A murder–suicide is an act where an individual intentionally kills one or more people before killing themselves. The combination of

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

and

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

can take various forms: * Suicide after or during murder inflicted on others ** Suicide after murder to escape criminal punishment(s) ** Suicide after murder as a form of self-punishment due to guilt * Murder that entails suicide, such as suicide bombing ** Suicide by pilot, or the deliberate crash of a vehicle carrying the perpetrator and others * Murder of an officer or bystander during the act of suicide by cop * Suicide before or after murder by proxy * Murder linked with a person with suicidal ideation ** Joint suicide in the form of killing the other with consent, and then killing oneself Suicide- lawful killing has three conceivable forms: * To kill one's assailant through proportionate self-defense, killing oneself in the process * Lawful killing to prevent an individual from causing harm to others, in so doing killing oneself * Lawful killing indirectly resulting in or contributing to suicide Many spree killings have ended in suicide, such as in several

school shooting A school shooting is an Gun violence, armed attack at an educational institution, such as a primary school, secondary school, high school or university, involving the use of a firearm. Many school shootings are also categorized as mass shooti ...

s. Some cases of religiously motivated suicides may also involve murder. All categorization amounts to forming somewhat arbitrary distinctions where relating to intention in the case of

psychosis In psychopathology, psychosis is a condition in which a person is unable to distinguish, in their experience of life, between what is and is not real. Examples of psychotic symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized or inco ...

, where the intention(s) is/are more likely than not to be irrational. Ascertaining the legal intention (

mens rea In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of ''mens rea'' and '' actus reus'' ("guilty act") before th ...

) is inapplicable to cases properly categorized as insanity. Some use the term ''murder–suicide'' to refer to

homicide Homicide is an act in which a person causes the death of another person. A homicide requires only a Volition (psychology), volitional act, or an omission, that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from Accident, accidenta ...

–suicide, which can include

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

and is therefore more encompassing. According to an analysis of the London Times' reports of murder (1887-1990) by Danson and Soothill (1996), there is a much higher proportion of British male murder-suicides, in general, than female. Overwhelmingly the women committing murder-suicide tend to kill their children and then themselves. Men, on the other hand, tend to kill their spouses or partners and then themselves.

Theories

According to

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

Karl A. Menninger, murder and suicide are interchangeable acts – suicide sometimes forestalling murder, and vice versa. Following Freudian logic, severe repression of natural instincts due to early childhood abuse may lead the death instinct to emerge in a twisted form. The cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose theories on the human notion of death are strongly influenced by Freud, views the fear of death as a universal phenomenon, a fear repressed in the unconscious and of which people are largely unaware. This fear can move individuals toward heroism, but also to

scapegoat In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designate ...

ing. Failed attempts to achieve heroism, according to this view, can lead to mental illness and/or antisocial behavior. In a study specifically related to murder–suicide, Milton Rosenbaum (1990) discovered the murder–suicide perpetrators to be vastly different from perpetrators of homicide alone. Whereas murderer–suicides were found to be highly depressed and overwhelmingly men, other murderers were not generally depressed and more likely to include women in their ranks. In the U.S. the overwhelming number of cases are male-on-female. Around one-third of partner homicides end in the suicide of the perpetrator. From national and international data and interviews with family members of murder–suicide perpetrators, the following are the key predictors of murder–suicide: a history of substance abuse, the male partner some years older than the female partner, a break-up or pending break-up, a history of battering, and suicidal contemplation by the perpetrator. Though there is no national tracking system for murder–suicides in the United States, medical studies into the phenomenon estimate between 1,000 and 1,500 deaths per year in the US, with the majority occurring between spouses or intimate partners and the vast majority of the perpetrators being male. Depression, marital or/and financial problems, and other problems are generally motivators. Homicides which are later followed by suicide often make headline news; national statistics indicate 5% of all homicidal deaths are caused by murder–suicides. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control reports that an estimated 1 million adults reported attempting suicide in 2011, and there were over 38,000 completed suicides in the same period. The estimate of 624 murder–suicide events per year indicates that around 1.6% of suicides involve murder. In 18th-century Denmark, people wishing to die by suicide would sometimes commit murder in order to receive the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

. They believed murder followed by repentance would allow them to end their life while avoiding damnation.

Theories

See also

References

Further reading