Homicide in the western family and background factors of a perpetrator

Abstract

Aims: Familicide is a multiple-victim homicide incident in which the killer’s spouse and one or more children are slain. A systematic review was conducted to reveal the background factors of western homicide perpetrators. Methods: The systematic search was performed in the Arto, Medic, Cinahl, Medline, EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier and Social Services abstracts databases. The keywords were familicide, family homicide, familicide-suicide, filicide-suicide, extended suicide, child, murder, family, filicide and infanticide. The searches revealed 4139 references from the databases. The references were filtered and 32 peer-reviewed research articles revealed in years 2004–2014 were selected as data. The articles were analysed using inductive content analysis, by finding all possible background factors related to homicide. Results: The factors were described as percentages of the range. The background factors of familicide perpetrators were categorised as follows: perpetrators who had committed homicide of a child and intimate partner and possibly committed suicide; a father had who killed a child; a mother who had killed a child; a father who had committed a filicide-suicide; and a mother who had committed a filicide-suicide. Conclusions: Psychological instability, violence and crime were found in all these categories of familicides. Perpetrators who had committed a suicide in addition to the familicide had more often been diagnosed with depression, but they sought treatment for mental health problems less often and had violence and self-destructiveness less often in their background than in other familicide categories. Social and healthcare professionals should be more sensitive to emerging family problems and be prepared for intervention.

Keywords

Familicide family homicide familicide-suicide filicide-suicide extended suicide child murder family filicide infanticide

Introduction

A familicide is a particularly cruel act, and it is a shock to the family members of the familicide’s victim, as well as the whole society through media. There is no consistent definition of the concept of familicide due to its complexity, and the terms used to refer to it have been defined based on the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator [1,2]. The term Familicide or family homicide can be used to refer to a situation where the victim is a child/children and the spouse, the perpetrator could be mother/woman or father/man. In addition, the perpetrator may also have committed a suicide [3,4]. According to Wilson et al. [4], familicide is a multiple-victim homicide incident in which the killer’s spouse and one or more children are slain. The murder of a child (filicide), without murdering the spouse or the perpetrator committing suicide, is also considered one form of familicide [5 –9]. Other terms used to refer to the concept of familicide include familicide-suicide, filicide-suicide and extended suicide where the perpetrator also commits suicide [10,11]. In this literature review, familicide is used to refer to the killing of the child or the whole family with at least one family member killed by another adult family member. The perpetrator may be the mother or the father, and the victims are the family’s child/children and possibly the spouse and the perpetrator.

Familicides occur all over the world. In this literature review, we focus on examining familicides occurring in western countries. Western countries refer to the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. In 1970–1994, 3.7 children under 15 years old out of 100,000 persons died in familicides in Finland [12]. In 2003–2012, 55 persons died in familicides in Finland, which means five deaths due to familicide per year on average [13]. During an almost identical time period (1977–1990) in England and Wales, 0.22 persons out of 100,000 persons died in familicides, and in Canada, 0.46 persons out of 100,000 persons died in 1974–1990 [4].

It might be possible to prevent familicides if we had more information on the background information of familicide perpetrators [13]. People who kill their family have often planned the deed in advance, and many killers have alluded to their intentions [7]. As many as half of familicide perpetrators have been in contact with mental health services [13]. In order to be able to identify the risk of familicide in advance and to prevent killings, it is necessary to explore the background factors of familicide perpetrators in more detail.

The purpose of this systematic review was to reveal the background factors of western familicide perpetrators. The aim of this review is to provide information on the background factors of familicide perpetrators in order to be able to identify the danger of a familicide in advance and, therefore, prevent it from happening. The research question was: what are the background factors of a Western familicide perpetrator?

Methods

Data and methodology

In a systematic review, data is searched from several different databases using carefully predefined search terms and selection criteria, and relevant articles are selected from the search results based on their references [14].

The data for this literature review was retrieved from the Arto, Medic, Cinahl, Medline, EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier and Social Services abstracts databases. The search terms used were familicide, family homicide, familicide-suicide, filicide-suicide, extended suicide, child, murder, family, filicide and infanticide, both alone and in different combinations. The search terms and results used in the data search, organised by database, are presented in Table I.

Table I.

Data selected for the literature review of databases.

