Some reflections on the issue of homicide-suicide prompted by a case series of forensic psychology assessments
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e216 C. Barbieri et al.
Commentary Clin Ter 2020; 171 (3):e216-224. doi: 10.7417/CT.2020.2216
Some reflections on the issue of homicide-suicide prompted by
a case series of forensic psychology assessments
C. Barbieri 1, I. Grattagliano2
1
Sezione di Medicina Legale e Scienze Forensi, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia; 2Dipartimento di Scienze della Formazione,
Psicologia e Comunicazione, Università degli Studi Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy
Abstract background of depression. Like other criminologic phe-
nomena, e.g. narcissistic crimes (1;2; 3; 4) (87), crimes
From the criminologic standpoint, as a crime committed against a committed by people suffering from depression pose a
psychological background of depression, homicide-suicide is a “dual number of highly complex problems to those who study
death” whose significance transcends the specificity of the two events the phenomenon in general, as well as those called upon to
taken singly. Although diametrically opposite phenomena, in fact they make an expert assessment of single cases. Some technical
share the same pulsions, to be found in aggressiveness, or the desire considerations are advanced in this work, prompted by the
to eliminate the tensions underlying it. From this perspective, various case series illustrated below.
attempts have been made to classify the homicide-suicide phenome-
non, which have indicated that those who, through homicide, deprive
themselves of their primary source of gratification may then decide to Examples drawn from the case series
commit suicide as a result of this unbearable loss. Therefore, suicide
post-homicide is a marker of the importance of the bond between the Attempted suicide post-infanticide
murderer and the victim. Indeed, some Authors have confirmed that the
strong attachment between the two increases the likelihood of suicide A 22-year-old woman, confined by the Judicial Authories
of the former after the death of the latter; that the crime develops in a in a psychiatric community for “...having caused the death
relational context featuring abuse and maltreatments; that it also stems of a newborn of female sex, soon after having given birth to
from the fear of betrayal and the loss of an object that escapes all at- her. In detail, in the afternoon-evening, she was at her home,
tempts to possess it, and that in many cases the destruction of the object where she gave birth to a newborn of female sex, alive and
through the crime is followed by the self-destruction of the criminal. well at birth. After cutting the umbilical cord she wrapped
Clin Ter 2020; 171 (3):e216-224. doi: 10.7417/CT.2020.2216 the baby in a cloth, put this into several plastic bags and
closed it up inside a wardrobe under some duvets and a
Key words: depression, suicide, murder, homicide-suicide, infan- box. This caused the death of the newborn due to asphyxia
ticide induced by exogenous factors. The crime was aggravated
by premeditation and by the fact of its being a criminal act
against a minor. She was also on trial for concealment of
the corpse of the newborn.…”.
Some preliminary observations After the delivery and murder of the infant, despite
profuse hemorrhage she did not seek aid. Only the chance
The present work is aimed at offering some points for intervention of some neighbors, alarmed by the fact that they
reflection on the homicide-suicide phenomenon. In fact, had not seen her leave the house as usual, and that she did
although relatively rare, this dual event does not only inva- not answer when they rang the doorbell, or repeated phone
riably attract the attention of the mass-media and various calls, prevented the death of the young infanticide. She later
categories of researchers (psychiatrists, psychologists, socio- declared to the operators of 118 (emergency ambulance ser-
logists, criminologists, etc.), since it has a strong emotional vice), and the investigators, that she would have preferred to
impact on the community as well as many implications of die of bleeding and famine because she was “tired of living”.
both clinical-therapeutic and technical-evaluational type, In the subsequent period she showed suicidal tendencies and
but it is also a crime committed against a psychological a further significant decline of mood tone.
