Family Killers

Murder in all its forms is unacceptable to most humans. The act of killing another human being some how reminds us how very fragile our "civilized" behaviors are and how easily we can slip over the invisible boundaries into the "animal" kingdom. When I think of the killing of other humans, or homicide, I tend to categorize the act into murder (the killing of another for any material, emotional or otherwise selfish reason); execution (the act of killing one who has already resorted to being an "animal"); and self-defense (the necessary killing of one who threatens your family, your country, and your right to freedom and safety).

But when a person murders those they should be protecting or those they have avowed love for, it brings an entire new dimension to an already horrendous act. A thoughtless, unplanned murder of rage, while not condoning it, most of us can understand on some level. A murder of greed, we can comprehend how some who worship material things above all else may make a cowardly choice to obtain riches. But the premeditated, well orchestrated killing of a spouse, a child, or your entire family leaves us shocked, bewildered, and full of fear - a fear born from the inability to comprehend or define a cause so we can protect our fellow humans from this ultimate act of betrayal. When humans will kill that which most of us hold sacred - we begin to fear the loss of our basic humanity.

In January 2009, Mark Meeks of Ohio killed his wife, their two children and himself after losing his job. One week before, Ervin and Ana Lupoe of Los Angeles killed their five children then committed suicide. April 2009, William Parente allegedly killed his wife Betsy, 19 year old daughter Stephanie, and daughter Catherine age 11 in an upscale Maryland hotel room. The case of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who killed her five children in 2001 shocked and horrified Americans beyond anything most of us could imagine, yet the case seemed to be a catalyst for a time when family murders would become more common, not only in America but in nations across the globe. In 2001 Robert Mochrie of South Wales bludgeoned to death his wife, a recent University graduate, their four children, and then hung himself after first having carefully planned out the deed, cancelling the milk delivery and his daughter's ride to school. In January 2007 a young Irish mother Eileen Murphy threw herself and her four year old son Evan off the famous Cliffs of Moher, a fall Evan lived through briefly before joining his mother in death. The year before, Mary Keegan of Co. Dublin stabbed her two sons Glenn and Andrew and then herself. These are but a few of the many cases just since 2001, and the list seems to be growing every day.

The reality is "familicide" or "family annihilation" is not a phenomenon of the 21^st century as our own history shows us even in just the recorded murders within the royal houses of Europe. At ClEWS, your Home for Historic True Crime, Laura James provides a list of some who murdered their families dating back to 1859 when a man named Peter Amdt from Illinois murdered three of his children with an axe. Family murders are also not committed only by parents, some are planned and orchestrated by the very ones most humans wrap their entire lives around....their children. In April 2006, a twelve year old girl from Alberta and her 23 year old boyfriend were arrested for the brutal murder of the girl's parents, Marc and Debra Richardson and her eight year old brother Jacob. Some of the more infamous were sets of brothers who killed their family members, Bryan and David Freeman who killed their father Dennis, mother Brenda and their eleven year old brother Erick in 1995 - and Lyle and Erick Menendez who in 1989 murdered their affluent Beverly Hills parents Jose and Kitty.

What motivates these people to kill their "loved" ones? While some are obviously motivated by greed as in the case of the Menendez brothers, and others influenced possibly by a sense of "hopelessness", the question still remains how or why the perpetrators are able and willing to carry out the actual deed.

We might look at "love" or "family" murders as "murders of control", when one person not only wants control of others in life but also takes control by choosing the other person's moment of death. A parent who has decided that life is hopeless and decides to leave this world behind but first takes the life of his/her children and/or spouse - has utilized extreme control and taken the choice to live or die away from the victims. The victim does not get to decide if life is "hopeless"; the murderer who obviously believes he/she has the right to control the entire existence of the family members has made the choice for them.

These murderers can only be people who see their "loved" ones as objects or possessions they own, mere extensions of the murderer, and not as individuals. A spouse who decides they do not want anyone else to "have" their spouse, a parent who decides their child is better off dead, or who wants to take the child away from another parent, and a petulant child who perceives their parent as a dictator/provider of money, food, and things, but not as a protector or someone to love.