Database of Health Sciences	Search terms	Search results
Arto	familicide OR filicide OR familicide-suicide OR murder OR filicide-suicide OR (extended suicide) OR suicide Search not limited	1035
Medic	familicide OR filicide OR familicide-suicide OR murder OR filicide-suicide OR (extended suicide) OR suicide Search limited to: academic dissertation, research article or case report	51
Cinahl	(familicide OR “family homicide” OR familicide-suicide OR filicide-suicide OR “extended suicide”) OR (child AND murder) OR (family and murder OR filicide OR infanticide) Search limited to: abstract available; peer reviewed; research article; human; geographic subset: Australia & New Zealand, Canada, Continental Europe, Europe, UK & Ireland, USA; publication type: academic journal, case study, journal article, questionnaire/scale, questions and answers; language: English, Finnish, French, Swedish	66
Medline	familicide OR “family homicide” OR familicide-suicide OR filicide-suicide OR (“extended suicide”) OR filicide OR infanticide Search limited to: articles with abstracts, humans, French OR Finnish OR French OR Swedish, original articles OR case reports OR classical article OR journal article	1451
Database of Social Sciences
EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier	familicide OR infanticide OR filicide OR “family homicide” OR familicide-suicide OR filicide-suicide OR “extended suicide”Search limited to: scholarly (peer reviewed) journals; document type: article, case study; language: English, French	990
Social Services abstracts (ProQuest)	familicide OR “family homicide” OR familicide-suicide OR filicide-suicide OR “extended suicide” OR filicide OR infanticideSearch limited to: journal article, OR peer reviewed journal OR dissertation, English OR Swedish OR French OR Finnish AND human, duplicates are removed from results	50
PsycInfo	familicide OR “family homicide” OR familicide-suicide OR filicide-suicide OR “extended suicide” OR filicide OR infanticideSearch limited to: journal article, OR peer reviewed journal OR dissertation, English OR Swedish OR French OR Finnish AND human, duplicates are removed from results	526

In the first stage, the search was loosely restricted. Based on selections depending on the choices available for the database, searches were restricted to the languages of Finnish, Swedish, English and French. One criterion was that the articles had to be peer-reviewed and on western countries. At this stage, it was possible to remove some overlapping studies from the search results in some databases. With these restrictions, the search results from the different databases yielded altogether 4139 references. The search process is presented in detail in Table II.

Table II.

Selection of data for the literature review.

In the next stage, we analysed the titles and abstracts of the references based on the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table III).

Table III.

The inclusion and exclusion criteria for the articles.

Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
Familicide	Neonaticide
Infanticide of a child over 24 hrs old	Killing only the spouse
Familicide-suicide	Perpetrator or victim outside the family
Filicide-suicide (child over 24)	Other killings
Extended suicide within the family	Honour murder
Perpetrator is one’s own parent or parent-in-law	Mercy murder
Victim is the perpetrator’s own child (step-child) and possibly the spouse	Killing a sister
Perpetrator’s suicide or attempted suicide	Killing of one’s own parent
Killer is woman or man	Double suicide based on mutual decision
Victim is a girl/woman or boy/man	Events during the killing
Killers of all ages
Victims of all ages
Any number of victims
Research article from 2004 onwards	All data from before the 20th century
Language of the article: Finnish, Swedish, English, French	Other languages
Peer-reviewed research article
Doctoral dissertation	Case study
Abstract available
Article available

The age or sex of the perpetrator or the victim was not predefined in the review, but the victim had to be older than a new-born (24 hours old), as the background factors and motives of neonaticide perpetrators have been shown to differ greatly from those of people who kill a toddler, a preschool child or an older child [15,16]. Articles focusing only on mariticides (killing the spouse), mercy murders, honour murders and double suicides were also excluded from the data due to their different nature [3,17]. One criterion was that there had to be an abstract and the whole article available.

At this stage, only the title and abstract were analysed, and articles that were related to something else than familicides (n = 270) were excluded. These articles discussed, for example, other forms of killing than familicides, the background factors of the victim or the perpetrators, the perpetrator’s motives or the prosecutor’s attitudes towards the perpetrator. Moreover, articles related to the background factors of child maltreatment perpetrators were excluded, as they did not respond to the research question despite the similarity of the acts [18,19]. Case studies (n = 70) were excluded, as their results were based on a small sample. From the remaining 146 references, 57 overlapping references were removed. The whole text was read from 89 articles.

When reading the whole texts, those studies were excluded that did not respond to the research question (Table I). These included, for example, articles interpreting crime news narratives and exploring the identification of familicide risks, as these did not discuss the background factors of familicide perpetrators. Moreover, articles where the results did not distinguish familicides from other killings were excluded, as well as an article exploring thoughts of familicide, because these cases did not result in a killing. Articles that were related to something other than a familicide or the background factors of perpetrators were also removed from the data. In addition, articles exploring child deaths caused by maltreatment or as a consequence of another type of killing were not included [18,19]. An article discussing the background factors of perpetrators who had killed disabled children was also left out, as disabled children have been shown to have an increased risk of becoming killed by a parent than healthy children due to the parent’s greater stress level [20].

Studies exploring the impact of the social and economic situation on familicide statistics and other child deaths were also excluded from the data, as the focus was on the background factors of the perpetrators in this literature review. In addition, studies, articles, literature reviews, case studies, non-scientific and overlapping articles based on historical data as well as articles based on data from developing countries were excluded due to the different societal and cultural situation. The remaining set of data for the literature review consisted of altogether 32 articles (Table IV).

Table IV.

Studies on background factors of homicide perpetrators.