Correspondence: Cristiano Barbieri, Sezione di Medicina Legale e Scienze Forensi, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Via Forlanini n.12, 27100,
Pavia. E-mail: cristiano.barbieri@unipv.it
Copyright © Società Editrice Universo (SEU)
ISSN 1972-6007Some reflections on the issue of homicide-suicide prompted by a case series of forensic psychology assessments e217
The daughter of parents who had separated when she presence of pre-Oedipal situations to be sought in the child’s
was 3 years old, due to the father’s abandonment the mother first months, that have remained unsolved and are likely
and child were obliged to go and live with the maternal triggered by a subsequent affective trauma (14; 15; 16; 17;
parents. The daughter subsequently had only rare, brief 18; 19). In other cases, however, as the present case shows,
encounters with the father, who had two other daughters in the basis can be traced back to the concepts of hopelessness
two other relationships. The mother was followed by the and helplessness: in fact, hopelessness or desperation is a
territorial psychiatric services due to recurrent episodes of psychologic construct referable to cognitive schema in which
depression. According to the agent of the infanticide, the the common denominator is negative expectations for the
cause of her parents’ separation was not only attributable future. Such individuals believe that nothing will ever come
to the father’s extra-marital relationships and the continual out in their favor and they will never be successful in life.
episodes of maternal depression, but also to her father’s Their goals will never be achieved and their problems never
suspicion that she herself might be affected by a cognitive solved. The sense of hopelessness is often accompanied by
deficiency caused by an episode of encephalitis in pediatric that of helplessness, in the conviction that they cannot be
age (in fact, she often repeated: “...he was ashamed of me helped and above all, cannot help themselves, and that they
and didn’t want me”). have no control over events. This contributes to increase
After attending the third year of secondary school (spe- the difficulties of family members, the law forces and health
cific hotelier business training), she abandoned her studies experts to observe the alarm signals before the event (20;
because at the age of 17 she became pregnant with her first 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28)
daughter (since then, she referred: “...I have been a full-
time mother”) and began to consult the territorial psychiatric A dual attempted suicide pre- and post- (presumed)
services for “depression”, like her mother. She had met her attempted homicide
companion, the father of her only living child, who was not
at home at the moment of the infanticide, at the age of about A 44-year-old male at the time of the events, born in
14. The family life was financially precarious owing to the Poland, resident in a provincial town in northern Italy,
husband’s difficulties in finding work; they were unable to married with two children, working as a blacksmith and
pay the rent and suffered frequent evictions. At the age of gardener, was imputed the attempted homicide of his wife.
19 she underwent voluntary termination of a new pregnancy. The attempt was preceded and followed by attempted suicide
After she turned 20, she became pregnant once more, with using adequate means (firstly, the kitchen gas and secondly,
the baby daughter she killed at birth. the pistol used to shoot the wife).
At the forensic psychiatry assessment, her cognitive The subject’s life history featured: father deceased at the
profile did not reveal a macroscopic deficiency, despite being age of 74 years, described as impulsive and choleric; mother
organized according to an elementary pattern, showing a deceased at the age of 70 years, presented as a quiet person,
prevalence of concrete over abstract contents. Her sleep- but completely subjugated to the husband. His relations with
awake rhythms were reported as regular; she had a conserved these parental figures were marked by continuity but very
memory of both the facts preceding the event, and of the poor communication. The firstborn of three brothers, he had
delivery and her conduct immediately after. Her behavior only formal relations with the other two brothers. He had had
following the crime appeared as determined and sequential, regular schooling until he began to work in a mine, after two
that of a person who is aware of what is happening. She years of occupational secondary schooling. He had refused
maintained the capacity to perceive the gravity of her crime, to continue a career as a semi-professional socker player to
experiencing self-denigration, rejection of Self, a feeling of continue the job he had obtained and so support the family.
unworthiness and anguish. Some degree of deflection of He had had no significant relationship before meeting his
the thymus was observed, but also a detached attitude. The wife when he was already an adult. They were engaged for
tests administered (WAIS-R Scale, Millon Test, Rorschach about five years and then got married. The marriage lasted
Test) demonstrated: a borderline intellectual level, oriented for about 18 years, until they separated after they had arrived
more toward concrete than abstract concepts, a fragile ego in Italy. Their interpersonal relationships were marked by his
and poor coping capacities, difficulties in adaptation and the dependence on the exclusive partner, described as dominant
presence of an anxiety/ depression component, associated (“... engaged for about 5 years, then she said either we get
with social/relational isolation. married or we end it, so we got married...she did nothing
The case under study illustrates some of the problems but talk, talk, talk...she always took the initiative...she al-
underlying homicidal parents’ murder of their own child ways won ...if I said «let’s buy something» she always said
followed by suicide (attempted or failed), an event that has «let’s buy something else», and we bought what she said...
