so much heinous.
Is there a difference in the psychology of mothers and fathers when they kill their kids?
If you compare mothers who kill to fathers who kill, mothers tend to kill young children, newborns, and it's often a result of either postpartum depression or to hide the evidence of a birth such as if a very young mother panics. The children tend to be older when fathers do it, and that may dovetail with physical abuse. Also, when mothers kill their children, the ratio of boys to girls tends to be even. When fathers do it, they're more likely to kill their male offspring.
Why?
There's no definite answer to that; but maybe Freud was on to something when he described an Oedipal struggle between son and father. The son may be seen as a threat to an incredibly insecure father.
Are there other differences?
Mothers are more likely to be psychotic and less likely to try to kill themselves afterward; but there's not a lot of research out there cataloging the differences.
© 2008
- 1
- 2
Discuss