Authors and year of publication (numbers of the references)	Data and method	Key findings	Quality review of the study
Bourget and Gagné, 2005 [35]	Cause of death details, fathers who committed a filicide (n = 60), years 1991–2001	There has been earlier domestic violence in the family, and fathers committed a suicide in 60% of the cases. 86% of the fathers killed more than one child, and there was hardly any substance abuse. The majority of fathers had mental health problems.	8
Camperio Ciani and Fontanesi, 2012 [44]	Data from a forensic psychiatric hospital, mothers who have killed their child/children (n = 110), 1976–2010	The background factors of perpetrators who killed a new-born differed greatly from the background factors of those who killed older children.	8
Cavanagh et al., 2005 [28]	National murder statistics and investigation data, killings of children within and outside families (n = 90), 1998–2001	Fathers who had killed a child within or outside the family had different background factors. Perpetrators who had killed their own child had previously been violent toward their spouse or children. Perpetrators who had killed their own child were more often married.	8
D’Argenio et al., 2013 [45]	National television and newspaper archives, mothers who had committed a filicide-suicide (n = 36), 1992–2010	Perpetrators approximately 35-year-olds who had usually killed one child. All mothers had been diagnosed with a psychological disorder, but only six of them had received treatment for the mental health problem.	6
Flynn et al., 2013 [29]	National killing statistics, filicide perpetrators and filicide-suicides in England and Wales in 1997–2006	66% of the killers were fathers. Mothers were more often diagnosed with mental health problems than fathers. 20% had had contact with mental health services, and 12% had had contact with mental health services within the last year.	8
Friedman et al., 2008 [48]	Coroner’s registry of mothers who have committed a filicide and suicide in 1965–2002 and mothers who have committed a filicide and who suffer from mental health problems (n = 49) in 1974–2002	The background factors of mothers deviated from each other based on whether the mother had also committed suicide or attempted a suicide after the filicide. There were differences especially in the relationship status, use of substances and presence of delusion symptoms.	8
Friedman et al., 2005 [6]	Registries of psychiatric hospitals, psychologically ill mothers who had been convicted of a filicide (n = 39)	Three quarters of the mothers had mental health problems and had either lost their own mother or been a victim of incest.	7
Friedman et al., 2005 [42]	Coroner’s information, parents who have committed a filicide-suicide, 1958–2002	Parents who had killed their child/children and committed suicide often had had mental health problems, and some had received treatment for them.	8
Harris et al., 2007 [33]	378 child killings (biological parents vs. step-parents), 1996–2003	Biological mothers had usually killed a child under 1 year old, and they often had mental health problems. Perpetrators who had killed an older child were usually the child’s biological father who felt that the marriage was unstable and who often committed a suicide in addition to the filicide.	8
Johnson, 2006 [7]	Data from an office on children’s custody cases, seven familicide-suicides, 1989–1999	Familicide was often related to the family breaking apart and earlier domestic violence. The deed was often premeditated and the killer had obsessions, a need to boost their ego and jealousy. All familicide perpetrators were men.	7
Kauppi et al., 2010 [12]	Health-related and legal documents as well as psychiatric assessments, filicide perpetrators, 1970–1994	Killer mothers were psychologically stressed and they often had instability in their marriage and did not receive sufficient social support. Killer fathers were jealous of their spouse and they often had a personality disorder and an alcohol addiction. They were also violent towards their spouses.	7
Kauppi, 2012 [25]	All health-related and legal documents and psychiatric assessments related to filicides, all filicides, 1970–1994	Mothers often had mental health disorders. Fathers often had addiction problems and they were violent towards their family. There was often mental abuse, parents’ alcoholism and domestic violence in the parents’ childhood, Mothers and fathers had different mental health disorders.	9
Léveillée et al., 2007 [36]	A coroner’s files on all filicides of children under 18 years old in Quebec in 1/1986-3/1994	Men kill their spouse more often in connection with filicide than women, and they have more victims. Behind filicides committed by men, there is often a divorce or separation from the spouse, earlier violent behaviour towards the spouse and they have threatened with suicide. Women have depression symptoms more often than men.	8
Léveillée et al., 2009 [23]	Data from coroner’s files on all filicides in Quebec (n = 16) in 1986–2000	All familicides were committed by men. Half of them used brutal violence in their acts, and some also killed themselves after the act. Several of them had a personality disorder.	8
Léveillée et al., 2010 [24]	Data included Quebec’s coroner’s files, men who had killed their child/children and spouse (n = 16) vs. men who had only killed their child/children (n = 36), 1986–1998	Men who had killed the whole family were older than those who had killed only their child/children. Men who had killed the whole family suffered from the family breaking apart, they had many losses in their past and they had depression more often than men who had only killed their child/children.	8