been well described in the literature (5; 6). In fact, important in marriage, good but stubborn...if she said something she
contributions to the debate on this issue (7; 8;9; 10; 11; 12; insisted on it...stubborn as a mule:..she always won, I gave
13; 2) have demonstrated various different types of case. way...”). After 29 years of working at a mine (as solderer
In some cases, a depressive personality structure with and blacksmith), he moved to Italy for work reasons. He
psychotic traits, together with the perception of the newborn had two sons, aged 17 and 16 years at the time of the events,
as an extension of the Self, finds it impossible to believe with whom he claimed to have a good relationship; he had
that the infant may have the chance to lead an adequate life, smoked a packet of cigarettes a day for “many years”; he
unlike their own. From this perspective, the best recogni- denied any previous abuse of alcohol or drugs, or any pre-
zed psychodynamic explanation of the homicide-suicide vious psychiatric disorder.
phenomenon starts from a Kleinian concept inherent to thee218 C. Barbieri et al.
As regards the sequence of events, therefore, there had blurs the distinction between the victim and the aggressor
been: the move to Italy alone, later followed by the family; because the former, consciously or unconsciously, becomes
a progressive deterioration of the marriage due to the wife’s the catalyst and drives the destructive urges of the latter (33).
changed attitude after she became integrated in the new In fact, the affective dynamics underlying such aggressive
environment; various abandonments of the home provoked intra-familial behavior (psychological and/or physical) are
by the wife’s behavior, experienced as a narcissistic wound attributable to a clearly psychopathic spectrum, while the
of his personal identity; significant inflexibility, serialism, homicide-suicide phenomenon can be seen as the direct,
formalism, scrupulousness but also dependence; a first linear consequence, even if it is statistically infrequent. At
attempted suicide, that went unrecognized by the partner; the extremes lie an egoistic impulse (“I want to kill myself
deliberate abandonment of the home in an attempt to rein- and I’m taking you with me”) and a sort of altruistic urge
state the previous relationship style, that was unsuccessful; (“I have to kill you but I’ll come with you”). In fact, the
worsening of the anxiety-depression picture, as a reaction wife referred that before shooting at her, her husband said:
both to the perceived psychological abandonment by his “...now we’re going to die together, you’re not going to get
partner and to his father’s death, that occurred just before away from me again...”).
the couple separated. The subsequent return to Poland was According to the scene of crime and other technical
motivated by the desire to reinstate a link with his origins, assessments made by the authorities, the positions of the
again unsuccessfully; persistent suicidal plans, in turn linked aggressor and the victim were theoretically compatible with
to the deflection of the thymus. His conduct after shooting at the bullet fired by the former actually hitting the latter. In
the armchair where the wife was sitting was aimed at suicide, practice, however, according to the declarations made by
again confirming his suicidal, not homicidal, intentions. the wife and husband - not just the criminal, therefore, but
A critical examination of all these data demonstrates also the victim - the time interval between the shot and when
that the subject’s behavior occurred against a background the woman left the house, as well as the time period while
of a marital relationship that had long been dysfunctional, they were together in the room (before and after the shot) do
in which communication between the couple was practically not indicate an exclusively or electively homicidal intent on
inexistent but the reciprocal affect was also altered. To ex- the husband’s part. Certainly, unless otherwise proven, the
cess in the man, who found that he could not live without his man’s violent action was motivated by an affective disorder
wife, and so he had gone back to Poland to buy a pistol with in a character with depressive tendencies. Owing to the
which he intended to kill himself; in decline in the woman, previous circumstances (the perceived rejection by his wife,
who did not want to return to the previous life style after she the separation from her and his sons lasting some months,
had become integrated in the new sociocultural context. In his father’s death) and contingent events (her refusal to go
fact, she agreed to speak to him but not to go back to living back to him), his personality traits reveal an objective lack
with him. These dynamics were of a depressive nature in of self-esteem, independence and self-control, since the Id
the man who was deprived of the object of his exclusive love of a depressed subject is only apparently still intact but is
for at least 18 years, and were depressogenic in the wife, really extremely fragile, since it is entirely dependent on
since if she had gone back to her husband she would have the other person. This dependence causes unconscious
lost her much-vaunted independence that conflicted with her hostility and anger against the love object to emerge, that
husband’s personality traits, featuring insecurity, in particu- underlie the profound ambivalence of the depressive cha-
lar, together with excessive obstination and depression. In racter toward the Other, that is needful to them but also
this case the roles of “victim” and “aggressor” seem to have a cause of suffering. This ambivalence is evident in the
become blurred and then reversed. The presumed victim passage to action that arises from the pathological dynamic
of his wife’s rejection, when he left home and realized he exemplified by the aphorism “Nec tecum, nec sine te, vivere
couldn’t live without her, became the aggressor, attacking possum” (34; 35).
