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Filicide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Filicide is the deliberate act of a parent killing his or her own son or daughter. The term can also be applied to the parent who has committed such an act. The word filicide derives from the Latin word filius meaning "son".
In some cultures, killing a daughter who has disgraced the family is a common occurrence (see honor killing).
A 1999 US Department of Justice Study concluded that between 1976 and 1997 in the U.S., 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 age 8 or older. Furthermore, 52% of the children killed by their mothers were male (maternal filicide), while 57% of the children killed by their fathers were male (paternal filicide).
Sometimes there is a combination of murder and suicide in filicide cases.
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- Karen McCarron is suspected of smothering her three-year-old autistic daughter, Katie.
- Alan Christopher- Shot and killed his sons, Cody (11) and Kevin (10), on January 19, 2007 in Scottsdale, Arizona, then committed suicide.
- Cameron John Brown - Suspected of killing his four-year-old daughter, Lauren Sarene Key by pushing her off a cliff to avoid paying child support.
- John and Patsy Ramsey were once suspected of murdering their six-year-old daughter, JonBenét.
- Lucius Sergius Catilina - The notorious Roman insurrectionist was said to have murdered his only son to persuade Aurelia Orestilla to marry him.
- Neil Entwistle - Was charged in the January 2006 killing of his baby daughter Lillian in Hopkinton, MA.
- Marvin Pentz Gay, Sr. (deceased) - Shot his son (singer) Marvin Gaye during an argument in Los Angeles, California, in 1984. He was sent to a rest home for the rest of his life.
- Susan Smith - Drowned her two sons Michael and Alex in a maroon Mazda Protegé in Union, South Carolina, in 1994. She was sentenced to life in prison in Union, South Carolina, in 1995.
- Andrea Yates - Drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001, in Clear Lake City, Texas, due to postpartum depression and other mental disorders. She was sentenced to life in prison in Gatesville, Texas in 2002, but the sentence was later overturned.
- Bradford Bishop bludgeoned his three children, spouse and mother to death in 1976. He was indicted for murders and remains at large.
- Debora Green burned two of her three children to death in an arson attack, out of fear she would lose custody of them to her estranged husband Michael Farrar. Sentenced to life imprisonment.
- Ivan IV of Russia (Ivan the Terrible) - Killed his son and heir to the throne in a fit of rage.
- Peter the Great of Russia - Had his son tortured to death, being present at several of the torture sessions and allegedly participating in some of them.
- Ernest I. Jeffries - Killed his infant daughter by slamming her to the floor with his raised arm from a standing position, similar to a football player ‘spiking’ a football. [1]
- Jerry Branton Hobbs - Inflicted 30 stab wounds against his daughter Laura Hobbs and her best friend Krystal Tobias. [2]
- Thomas Dewald - Drowned his two children, aged 10 and 12, in the lake near his parents' cottage.
- Rohini Maharaj (deceased) - Killed her two sons by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage and then committed suicide.
- Ronald Clark O'Bryan - Poisoned his son on Halloween 1974 with cyanide-laced candy for $20,000 of life insurance money. Executed in 1984.
- John Emil List murdered his three children, mother and his wife on November 9, 1971. He was a fugitive for 18 years. He was apprehended on June 1, 1989 after an episode of "Americas Most Wanted" aired. On May 1, 1990 he was sentenced to 5 life terms in prison.
- Christina Riggs - She was sentenced to death by lethal injection for killing her two children Justin and Shelby.
- Sharon Amos - A prominent member of the Peoples Temple church in Guyana (who was not present at Jonestown, but rather at Guyana headquarters in Georgetown) slit the throats of her two children and then herself after hearing the news of mass suicide from Jonestown over the ham radio.
- Jozsef Barsi - On July 25, 1988 child actress Judith Barsi's father entered her bedroom and shot her in her head. Judith's mother heard the gun shot and came running down the hall where she was met by her father; he then shot his wife. He then drenched the bodies in gasoline and set the house on fire before finally shooting himself in the garage.
- Josef and Magda Goebbels - On May 1, 1945 poisoned their six children before committing suicide.
- Yeongjo, king of Korea (r. 1724-1776), ordered the death of his son, Crown Prince Sado, in 1767. The crown prince had murdered people within the royal palace and was most likely mentally ill. He obeyed his father’s order to climb into a rice chest, where he subsequently suffocated to death.
- Selim I, sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1512-1520), had all possible competitors for the sultanate assassinated, including two of his brothers, his nephews, and all of his sons but one, Suleiman I.
- Ptolemy XII of Egypt had his daughter Berenice IV and her husband beheaded in 55 BC. This was after she had dethroned him and poisoned her sister, Cleopatra VI.
- China Arnold murdered her newborn daughter by using a microwave oven. [3]
- Dena Schlosser murdered her young daughter because God told her to.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
- Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare - Title character kills his daughter Lavinia. This is an attempt to restore her honor after she was raped, her hands were amputated, and her tongue cut out. Titus previously kills her attackers (then apparently puts pieces of the men's dead bodies into a pie that he serves their mother), marking this play as Shakespeare's most gruesome.
- La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) - This Hispanic American folktale tells of a woman, Maria, whose husband is unfaithful. In her rage, she throws their children into the river, where they are drowned.[4]
- In the Medea of Euripides, Medea kills her children, in retaliation for being abandoned by their father, Jason.
- Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter, Iphigeneia, to the goddess Artemis in Aeschylus' The Oresteia and in Euripides' Iphigeneia at Aulis.
- Orchamus, a king in Greek mythology ordered his daughter Leucothea buried alive upon learning that she was in love with Apollo.
- In the HBO series Oz, white supremacist Schillinger has his son killed by providing him with poisoned narcotics while he is in solitary confinement.
- In the video game Castlevania, a witch named Actrise relishes the memory of sacrificing her child to the Devil in return for eternal life.
- In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, Cuchulainn unwittingly kills his son Conlaoch when Conlaoch arrives in Ulster and, under a geis from his mother, the warrior queen Aoife, refuses to give his name to the king. Cuchulainn recognizes his son by a golden ring only after he inflicts a mortal wound with his magical spear, the Gae Bolga.
- In the 1990 film The Grifters, con artist Lilly Dillon unintentionally kills her son while trying to take his money.
- Hercules of Greek Mythology killed his wife and children in a fit of rage induced by Hera
- In the FOX Network show Justice, a woman is tried and convicted of shooting her son, who threatened to reveal the mother's drug dealing business.
- In the FOX Network show 24, Graem Bauer (Paul McCrane) is killed by his father, Phillip Bauer (James Cromwell) before he can reveal Phillip's involvement in the nuclear attacks against America in Season 6.
- Prolicide is the killing of offspring.
- Infanticide is the killing of an infant from birth to 12 months.
- Patricide and matricide are the converse of filicide: the killing of a parent by his or her child.
- Fratricide and sororicide refer to the killing of one's sibling.
And as for non-familial murder terms from the same root:
- Regicide is the killing of a king or ruler.
- Tyrannicide is the killing of a tyrant.
- Homicide is the killing of a human.
- Genocide is the killing of a group of people.
- Ecocide is the damaging of the ecosystem
- [Although not technically murder] Suicide is the killing of oneself.
- Deicide is the killing of a god.
- Uxoricide is the killing of one's wife.
Also consider filial cruelty (cruelty toward one's own child), child cruelty (cruelty toward an unrelated child), and child murder (the murder of a child in general).