Liem et al., 2010 [49]	Registry of a psychiatric hospital, comparison of perpetrators who committed filicide and perpetrators who committed filicide and attempted suicide, 1953–2004	There was no difference in the gender distribution between those who committed filicide and those who committed filicide and attempted suicide. Killers who had attempted a suicide had in many cases separated from their spouse and they had less abuse in their childhood.	6
Liem and Koenraadt, 2008 [3]	Data from the files of a psychiatric hospital, 1953–2006	Men who had killed the whole family were older and had a higher education. Perpetrators who had killed their whole family were more likely to be married and had been less violent than persons who only killed their spouse. Perpetrators who had killed their whole family were more likely to have a personality disorder and to attempt a suicide after the killing.	7
Liem et al., 2013 [22]	The data included FBI’s killing statistics from 1976–2007 and news information on familicides	The majority of the killers were men who used a firearm in the killing. There was no clear connection between familicides and economic problems.	7
Liem and Koenraadt, 2008 [30]	Data from the files of a psychiatric hospital, 1953–2004	The age, killing methods and motives of parents who had killed their child/children were different between mothers and fathers.	7
Logan et al., 2008 [37]	The data included violent death statistics, all killings in the US, 2003–2005	51.5% of the killers were women. The majority (91.4%) of other killings were committed by men.	8
McKee and Bramante, 2010 [43]	Data from several sources which are not mentioned in the article, mothers who had committed a filicide and suffered from mental health problems, 1967–2003	Mothers who suffered from mental health problems were more intelligent and older as well as unemployed more often than mothers who did not suffer from mental health problems. They also had more suicide attempts.	6
Messing and Heeren, 2004 [26]	Data included news archives, mothers who had killed their child/children in 1993–2001	The killings were largely premeditated and the women had killed their own child/children.	6
Nordlund and Temrin, 2007 [40]	Death certificates, police proceedings and registry of a psychiatric hospital from 1965–1999	The parents often had psychological problems and some social problems. Biological parents were less often aggressive towards their children, but they had more often conflicts between parents. Biological parents often committed suicide, whereas non-biological parents did not.	8
Putkonen et al., 2009 [38]	Cause of death certificates and reports, all filicides (under 18-year-olds) in Finland (66 children) and Austria (86 children), data from 1995–2005	The majority of the killers were biological mothers, 75% in Austria and 52% in Finland.The majority of filicides were also associated with a suicide or attempted suicide. Psychotic symptoms were fairly rare among the murderers, but depression was fairly common among Finnish child killers.	9
Putkonen et al., 2011 [27]	Cause of death certificates and Statistics Finland, 1995–2005	Only a few mothers had revealed their pregnancy to others. Even though almost all lived in a relationship, very few fathers knew about the pregnancy. Risk factors of killing a baby under 24 hours old included family members being unaware of the pregnancy and poor social support. Fathers had substance abuse before the kill.	8
Putkonen et al., 2009 [31]	Forensic psychiatric repots, case-comparison study, 1995–2004	Filicide perpetrators were not diagnosed with more mental health problems than other perpetrators, but they attempted suicide more often than the comparison subjects. Filicide perpetrators had less substance abuse and had less often an antisocial personality than the comparison subjects.	9
Putkonen et al., 2010 [34]	Reports of Statistics Finland and coroner files in Austria, all filicides in Austria and Finland in 1995–2005	Fathers who committed filicide were older than mothers. They also had more self-destructiveness and substance abuse than mothers. Mothers, on the other hand, were more often diagnosed with psychotic symptoms. Approximately one third of the parents had sought help for their mental health problems before the killing.	9
Putkonen et al., 2009 [32]	Treatment report registry information and conviction statements from Stakes, 1995–2005	Filicide perpetrators included equally many women as men, and they did not have earlier convictions of killing a child. 38% of the women and 58% of the men were employed. It was more typical for the women to have mental health problems, and alcohol use was more typical for the men.	9
Rougé-Maillart et al., 2005 [46]	Archives of a psychiatric hospital and interviews of the killers, as well as cause of death information and legal texts, mothers who had killed child/children of 1 month – 17 years old over a 10-year period	The female filicide perpetrators were 29.5 years old on average and they were married or otherwise in a relationship. They also often had a profession. Their economic situation put them in the middle class.	7
Shackelford et al., 2005 [41]	Chicago Police killing statistics from 1965–1994	Biological parents and other parents kill children equally often. When a parent kills more than one child or the older the child is, the more likely it is that the killer also commits suicide.	6
Stone et al., 2005 [47]	Data from the files of the Mid-Hudson psychiatric hospital, 1974–2000	Among women at the psychiatric hospital who had been convicted of a filicide: the older the child they killed was, the older the women were. Familicide perpetrators were generally poor, had a low level of education or a low IQ and they did not have a spouse in their life.	8
Stroud, 2008 [39]	Psychiatric assessments, qualitative study, 68 filicide perpetrators, 1986–2002	The current child protection policy and practices are not sufficient to guarantee sufficient help for a parent with multiple problems even when the parent is a threat to a child’s health and life.	7