both his wife (threatening her with the pistol and then shoo- It is no coincidence that on the one hand the subject needs
ting at the armchair where she was sitting to show he meant to repress these feelings of hostility, for fear of losing the
what he said), and himself (he first tried to gas himself, then love object they need, while on the other hand they feel the
he hid in a woodstore intending to commit suicide, pointed need to eliminate the object because it has become a source
the pistol at his head and only after a long dialog with the of frustration, anguish and the fear of abandonment. Thus,
Carabinieri - Italian military police - did he deliver the pistol between the subject and the love object an unconscious in-
into their hands). The wife, from presumed victim of her teraction of sado-masochistic type is triggered, according to
husband’s jealousy and rigid attitudes (he was defined by which the depressive-abandoned character tends to act and
many witnesses as “an old-fashioned man, devoted only to react by taking over the control of the situation, in order to
his work and his family”), became the aggressor (first she gain reassurance (see the wife’s accusations of unfounded
denied him sex, then she progressively emarginated him jealousy, and his admission that he could no longer tolerate
from her private life and lastly she refused to go back to his wife’s behavior). In short, at the acme of this psycho-
him and at their last meeting, asked for more time to think pathic dynamic, Eros becomes the “mirror” of Thanatos, in
about it). the sense that the narcissistic affect of the depressed subject
This interpretation is amply confirmed in the specialist is transformed into destructiveness, of Self (hence suicide,
literature (29; 30; 31; 32), that reports how in conflicts in which the self is identified with the loved/hated object)
between couples, the inability to handle the loss of the love and/or the Other (hence homicide, in which the loved/hated
object triggers intrapsychic components of affective depen- object is identified with the Other).
dence, narcissism and sado-masochism. This signifiicantlySome reflections on the issue of homicide-suicide prompted by a case series of forensic psychology assessments e219
Unsuccessful suicide post-homicide emerged during the investigations and by the brief interval
between the homicide and the attempted suicide.
A 40-year-old male at the time of the events, married During the expert forensic psychiatry investigations, the
with 2 children, with no previous criminal record and an homicide was diagnosed as affected by major depression
apparently negative psychiatric history. After separating at the time of the events on the basis of a series of facts:
from the wife, leaving the home and children, he went to according to some witnesses, while the victim was on ho-
live with a 27-year-old lover, that he killed a year later, with liday the criminal had lost all appetite due to her absence
about 30 stab wounds, when he found her with one of her (he hadn’t eaten for about a month), lost weight (about ten
other two lovers, that he knew nothing about before. He kilos) and sleep (he hadn’t slept for about the same length
had been apart from her for about one month previously. of time). He had also increased his cigarette consumption
Immediately after the crime, he attempted suicide using (up to 2 packets a day), become frantic (he phoned mystics
appropriate means (he bought a barrel of fuel and tried to and fortune tellers every day to try and discover where his
set light to himself, and was saved just in time by the gas lover was; he sent the girl many SMS – up to 30 a day – and
station attendant). The setting where the events occurred tried to phone her continually but got no answer; it should be
was the restaurant where both the aggressor and the victim noted, on this point, that the victim had a number of different
worked, the former as cook and the latter as co-proprietress phone cards, discovered after her death). The diagnosis
with her mother. was the outcome of a criminologic-clinical investigation that
The aggressor’s personality was marked by a strong merits examination in greater detail, and that was marked
dependence on the female figures in his confined affective by three turning points: from oral to affective dependence;
universe: firstly the mother (his father died when he was from dependence to depression; from thymic deflection to
about 2 years old), then the wife (that he married on his destructiveness.