Many will use prior abuse as a defense, yet thousands and thousands of humans are abused each day without murdering their abusers, just as men have faced the loss of jobs throughout history who did not murder their families, and spouses and lovers have been left behind yet moved forward instead of killing the one who "left" or "betrayed" them. Andrea Yates' defense was "postpartum psychosis" and she was determined to be mentally ill. Yet, Yates' was able to tell investigators that she had planned on killing the children over a month before which means she consciously knew they were in danger from her. I believe Andrea Yates was exhausted and over whelmed after her first two children, yet continued to deliberately, get pregnant to honor her vow to have "as many babies as nature allowed".

If women killed their children due to the rather common condition known as postpartum depression or psychosis, the survival of the human race would have been severely limited. According to Women's Health, "depression is a common problem during and after pregnancy". Many women, including myself suffered depression after the birth of a child...yet never at any moment during that depression thought in terms of harming their child. Dramatizers of postpartum depression have given women who decide no longer to be mothers a defense. Depression is often a side effect of a body going through hormone changes while at the same time the person is also adjusting to life changes. The fault for infanticide or filicide can not be found in the depression itself but in the basic selfishness and self absorption of the mother that causes her depressive thoughts to swing that way.

We can blame a world that creates hopelessness and breeds materialism and greed, but in the end, the flaw can only truly be found inside of each individual. To be suicidal and homicidal at the same time has proven to not be as opposite as once thought as is evidenced by those who kill their families and then themselves, but the homicidal act shows the person thinks they have the right to decide what is "best" for the victims or simply wants revenge in some twisted way prior to leaving the world themselves. While many who know the murderers state there were not definitive indicators prior to many of these tragedies, I believe the indicators may have been there the perpetrators entire life.

Starting at a very early age it is apparent when a person wants control of all around them. It is to some extent normal when a child begins to discover they are a separate unit from their parents but if the child begins to manipulate and manage their family through tantrums, threats, and forms of emotional blackmail - it is the first signs of a person who will not accept when a person or the world does not act the way they want. As life goes on, if allowed to continue these behaviors, they will respond to every obstacle, every "let down" in negative ways. The ultimate act of control once they discover they can not force everything and everyone around them to act how they want- may be the most horrifying - the murder of those they "love".

While depression may be a factor in "family annihilation", depression alone does not fully cover the possible reasoning of a killer who kills their loved ones. Many depressed people have sadly taken their own lives yet have left their friends and family behind. One could argue the depressed person may want to "save" his/her family from the grief or the horrible world so they "take them with" them but the ability to actually act on those thoughts is incomprehensible to most humans I would hope. To look someone you know intimately in the eye and then brutally murder them requires extreme detachment from others. It would take a person who is so self involved - only their own thoughts, their feelings, and their wants matter to them. When "love" kills, the killer is actually incapable of feeling true love for anyone, they may feel "ownership", apathy, even anger for those they brutalize....but they can not "love" them. When you love someone every breath they take is important to you. No money, no job, no lover, nothing is more important than the ones you love.

Many killers blame substance abuse, physical abuse, and "brainwashing" by others for the acts they commit. But if these were determining factors, then every person who has been abused, or who abuses a substance, or who is infatuated with another...would be murderers. I think we need to look at the dynamics of "family" and the personality of the murderer for the answers. Controlling behaviors need to be modified from an early age, and the strength of "family" needs to once again have meaning and find its newly defined place in our society as it is in the 21^st century.