Synthesis of results

The data were analysed with inductive content analysis, and the range of the frequency of background factors was given in percentages. In content analysis, information that is relevant to the research questions is extracted from the text content and summarised [21]. The articles chosen for the literature review were read through, looking for an answer to the following question: what are the background factors of a western familicide perpetrator? During the reading of the data differences were notice in the background factors of familicide perpetrators regarding the number of victims, the sex of the perpetrator and whether the perpetrator committed suicide. Based on this information, categories were created for analysis, dividing the background factors into five different categories: 1) background factors of familicide perpetrators with possibly committed suicide [3,7,22 –26]; 2) filicide-committed fathers [3,12,24,25,27 –41]; 3) filicide-committed mothers [3,12,25 –27,29 –32,34,36 –39,42 –49]; 4) filicide-suicide-committed fathers [6,32,35,36,49]; and 5) filicide-suicide-committed mothers [6,36,48]. The data analysis continued by underscoring background factors of familicide perpetrators that emerged through reading and by simplifying these factors and coding these simplifications. After this, the simplifications were combined according to similarities into subcategories, and the subcategories were named with a concept describing the content of the background factors (Table IV). The analysis continued by expressing the frequency range of familicide background factors in percentages, whenever they were available in the data.

Results

The background factors of western familicide perpetrators were categorised into the following categories: 1) background factors of familicide perpetrators with possibly committed suicide [3,7,22 –24,26]; 2) filicide-committed fathers [3,12,24,25,27 –41]; 3) filicide-committed mothers [3,12,25 –27,29 –32,34,36 –39,42 –49]; 4) filicide-suicide-committed fathers [6,32,35,36,49]; and 5) filicide-suicide-committed mothers [6,36,48] (Table V).

Table V.

The background factors of a western homicide perpetrator and their frequency in the data (%, references).

	The background factors of familicide perpetrators with possibly committed suicide[3,7,22 –24,26]	The background factors of filicide committed by fathers[3,12,24,25,27 –41]	The background factors of filicide committed by mothers[3,12,25 –27,29 –32,34,36 –39,42 –49]	The background factors of filicide-suicide committed by fathers[6,32,35,36,49]	The background factors of filicide-suicide committed by mothers[6,36,48]
Varying sociodemographic backgrounds
Mean age				33 year
Highly educated	86%
Male	96%
Low level of education		35–66%	7–68%
Low status in working life			71%	30%
Weak economic situation			12–56%
Lower socioeconomic class			71–81%
Employed	29–50%	38–61%		55–90%
Unemployed	41–71%		35–82%		44–60%
Undervalued job		75%
Relationship or married		53–97%	15–84%	80%	42–90%
Divorced			17–37%	5–71%	20–65%
Problems experienced in childhood
Parents’ divorce in childhood		21–37%	4–51%
Substance abuse in childhood		25–55%
Crime in childhood		5–41%
Violence towards others in childhood		7%
Parents’ substance abuse in childhood		20–74%	13–55%
Parents’ mental health problems		20–74%	10–55%
Violence between parents in childhood		25–46%	4–37%
Parents’ criminal behaviour		3%	0–44%
Losing a father in childhood		40%
Feelings of unsafety
Having been a victim of violence	3–9%	13–74%
Having been a victim of domestic violence in childhood		3%
Having been a victim of sexual abuse in childhood			3–55%
Having been a victim of sexual abuse as an adult			7%
Physical abuse by partner as an adult			13–23%
Having been a victim of mental abuse			67%
Psychological instability
Depression	67%	7–52%	9–50%	33–75%	29–70%
Personality disorders	19–38%	19–67%	3–55%
Psychotic symptoms		6–48%	2–82%	0–25%	30%
Delusions			2–74%	20%	20–89%
Self-destructiveness/suicide	25–88%	6–68%	6–68%	5–10%	18–20%
Drug abuse	25–44%	5–47%	10–41%	10%	19–53%
Seeking treatment for mental health problems	16–38%	7–53%	17–77%	10–30%	12–70%
Stress over economic problems		44%
Stress over work		21%
Stress over life situation			25–90%
Fatigue			23–50%
Instability of social relationships
Intimate relationship ending	19–37%
Dissatisfaction with marriage	71%
Problems in the relationship		23–60%	7–60%
Problems in the relationship with children		12–51%	12–51%
Custody battles		12–20%
Problems in social relationships		15–74%	20–74%
Violence offence
Violence towards children	0–71%	18–75%	12–45%	14%
Violence towards spouse	56%		4–61%	67%
Violence towards others	19%
Violence between spouses		36–69%			24%
Threatening with violence				29–48%	6–12%
Threatening with suicide					18%
Mental abuse of children			14%
Earlier crime	19%	15–80%	4–20%	19–25%	10–24%
Earlier or attempted filicide			5–44%

The familicide perpetrators with possibly committed suicide

Familicide perpetrators with possibly committed suicide had various sociodemographic factors [3,22], psychological instability [7,22 –24], unstable social relationships [3,7,22 –24,26], violence offence [3,7, 23,24,26], experiences of insecurity [26] and in their background.