mother’s advice) and finally the lover. Vice versa, the victim When reconstructing the criminogenic and criminodyna-
showed a certain promiscuity, symptomatic of an evidently mic pathway, the first point to be considered is the relation
superficial attitude toward close relationships. In fact, un- between the oral dimension and that of affective dependence.
known to the cook, she was carrying on two other affairs, In fact, the cook had significant psychoaffective and psy-
one with her mother’s ex-companion and the other with the chosexual deficiencies: of his childhood he remembered
instructor at the gym she attended. Two experiences that only that he was much more obedient to his mother than
occurred prior to the crime are of fundamental importance: his older brother was, while he had had no adult affective
firstly the separation from the wife (as an attempt to achieve experiences before getting married. He lost his father when
independence in a family nucleus where the dynamics betw- he was 2 years old and only remembered seeing photos of
wen himself and the wife reflected those with his mother); him. This lack was never replaced by another male figure.
and secondly the abandonment by his lover immediately He learned to be a cook because that was what his mother
before he discovered that she was betraying him (the lover had decided for him, but then he “fell in love” with his
had led the cook to believe that she was going on holiday to work, where he gained some recognition. He had always
stay with relatives for a couple of weeks, whereas actually lived a subordinate relationship, first with his mother and
she spent the time on holiday with her mother’s ex compa- then with his wife (married on his mother’s advice). First
nion and was then discovered by the cook having sex with one and then the other always administered his salary, and
the gym instructor). at home it was always they who made the decisions. He
The betrayal was discovered by the murderer after a pe- developed “oral” symptoms when the victim left him alone
riod of 30 days apart, during which he was unable to contact to go on holiday (loss of appetite, smoking, etc.), as well as
her, whereas her promiscuity came to light only during the an aggravated stubborn inflexibility (continually telephoning
inquest and trial. The woman’s two other lovers declared mystics and fortune tellers, sending the girl many SMS every
that they knew nothing about the relationship between her day). All this recalls common knowledge about the c.d.? oral
and the cook. The victim’s mother and relatives, as also the phase of individual development, but also about the future
aggressor’s relatives, claimed that they were aware only of consequences produced by overcoming this to a more or
the relationship between the two protagonists of the events. less successful extent. In fact, during the formation of the
The murderer claimed that he had a clear memory only up personality, the mouth is the first organ around which all
until he found himself with the knife in his hand, intending individual primordial experience is organized, and impresses
to commit suicide in front of the woman “...to show her its characteristics also on the subsequent phases because
what she had done to me”. on these relations will depend the future mode of relating
While the aggressor repeatedly struck the woman, the to Self, others and the world. The subject passes from a
gym instructor escaped through the window and later decla- passive, receptive attitude to an active demanding attitude
red that he had not witnessed the crime because he got away (exploration through the mouth), seeking others (satisfaction
as soon as he saw the man “...with the face of a madman of a need) and the incorporation of objects (the acquisition
and a knife in his hand, shouting”. The cook motivated the of what will ensure life). These primitive experiences persist
attempted suicide as follows: “…she was gone so there was in the nervous structures deputed to the procedural type
no point in going on living, because she meant everything to unconscious memory (e.g. the limbic system) in the form
me…I had given her everything and she treated me like that”. of traces that can be positively or negatively connotated,
The gas station attendant referred another version (the cook’s even to extremes (36). Therefore, the mouth can become
clothes were spotted with blood, his hands were “all red”, both the primary source of gratification and a knowledge of
and he looked “crazy”), that was supported by the facts that life, and of frustration and a reaction to deprivation, throughe220 C. Barbieri et al.