There was a time when family honor was held in the highest esteem. To uphold the honor of your family was expected and if you acted against your family or "clan" you were ostracized and most often banished. But since the 1960's much has changed on how we view family. With the advent of the term "generation gap", free love, Women's Liberation movement, divorce laws, and the birth of uncountable "rights" and "protective" legislation, the dynamics of "family" went through an evolution. In more recent years there has been encouragement from governments, schools, therapists, police, and other entities to give up family honor and in essence the respect for the family unit. Family members are encouraged to give up "family secrets", children are allowed to condemn their parents, even to "divorce" their parents, which creates an ability for children to distance themselves from their parents and to perceive them as nothing but "caregivers" who are disposable if they do not act in a suitable way, while at the same time some parents are seeing their children as disposable and assuming someone else will take responsibility for them. Parents are not allowed to protect their children from others who harm them...being told to leave it in the "hands of the law", which creates a sense of helplessness, loss of dignity, and a feeling of failure for not protecting their child. Mothers feel pressure to be more than just a wife and mother, belittling her family role. By forcing people to act against our very nature, have we in some way altered the nature of humans?

It is a great ethical debate on how to protect the individual while still maintaining the 'rights" of the family unit. There is no doubt four month old Trenton Giachetti would have been better served and may still be alive if he had been removed from his drug addicted mother Christal Giachetti who drowned the infant in April 2009. But, when children are taken from these women, the women continue to indulge in their selfish behaviors, the child learns "family" is not important and becomes an individual survivalist of life. The middle ground has to be found if we want to protect the existence of family. While efforts are made through Human Services to reunite families and place children with relatives, the mind set of a family as a disposable entity has already been filtered to many children. The old saying "but you can't choose your family" may soon be obsolete.

While understanding that abuse does exist inside some families, we must remember that "abuse" is not a modern tragedy and all abuse throughout history did not create "monsters". What we call abuse in today's world was normal daily life during other generations. I grew up in a time when not only our parents, but our teachers and principals also could dole out corporal punishment in many forms. Did we all become murderers? No. But I also grew up in a time and a place...where family was considered to be the most important affiliation you would ever have as a human being and it was your duty to protect each and every member of your family from harm, and that the strength of our nation depended on the strength of our families. When we were not told that "abuse" would hurt us mentally and it was never an excuse for any behavior. When we were taught that life would be full of disappointments and full of joys, and that every obstacle and every agony would simply build our character and make us stronger.

Almost every case you read or hear about concerning a person, who has murdered their family, cites disappointments in the murderer's life as a "reason" behind their atrocious act. This indicates these are people who are incapable of handling disappointment, rejection, or anything else that does not go their way. The fact it is their family they murder shows an inability to feel real love, or honor, or protective instinct. These inabilities are not learned or developed overnight they would have to be ingrained over a long period of time, and indicators would have to be there.

I think these behaviors are indicative of a "me, me, me!" society where almost everything centers around "self indulgence". And in our desire to raise bright, successful children, we may make a child believe everything is there for them, they can have anything in life they want and nothing will ever stand in their way. I don't say this in a derogatory way as I too am guilty of telling my children they could have anything they want that life has to offer if they work for it. And I did tell them there would be obstacles throughout their lives and that often disappointment simply points us in a new direction. As a parent I can only hope they truly understood this.

If we do not teach our children that life is full of ups and downs do we create a person who can not handle the inevitable normal life disappointments? A person who loses their job so kills their family, gets fired so reacts by killing the boss and other employees, spouse leaves, kills the spouse, parents who don't like their child's choices, the child kills the parents, kids at school are mean, shoot up the school. As parents we need to teach our children not to think of problems as failures but as simple set backs and a normal part of life. That money, and "success", or "fun", and self indulgence are not the most important things in life. This can be learned simply by observing how we behave, what we make important, our priorities, and what we hold sacred.

Love...does not kill. But love does discipline, love does teach, love does sacrifice, love does encourage us to keep trying. Selfishness kills, selfishness destroys, and selfishness causes a lack of empathy and an inability to truly love other humans. When you love someone you can not bear to even think of their death, let alone bring their death upon them. Homicide, as murder, is always an act of selfishness because the murderer does not care about the one they are killing, does not care how it affects others, does not care about the damage their act does to individuals, society, or even our right to hold ourselves above the other animals on this planet. Murder is never about LOVE.

Sources:

Family Killings
Guardian Uk
CLEWS
True TV
Womens Health