Familicide

[ruby sparks]

Familicide is a word used to describe the act of killing one's family, or members of it. In this case I am using it mainly in regard to humans, though of course other animals may also do it.

This is the tragic case that sparked my interest:





Christopher Watts (33) has today pleaded guilty to murdering his wife Shannan (34) who was pregnant at the time, and their daughters Celeste (3) and Bella (4) and dumping their bodies in fuel tanks.

Apparently they had financial problems and he was having an affair (with a co-worker) which had come to light or was suspected.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46119847

I read that in 91% of cases, the man is the killer and that risk factors include prior domestic violence and that separation or the threat of it can be a trigger. Even in cases where women kill their male partner, which are a minority (20%), in two-thirds of those cases it was women killing men who had been abusing them. Another noteworthy factor seems to be that men in their 30's are overrepresented in the data.

The 3 Types of Men Who Murder Their Children
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...808/the-3-types-men-who-murder-their-children

Men Who Murder Their Families: What the Research Tells Us
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/230412.pdf

Why do men kill their families? After Colorado husband’s arrest, a look at 4 categories
https://www.fastcompany.com/9021995...lorado-husbands-arrest-a-look-at-4-categories

In some ways, there is not much to say about this. It's just awful, horrific and tragic. Many of us know that relationships and parenting and just life in general can be difficult and that the arrival of children is as someone once put it like 'a bomb going off in a relationship'. But it seems to be mostly men who respond to problems of that sort with violence and aggression. The greatest risk a child has of being killed is from a parent, and mostly the father.

Most of all, those now chilling pics remind us that things are often not what they seem on the surface or to outsiders. What a beautiful couple, what a seemingly lovely man, both pics (and the words below one of them) conveying an impression of happiness and affection and of people having the (apparent) trappings of 'western' relative comfort, health and affluence (and straight teeth). Very little hint of the dark side and no hints of the daily troubles, financial and otherwise, that must have been brewing. Appearances deceive us. Someone once said that there are no normal people, only people you don't know very well, and perhaps the same can be said of families.

Discuss?

 

[Tigers!]

Whilst I believe that capital punishment should be used very sparingly for such people i will make an exceptional.

 

[ruby sparks]

I read that he could have faced the death penalty, but that he offered a deal in which he would plead guilty in return for this not being imposed. I read that this offer was accepted by the family of the victims partly because apparently death penalty decisions can drag on and on and they wanted a quicker resolution and a confession that would bring closure.

Personally, the issue of a possible death penalty had not occurred to me. That may be because it was effectively abolished here over 50 years ago.

I myself was more interested in understanding such incidents and behaviours, as patterns, I suppose.

I am not saying your post was not relevant. It was. Capital punishment (all punishment in fact) is indeed a social issue.

 

[ruby sparks]

I should add something about my definition of familicide. I may have defined it incorrectly. So having now googled.......

Familicide is the killing of one's family (and is comparitively rare).

Filicide is the killing of one's child or children.

Infanticide is specifically the killing of an infant.

Mariticide is the killing of a husband (or possibly male partner).

Uxoricide is the killing of a wife or female partner ('uxor' means 'wife' in latin, apparently).

Fratricide is the killing of a brother.

Sororicide is the killing of a sister.

Patricide is the killing of a father.

Matricide is the killing of a mother

There are other terms specifically for other (wider) family members such as nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts, etc.

I am fine with any or all of those being discussed, individually or in combination, now that they can be distinguished. They are all arguably types or subsets of 'family killing'.

 

[ruby sparks]

On filicide for instance...

"A 1999 United States Department of Justice study concluded that between 1976 and 1997 in the United States, mothers were responsible for a higher share of children killed during infancy, while fathers were more likely to have been responsible for the murders of children aged eight or older."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide

Interesting that more mothers than fathers kill infants and I am curious as to why men more often kill children beyond infancy.

I wonder if mothers generally much more often being in direct personal and physical contact with infants is the underlying explanation for the former (iow that there is a sort of selection bias in the data) or if father's (relative) increase in access to and contact with children after infancy feeds into the picture.