aggressive or else passive action. An alteration at this stage the oral character to destructiveness, in other words the
can affect the subject’s future basic attitudes, marking them dynamics that can lead from thymic deflection, especially
throughout life with oral type aspects of a more or less in- if motivated by the frustration of affective dependence, to
tense degree. These comprise: affective dependence, that destruction of the Self or the love object. On this point the
can lead to easily giving in to others’ requests (not knowing relations between affective dependence and homicidal de-
how to say no), so that the individual ends up in conflictual structiveness, mediated by a whole series of predisposing
situations that can become unbearable; the anguish of sepa- factors that are often closely interwoven and interacting,
ration and jealousy of a more or less intense nature and so must be borne in mind, in particular, the inability to become
an immediate search for another partner if ‘abandoned’; the independent, the need to maintain the relation at all costs, the
inability to tolerate frustration, due to the need for immediate profoundly ambivalent feelings, the need to get immediate
satisfaction, and rapidly becoming irritable if this is not responses, thymic deflection and also denial (43). With
satisfied (wanting everything straight away). On this point, specific reference to the relations between aggressiveness
it should be remembered that the oral-dependent personality and depressive disorders, the psychodynamic model, among
does not only submit to others’ will to gain support and care the various models proposed, is particularly highlighted
even as an adult, but also shows a propensity to turn to food (44), according to which aggressiveness precedes depres-
and substances as means to gratify desires or as a defence sion. Therefore, it is actually aggressiveness, repressed
against anguish. The attitude adopted to other people and and interiorized, and so inwardly turned against the object,
situations which may yield gratification or levy frustration is first loved and then hated, that provokes thymic deflection.
tendentially passive, or else reactively recriminatory (37). Besides, in the criminologic context, a fundamental support
The second point is the correlations between affective of the reconstruction of the sense and significance of crime
dependence and depression, if it can be believed that the oral committed by a depressed person is provided by anthropo-
character is the one that “entwines like ivy” and “devours phenomenology, according to which phenomena of a de-
the other in bites” (38); this passage is mediated by the an- pressive nature can be discerned in various psychopathic
guish of abandon truggered by frustrated dependence. There conditions (psychopathic, neurotic, psychotic), because they
can be no doubt that murderers are dependent people, who can all have a common infrastructure, constituted by the
cannot be alone and have a constant need of the presence, melancholy character’s experience and affect (45; 46; 47;
also physical, of the victim. In our murderer’s life he had 48). In this scenario, the space and time dimensions become
always leant upon, and allowed himself to be guided by, the progressively restricted and in the worst cases are annulled.
two main female figures present in his desolate affective The living, or pathic space, therefore, tends to be perceived
universe (first the mother and then the wife). It seems to as desperately empty, without any relief or any prospects.
be no coincidence that when the lover (with whom he had The same applies to time, where the altered consciousness of
replaced the wife, in an unsuccessful attempt to become interior time spans provokes a complete interruption of vital
independent) disappeared, he developed a whole series of development, that loses its fundamental quality of being open
manifestations such as loss of appetite and sleep, resulting to the future, thus making the prosecution of any project or
weight loss, increased smoking, and resorting to fortune renewal impossible. In this sense, the historical-existential
tellers, the compulsive use of the telephone, etc. Indeed, declination of the homicide is paradigmatic, because in his
these manifestations confirm the correlation between the immobile present, and being-here (Dasein), there no longer
oral character and depression, recalling the equivalents of exists any We-Time (Wirzeit), but only I-Time (Ichzeit) – an
the love object that this character depends upon and at the empty I, because it is deprived of the Other. Conscious
same time, fears to lose but tries to destroy (39). In this intentionalism is no longer declined according to the time
perspective, the pathway that leads from affective depen- diathesis of ‘before’ and ‘after’, and the ‘world’ is no lon-
dence to depression can be clarified by recalling what Karl ger structured as ‘sense’, nor ‘sense’ as the ‘world’, since
Abraham wrote already in 1916, anticipating Freud’s work “sense is nothing other than making a world of the world”
on “Mourning and melancholia” (1915-1917). In fact, he (49; Moroncini, 1998, p.12). Therefore, at the acme of the
considered depression as a regression to the c.d. oral phase paroxystic search for the loved but absent object, when the
of psycho-sexual development, in which introspective and subject becomes aware of the frustration of his dependence
incorporation mechanisms play a fundamental role, since and the defeat of his oral character, or Being – as if thrown
in the depressed person’s unconscious there is a tendency onto the world in an anguished emotional state – this leads
to devour and destroy the object (40). This can explain the to a psychic black-out: in fact, the cook remembered nothing
significant bond between the onset of depression and a di- about the homicide itself, but only the desire to commit
sappointment in love, especially if the latter is unconsciously suicide in front of the culprit who had destroyed his – not
experienced as the repetition of a narcissistic wound caused their common shared – affective universe.
