Mentally disordered parricide and stranger killers admitted to high-security care. 1: A descriptive comparison

Abstract

Parricide is an uncommon crime, so that many of the descriptive studies suffer from methodological shortcomings of small sample sizes and a non-representative ascertainment. We describe a consecutive series of mentally disordered offenders convicted of parricide who were admitted to high-security care and we compare their index characteristics with a group convicted of killing one or more strangers. The main ndings were that the parricides were more likely to suffer from schizophrenia but less likely to have had a disrupted childhood and criminal history, as compared with those who had killed a stranger. Those in the parricide group had made a previous attack on their victim in 40% of cases. Overall, the study con rmed some of the differences that one might expect between these two groups of homicides, which had entirely different relationships to their victims.

Mentally disordered parricide and stranger killers admitted to high-security care. 2: Course after release

“…The psychiatric diagnosis and demographic features that characterized the two groups in the original sample were also found to be present in this subset (please refer to Baxter et al, 2001, for a complete account). The psychiatric history of the groups on admission to high-security care showed that schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis of the parricide group (n = 42, 79.2%) and personality disorder the most common diagnosis in the stranger group (n = 36, 50.7%), followed closely by schizophrenia (n = 27, 38.0%; x 2 = 21.2, df = 2, p < 0.001).…”

“…The series was derived from a larger comparison of 98 parricides and 159 stranger killings described in the preceding paper (Baxter et al, 2001). This study focused on members of that series who were discharged from highsecurity care on a restriction order.…”

A descriptive and follow-up study of 40 parricidal patients hospitalized in a French secure unit over a 15-year period

“…The offenders are mostly sons (Bourget et al, 2007;Hillbrand et al, 1999;Menezes, 2010;Newhill, 1991), about 30 years of age (Bourget et al, 2007;Campion et al, 1985;Devaux et al, 1974;Millaud et al, 1996;Wick et al, 2008), single and unemployed Clark, 1993;Devaux et al, 1974;Millaud et al, 1996), living with the victim and engaged in a hostiledependent relationship (Devaux et al, 1974;Newhill, 1991;Singhal & Dutta, 1992) with previous violent tendencies toward their victims (Baxter, Duggan, Larkin, Cordess, & Page, 2001;Cravens et al, 1985;Weisman et al, 2002).…”

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Characteristics of Parricide Offenders with Schizophrenia in Korea

“…Among the 122 patients with schizophrenia who were hospitalized in the Forensic Hospital, Ministry of Justice between November–December 2007, 48.4% had committed parricide. They mostly showed an early onset of schizophrenia, but when the symptoms became more severe,23 there was much violence in the family 1113. Many of the subjects were not receiving drug treatment at the time of the incident.…”