The sociodemographic factors of familicide perpetrators with possibly committed suicide varied; the perpetrators were highly educated [3] men [3,22] whose employment status varied from employed to unemployed [3].

Psychological instability manifested as depression [23], personality disorders [23], self-destructiveness [7,22 –24] and substance abuse [23,24]. Familicide perpetrators had also sought help for mental health problems [23,24].

Instability of social relationships manifested as ended relationships [3,22 –24,26] and dissatisfaction with the relationship [7].

Violence offence as a background factor manifested as violence towards children [7,23,24,26], the spouse [3,7,23,24] and other people [23,24]. In addition, crime manifested as a sexual crime of a child [7] and other previous crimes [23].

The experiences of insecurity of familicide perpetrators were related to having been a victim of physical violence in childhood [26].

The background factors of filicide committed by fathers

Fathers who had committed filicide had various sociodemographic factors [3,12,24,25,27 –29,31 –33], experienced problems in childhood [12,25,28,31, 32,34], suffered from psychological instability [12,24,25,29,30,31,34 –41], unstable social relationships [12,25,27,31,32,36,37,39,40], experiences of insecurity [12,25,27,28] and violence offences [3,24,27 –29,31,32,35 –37,39] in their background.

The varying sociodemographic backgrounds of male filicide perpetrators included a low level of education [3,27,28] and employment [3,27 –29,31,32] and an underappreciated job [12,25]. The marital status of father filicide perpetrators was divided into those living in a relationship [24,25,29,33] and those who were married [12,25,27,28].

Problems experienced in childhood included parents’ divorce in childhood [28], substance abuse [28], crime [28,31] and witnessing violence towards others in childhood [28]. In addition, problems experienced in childhood included the father perpetrator’s parents’ substance abuse [12,25,28,34], parents’ mental health problems [12,25,28,34], violence between parents [12,25,28,32,34] and losing a father in childhood [12,25].

Psychological instability manifested as depression [12,29,31,34 –39], personality disorders [12,25,30,31,38,39], psychotic symptoms [12,25,31,34,36,38,39], self-destructiveness [24,31,33 –38,40,41] and substance abuse [12,24,25,28,29,31,37]. In addition, filicide committed by fathers perpetrators had sought help for mental health problems [24,28,29,31,32,34,36,37,39]. Fathers who had killed their family also had stress over economic problems and issues at work [32].

Instability of social relationships as a background of a familicide perpetrator included problems in the intimate relationship [12,25,27,32,39], problems related to children [27,36,39], custody battles [27] and problems in social relationships [12,25,27,31,37,39,40].

Experiences of insecurity in the background of a familicide perpetrator included having been a victim of physical violence [12,25,28] and having been a victim of domestic violence as an adult [27].

Violence offence as a background factor manifested as violence towards children [3,24,27,28,32,35,39] and violence between spouses [24,28,36,37,39]. In addition, crime manifested as previous violent crimes [29,31], previous filicide [27] and sexual crimes [28].

The background factors of filicide committed by mothers

Mothers who had committed filicide had various sociodemographic factors [3,12,25 –27,29,37,39,42 –47,49], problems experienced in childhood [12,25,34,39,42,43], psychological instability [12,25,27,29,30 –32,34,36 –40,42,44,47,48], unstable social relationships [12,25 –27,32,37,39,42], experiences of insecurity [12,25 –27,42] and violence offence [26,27,29,31,32,36,42,43,49] in their background.

The various social demographic factors included a low level of education [3,27,42,43], low status at work [12,25], a poor economic situation [37,42,44 –46] and a lower socioeconomic class [12,25,47]. In addition, the background factors of mothers who committed filicide included unemployment [12,25,26,29,39,42 –47,49], and they were either in a relationship or marriage [12,25,26,29,39,43 –47,49] or separated from a relationship [26,27,32,36,42,45,46,49].

Problems experienced in childhood included parents’ divorce [39,43], parents’ substance abuse [12,25,34,42], parents’ mental health problems [12,25,34,42], violence between parents [32,39] and parents’ criminal behaviour, especially the mother’s [34].

Psychological instability manifested as depression [12,29,31,34,36 –39,42,44,47,48], personality disorders [12,25,29,31,34,38,39,40], psychotic symptoms [12,25,31,34,36,38,39,42,44], delusions [29,39,42,48], self-destructiveness [30 –34,36,37,40 –43,46] and substance abuse [29,31,37,48]. In addition, familicide perpetrators had sought help for mental health problems [31,34,36,39,42]. Mothers who committed familicide were also stressed over their life situation [32,39,42] and exhausted [27,32].

Instability of social relationships manifested as problems in intimate relationships [12,25,27,32,37,39], problems related to children [26,39,42] and problems in social relationships [27,31,37,45,47], such as behaviour towards others.

Experiences of insecurity manifested as having been a victim of sexual abuse in childhood [42] and as an adult [27], having been a victim of spousal abuse [12,25,26,42] and having been a target of mental abuse [12,25] in childhood.