I also read that mental illness and 'altruistic' motives are more common among mothers who kill. There is also something that is called 'unwanted child filicide' by some researchers, apparently. This, in certain societies (China, Pakistan and India are cited) appears to lead to there being more infanticides of girls, partly because of their perceived or actual low status, and I read that it was both commonplace and widespread in historical terms, including in ancient/indigenous and hunter-gatherer societies. Which, somewhat inevitably, raises the familiar issue of patriarchy (which may also play a role in cases like the OP, if men in general are less likely to express or identify certain issues or deal with them in such a way as to mitigate drastic outcomes).

 

[ronburgundy]

Interesting that more mothers than fathers kill infants and I am curious as to why men more often kill children beyond infancy.

I think it has to do with the very different motives for infanticide vs. killing older children. I suspect infanticide is more about the actual infant's perceived impact on the parent's well being, and is often due due to mental disorder and depression experienced by new mothers. It is more common in situations where the parent would be struggling to provide for the child, such as among the poor, for special needs kids, and when their is no male provider.
Also, the frequency of such cases is probably understated by the fact that some cases of "sudden infant death syndrome" are likely unprovable infanticide.

With older kids, I suspect their killings are not really about them but about one parents attempt to cause harm to the other or to end the relationship and everything about it. Mental illness may still be involved. This is why the other parent is often a victim when older kids are killed, or the parent also kills themself because unlike infanticide, it isn't about solving a "problem" that the kid's are perceived to be causing in one's life.

My roomate and best friend from my early 20's had his daughter murdered by his ex-wife's new husband who killed his stepdaughter, his own son, and then himself when he found out that his wife was planning on leaving him. She played a role too. She was emotionally unstable and extremely manipulative, controlling, and demeaning towards the men in her life. Basically, he wanted to kill himself and wanted to punish her by taking her kids with him.

 

[ruby sparks]

Interesting that more mothers than fathers kill infants and I am curious as to why men more often kill children beyond infancy.

I think it has to do with the very different motives for infanticide vs. killing older children. I suspect infanticide is more about the actual infant's perceived impact on the parent's well being, and is often due due to mental disorder and depression experienced by new mothers. It is more common in situations where the parent would be struggling to provide for the child, such as among the poor, for special needs kids, and when their is no male provider.
Also, the frequency of such cases is probably understated by the fact that some cases of "sudden infant death syndrome" are likely unprovable infanticide.

With older kids, I suspect their killings are not really about them but about one parents attempt to cause harm to the other or to end the relationship and everything about it. Mental illness may still be involved. This is why the other parent is often a victim when older kids are killed, or the parent also kills themself because unlike infanticide, it isn't about solving a "problem" that the kid's are perceived to be causing in one's life.

My roomate and best friend from my early 20's had his daughter murdered by his ex-wife's new husband who killed his stepdaughter, his own son, and then himself when he found out that his wife was planning on leaving him. She played a role too. She was emotionally unstable and extremely manipulative, controlling, and demeaning towards the men in her life. Basically, he wanted to kill himself and wanted to punish her by taking her kids with him.

Yes, my impression (uninformed) would have been that partner jealousy or revenge, or loss/rejection would be common factors. Reading the articles I posted in the OP, it seems that they're not necessarily the main reasons. Though it seems to be unclear, even to experts, and it seems to be the case that it's often a mix of various factors. So I am unsure.

But your post does make me wonder if the rise in splits and divorces has had any adverse effects in this regard, on children or ex-partners. I don't know. But I have read that the so-called 'Cinderella Effect' (where stepfathers who murder are supposed to be more inclined to kill - and/or abuse - their non-biological children than their biological ones) is largely a myth.

I know of several cases where things are 'taken out' on kids by ex's, to get at the ex-partner, but that again is anecdotal evidence, and it is a lesser problem than killing.

That is awful what happened with regard to your friend and his daughter.

 

[ronburgundy]

Interesting that more mothers than fathers kill infants and I am curious as to why men more often kill children beyond infancy.

