Citation

Aderibigbe YA. J. Forensic Sci. 1997; 42(4): 662-665.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9243828

Abstract

This paper describes murder-suicide in the United States from 1990 through 1995, using the cases reported in six major newspapers. Spousal murder-suicide was the predominant type with a range of 42%-57%; familicide-suicide was the second predominant type with a range of 22%-47%. The perpetrators were predominantly males; the victims were female sexual partners or consanguineous relatives. Firearms (guns) were used in 90% of the cases. The author concludes that a national surveillance system that specifically identifies and codes this phenomenon, and multi disciplinary studies are necessary to hinder this phenomenon.

Language: en