Violence offence manifested as violence towards children [26,27,32,36,42,49] and the spouse [26,27,36], as well as mental abuse towards children [26]. In addition, it manifested as a criminal background [27,29,31,32,36,42,43] and an earlier filicide or an attempt at filicide [42].

The background factors of filicide-suicide committed by fathers

Filicide-suicidal fathers had various sociodemographic factors [6,32,35,36,49], psychological instability [6,35,36] and violence offence [6,35,36,49] in their background.

The various sociodemographic background factors among filicide-suicidal fathers included an average age of 33 years [6,36,49], a demoted status at work [6,36], employment [32,35] and being in a relationship or married [6] or divorced [36,49].

Psychological instability manifested as depression [6,35,36], psychotic symptoms [6,35,36], delusions [6], self-destructiveness [6,35,36] and substance abuse [6,36]. In addition, filicide-suicidal fathers had sought help for mental health problems [6,35,36].

Violence offence manifested as violence towards children [35,49] and violence between spouses [36], as well as threatening both the spouse [36] and children [36] with violence. In addition, it was related to a criminal background [6,36].

The background factors of filicide-suicide committed by mothers

Filicide-suicidal mothers had various sociodemographic factors [6,36], psychological instability [6,36,48] and violence offence [6,36] in their background.

The various sociodemographic background factors of filicide-suicidal mothers included being employed [6,36] and living in a relationship or marriage [6,36] or having separated or divorced [6,36].

Psychological instability manifested as depression [6,36,48], psychotic symptoms [6], delusions [6,48], self-destructiveness [6,36] and substance abuse [6,36]. Filicide-suicidal mothers also had sought help for mental health problems [6,36].

Violence manifested as violence between spouses [36], threatening especially children with violence [36] and threatening with suicide [36]. In addition, it was related to a criminal background [6,36] like earlier crime.

Discussion

The results of this literature review showed that the background factors of western familicide perpetrators varied according to the number of victims, the sex of the perpetrator and whether the perpetrator committed suicide. The parents had psychological instability, violence and crime in all categories of familicides. By contrast, parents who had killed their child/children and themselves did not have any experiences of insecurity or problems experienced in childhood in their background. On the other hand, not as much background information was found on these parents compared to other parents. The major differences between the perpetrators can be seen when comparing whether perpetrator committed suicide or not (Table V).

Looking at the percentages, parents who had committed a filicide-suicide had more often been diagnosed with depression than other familicide perpetrators, but none of them had personality disorders. Gregory and Milroy [50] have noted that mental health problems are nearly always related only to killings accompanied with a suicide (79–93%), unlike in the results of this literature review. The present literature review showed that the background of mothers who had committed filicide-suicide included the biggest percentage of mental health problems, but depression and psychotic symptoms or other delusions were common in other familicide categories as well. Especially parents who committed filicide had personality disorders.

The results of the literature review showed that all familicide perpetrators had sought help for mental health problems at some point in the past. Mothers who committed filicide had sought help more often than other perpetrators, whereas fathers who had committed suicide had sought help less often than others. Substance abuse was present in all familicide perpetrator categories, especially in mothers who had committed a filicide-suicide. These mothers also felt exhaustion and stress over their life situation. By contrast, fathers who committed filicide felt stress over their economic situation and work issues. Gregory and Milroy [50] have noted that parents who had committed suicide rarely (7–11%) had concerns over economic problems, and they did not emerge as a background factor in this literature review, either.

This literature review showed that there is often some form of violence in the background of familicide perpetrators. Violence was mainly targeted towards children, except with mothers who had committed a suicide-filicide. There was also violence towards the spouse or between spouses in all familicide categories. In earlier studies [50,51], it has been claimed that parents who have committed suicide-familicide are not violent and aggressive towards their family. However, this literature review showed that there was violence and threats of violence also between parents who had committed a familicide-suicide.

There was a criminal background in all familicide categories, predominantly in fathers who committed filicide. Mothers who had committed filicide were the only perpetrators whose background included an earlier filicide or an attempt at filicide. Especially fathers and mothers who had killed their child/children had instability of social relationships, such as dissatisfaction with and problems in the intimate relationship, as well as custody battles. Moreover, problems experienced in childhood, such as substance abuse by the perpetrator or the parents, violent parents and crime, were found only in the background of fathers and mothers who had killed their child/children. Similarly, feelings of insecurity, especially problems experienced in childhood, such as having been a victim of domestic violence or sexual abuse, only emerged in the background of parents who had committed filicide.

The sociodemographic backgrounds of familicide perpetrators varied greatly. Parents who had committed filicide and uxoricide were generally highly educated, whereas those who had only committed filicide were less educated and had a lower status at work. Based on the results of this literature review, it can be said that familicide perpetrators have a low level of education and a low status at work or are unemployed. Gregory and Milroy [50] had similar results, but they noted that parents who had committed suicide were mainly in the middle class. Mothers who had committed filicide-suicide had more often separated or divorced from their spouses than fathers. It has been noted earlier that as much as 46–80% of the relationships of parents who have committed filicide-suicide had ended in separation or divorce, unlike in the results of this literature review.