I think it has to do with the very different motives for infanticide vs. killing older children. I suspect infanticide is more about the actual infant's perceived impact on the parent's well being, and is often due due to mental disorder and depression experienced by new mothers. It is more common in situations where the parent would be struggling to provide for the child, such as among the poor, for special needs kids, and when their is no male provider.
Also, the frequency of such cases is probably understated by the fact that some cases of "sudden infant death syndrome" are likely unprovable infanticide.

With older kids, I suspect their killings are not really about them but about one parents attempt to cause harm to the other or to end the relationship and everything about it. Mental illness may still be involved. This is why the other parent is often a victim when older kids are killed, or the parent also kills themself because unlike infanticide, it isn't about solving a "problem" that the kid's are perceived to be causing in one's life.

My roomate and best friend from my early 20's had his daughter murdered by his ex-wife's new husband who killed his stepdaughter, his own son, and then himself when he found out that his wife was planning on leaving him. She played a role too. She was emotionally unstable and extremely manipulative, controlling, and demeaning towards the men in her life. Basically, he wanted to kill himself and wanted to punish her by taking her kids with him.

Yes, my impression (uninformed) would have been that partner jealousy or revenge, or loss/rejection would be common factors. Reading the articles I posted in the OP, it seems that they're not necessarily the main reasons. Though it seems to be unclear, even to experts, and it seems to be the case that it's often a mix of various factors. So I am unsure.

.

Yeah, my thoughts are primarily about contrasting cases where the infanticide only involves a single infant and not the other parent versus cases where multiple older kids are killed along with either the other parent, suicide, or both. Cases where a single older kid is singled out would be different, especially if the death was an unintended result of abuse or to cover up abuse or other wrong doing.

Clean stats that distinguish these situations and their predictive factors are likely tough to come by. I one of the kids in a whole family murder happens to be an infant, this gets counted as an "infanticide" even though it seems very different than most infanticide cases were only one infant is involved.

 

[ruby sparks]

If one of the kids in a whole family murder happens to be an infant, this gets counted as an "infanticide" even though it seems very different than most infanticide cases were only one infant is involved.

Good point, about clean stats.

One of the few things that seems clear, sadly as ever, is that it's mostly men doing the killing. There seems to be little getting away from the suggestion that there is something about being a man which dramatically increases the risk factors (perhaps also for physical aggression generally) even if it it not by any means exclusively men (especially for infanticides apparently).

The only 'upside' is that (or so I read) killings of one's children are at least relatively rare, as I believe are most forms of family killing, comparitively-speaking.

 

[ronburgundy]

There seems to be little getting away from the suggestion that there is something about being a man which dramatically increases the risk factors (perhaps also for physical aggression generally) .

Agreed, and innate biologically-based differences in psychological tendencies play a huge role there, as they likely do in many differential outcomes for men and women, including some where men come out looking better or have more positive outcomes.

Although in a more complex way than commonly thought, testosterone plays a large role in not only physical aggression, but things like competitiveness, decisiveness, and also indirectly impacts countless other behaviors due to its role In-Utero and through adolescence in shaping many physical aspects of the brain, which contributes to some of the many structural neurological differences between what is typical of the genders, including white:gray matter ratio, hippocampus size, lateralization and hemispherical symmetry, inter-connectivity between specific regions, and volume of the corpus callosum (the band of nerves connecting the hemipheres and determining the inter-hemisphere communication that plays a role in many aspects of human thought, emotion, and behavior).

Note that this doesn't mean that engaging in physical violence is simply biologically determined without massive environmental influence. Just that biological differences play a major role in the differential rates of physical violence by men and women, and some role in which men react to their social environment with such violence. Just like gender differences in rates of getting one's testicles kicked are determined by biological differences in having testicles to have kicked, yet the environment plays a rather large role in whether a man's testicles wind up getting kicked.

 

[ruby sparks]

Note that this doesn't mean that engaging in physical violence is simply biologically determined without massive environmental influence. Just that biological differences play a major role in the differential rates of physical violence by men and women, and some role in which men react to their social environment with such violence.

Yes, nature and nurture.