Homicide-Suicide in the Netherlands

Abstract

Homicides followed by the suicide of the perpetrator are a rare yet very serious form of interpersonal violence that occurs mainly in partnerships and families. No systematic research on homicide-suicide has ever been conducted in the Netherlands. This study provides an overview of the international homicide-suicide literature. Additionally, this article describes, for the first time, the incidence and patterns of homicide-suicide in the Netherlands and compares these to homicides not followed by suicide. To do so, an existing record containing all homicide cases in the Netherlands in the period 1992-2006 was used. Additional information on homicide-suicide events was retrieved through newspaper analysis. A total of 135 people died in 103 events. Homicide-suicide occurs with an annual incidence of 0.07 to 0.02 per 100,000 persons per year. People who commit homicide-suicide cannot be easily equated to those accused of other types of homicide.

Filicide followed by parasuicide: A comparison of suicidal and non-suicidal child homicide

“…A departure from existing literature was noted regarding the relatively equal gender distribution among both suicidal and non-suicidal perpetrators. This contradicts findings from a national study on homicide-suicide (Liem, Postulart, & Nieuwbeerta, 2009) as well as studies conducted elsewhere, finding a higher proportion of men committing filicide-suicide. This over-representation of women among suicidal perpetrators could be attributed to relatively less lethal suicide methods employed by women, independent of their level of suicidal intent (Denning, Conwell, King, & Cox, 2000).…”

Mean Ages of Homicide Victims and Victims of Homicide–Suicide

“…This finding agrees with that reported by Stack (1997), who reported a mean age of 35.0 yr. for those murdered in a homicide-suicide event regardless of sex and a mean age of 32.2 yr. for all other homicide victims. In contrast, Liem, et al (2009) reported the mean age of homicide victims in 103 homicide-suicides in -It should be noted that independent t tests and effect sizes are based on t tests despite not meeting the assumption that the victims' ages represent a probability sample of some larger population. The data, while a part of a larger population, were not randomly drawn from that larger population so mean differences by race and sex across homicide-suicides were compared with those on homicides alone.…”

“…Liem, et al (2009) reported the mean age of the homicide victims in uxoricide-suicides was 43 yr. and in filicide-suicides 5 yr. These results suggest the relatively younger mean age of males and older mean age of females killed in homicide-suicides may be representative of populations which differ by three or four years from the mean ages of male and female victims of homicide, respectively.…”

“…Marzuk, Tardiff, and Hirsch (1992) proposed a four-part scheme for classifying these homicide-suicides: (1) uxoricidesuicide or the killing of an intimate partner (usually by males) and subsequent killing of oneself, (2) filicide-suicide 2 which occurs when a perpetrator kills her children and then self (usually women), (3) familicide-suicide represents an overlap between uxoricide-suicide and filicide-suicide, i.e., the killing of both spouse and child(ren), usually by men, and (4) extrafamilial homicide-suicide involves homicide victims outside the family. In a recent study, Liem, Postulart, and Nieuwbeerta (2009) added a fifth category, i.e., killing of other family members followed by suicide or homicide-suicides in which first-to third-degree family members are killed but not those in the above categories. Examples include parricide or the killing of one's parents followed by a suicide and siblicide or the killing of one's siblings followed by a suicide.…”

Homicide in Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden

“…Recent studies on homicide subtypes relating to the relationship between victim and perpetrator include studies on intimate partner homicides (De Boer 1990;Fuldauer 1994), child homicides (Brants & Koenraadt 1998;Liem & Koenraadt 2008a;Verheugt 2007) and multiple family homicides (Liem & Koenraadt 2008b), homicide-suicides (Liem 2010;Liem & Koenraadt 2007;Liem, Postulart & Nieuwbeerta 2009), parent homicides (Koenraadt, 1996), homicides against prostitutes (Van Gemert 1994b), and homicides against older homosexual men (Van Gemert 1994a). Other homicides outside the family realm, such as homicides in connection with arguments have hardly been studied .…”