The background factors of parents who had killed their child/children and themselves deviated the most from the factors behind other forms of familicide. An additional explanatory factor for the results may be that in our data there were not as many articles on familicide-suicide as on other familicide forms. Parents who had committed familicide-suicide were less often reported to have self-destructiveness than in other familicide categories. This surprising result may be due to reporting, or this group may have had less self-destructiveness before the familicide than other classes. The results of the literature review regarding sociodemographic background factors were heterogeneous. In the original studies, it may have been challenging to define an individual’s status based on scarce information, and the criteria for socioeconomic classes may also be different in different countries.

Reliability

The most important stages of a systematic literature review are the systematic literature search, the selection of the studies and the analytical process. The data for this review was retrieved using different health and social science research databases, as well as carefully selected Finnish and English search terms. Before the literature search was conducted, the inclusion and exclusion criteria were defined. The criteria were further specified during the search process. The inclusion and exclusion criteria presented in the review enables readers to evaluate the relevance of the data used in the review. The data were selected independently by two researchers using the predefined criteria to increase the reliability of the review [14]. Including case studies in the data analysis might have provided additional information on the background factors of familicide perpetrators, even though the data were based only on specific cases. The language restrictions may also leave out relevant information from the literature review.

The data for the systematic literature review consisted of 32 Finnish and foreign articles. Seven of the studies were based on Finnish data, and three of these had been combined with data from Austria. The foreign articles were from the Netherlands (3), Canada (5), Italy (3), the Great Britain (3), Sweden (1), the US (8), France (1) and Australia (1). The data included 28 quantitative and four qualitative articles, and they were all retrospective studies. Overall, the research data used in the review are heterogeneous and, therefore, provide a versatile picture of the different background factors of familicides. However, based on this review, it is not possible to comment on whether these factors can be considered actual causes for familicides.

The critical evaluation checklist developed by The Joanna-Briggs Institute was used to evaluate the quality of the data. This checklist makes it possible to identify bias affecting the results [52]. An evaluation framework developed by the authors which is suitable for this type of study was used to evaluate the qualitative and quantitative studies. Ten criteria (the highest score being 10) were evaluated in the qualitative studies, and nine criteria (the highest score being 9) were evaluated in the quantitative studies. In the qualitative studies, we evaluated, for example, the similarity of the research methodology with the research question, data collection methods, data analysis and interpretation of results. In the quantitative studies, we evaluated, for example, the sampling methods, sample acceptance criteria and the use of suitable statistical methods. Each item on the evaluation form was scored (Yes = 1 point and No = 0 points) If the study had not used the research setting or topic that we were evaluating, the article was given zero points. The scores of the quality evaluation are presented in Table II. The quality of the articles that we selected for the review was good. The large amount of search results and the use of several databases enabled us to select articles for the review that responded to the research question most accurately. No articles were rejected based on the quality evaluation.

Due to the scarcity of western familicide studies, there were no articles included in the review that would have had similar research data or methods. Especially the background factors of filicide perpetrators were partly reported among other forms of familicide, and some studies only explored the background factors of parents with a psychological illness, which is seen in how the results highlight psychological instability. The data analysis was carefully conducted by adhering to the best possible objectivity. The analysis began by using inductive, that is, content-based content analysis, which is described as clearly as possible. The background factors of familicide perpetrators that emerged from the original data were simplified almost in their original form and then categorised into subcategories. The reliability of the analysis was improved by collaboration of several researchers. At the final stage of the analysis, the frequency of each background factor was described in percentages.

Conclusions

Psychological instability and related problems were very common in familicide perpetrators, and this had caused familicide perpetrators to seek help for mental health problems. When treating mental health problems, attention should be paid to the patient’s family relationships, especially when there are children in the family. Filicide thoughts might remain only thoughts and ideas if the person seeking help is identified at an early stage in social and health care and given appropriate help and treatment. Family counselling centres especially play a key role in identifying families where the parents are exhausted and feel that the everyday strain is too much.

A criminal background was a background factor in all familicide classes, and it was often associated with violence. If there is violence or threat of violence in families, authorities should intervene at an early stage by discussing it and identifying families that need help in order to prevent situations from escalating to familicide. When working with criminals, it is also important to explore other family relationships. Especially parents who had killed their child/children had a large number of problems experienced in childhood. Social and psychological problems are easily passed on to the next generation, and, therefore, it is important to process childhood traumas and uncomfortable experiences already in childhood or in adulthood at the latest.

It is not possible to define a specific profile for a western familicide perpetrator due to the five different categories of familicide and filicide studied and solely based on the data of this one systematic literature review. Nevertheless, the results of this literature review indicate factors that predict familicide, and based on these factors, we can evaluate whether there are similarities between different forms of familicide. In the future, more information is needed on the motives of familicide and whether there are differences in the background factors of perpetrators regarding the number of killed family members.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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