by the frustration of the demand for love made to the primary
object in the pre-Oedipal stage (41). Therefore, at the origin Technical considerations: homicide-suicide as a crime of
of depression lies a childhood experience that left a trauma depressive type
which, then crystallizing in the deep unconscious, becomes
a factor that predisposes the subject to develop depression The cases illustrated herein can be seen as emblematic
as a consequence of any subsequent loss of an object that of the complexity inherent to the homicide-suicide problem,
recalls the original loss (42). a depressive type crime that spans the homicide-suicide
The third point is the link between depression and ag- divide, since homicide and suicide can be considered as
gressiveness, as a further step in the process leading from two extremes that often meet, since the former can oftenSome reflections on the issue of homicide-suicide prompted by a case series of forensic psychology assessments e221
complicate and precede the latter. Interpretation of the In fact, according to the research works by Cohen in
act can rely on projective type hypotheses since between England and in Wales, the first in the period 1955-1958 (65
homicide and suicide there are successive phases marking cases) and the second from 1960-1964 (71 cases), the most
a gradual passage from one extreme to the other (51), that salient aspects are not only unemployment or retirement in
can be traced back to a common matrix consisting of the the man, but also psychopathic disorders, so that when homi-
hetero- and self-aggressive pulsions in the man (52). Indeed, cide-suicide occurs between the married couple they are not
historically, in the passage from suicidal to homicidal inten- only affectively a very close pair, as seems obvious, but are
tions seven stages have been identified (cfr. Sighele, 1891 also isolated, with few friends and little or no extra-familial
(53): pure suicide, double suicide, homicide of a consenting activity. Such deaths usually take relatives and neighbours
victim and then suicide, homicide of a non consenting victim by surprise, and unlike in single suicides, no early warnings
and then suicide, homicide and involuntarily unsuccessful or previous attempts by the couple are referred, even if in
suicide, homicide and voluntarily unsuccessful suicide, pure 10 % of cases one or more previous suicidal attempts have
homicide). The traditional approach is to apply the term been made by one of the two.
homicide-suicide to all those forms in which the murder of In fact, the most common homicide-suicide type is firstly
the Other is immediately followed by that of the Self, or the the death of the partner or ex partner and then of the homicide
homicide’s attempt to achieve this, and in which there is a (61; 62; 63), so this type of crime has been qualified by the
direct psychological as well as chronological link between term “possessive” (64), to underline the ‘symbiotic’ relations
the two acts. (65) of reciprocal, pathologic dependence (66) (Bernman,
Already Freud (1913), (54) had underlined that the two 1979). The pattern is fusional and underlies a dominant/
realities share the same origin, to be sought in aggressive- dominated type of relationship (30; 31), often marked by
ness, or the desire to eliminate the tension that underlies it. repeated abuse and maltreatments (67; 68). In such cases,
Applying Dollard’s explicative model (1939) of frustration- that have been on the increase since the 1960s, the aggres-
aggression (55), it can be claimed that those who deprive sor is usually the man and the victim the woman, generally
themselves, through homicide, of the primary source of gra- responsible for having rejected him or tried to leave him and
tification can then decide to commit suicide as a result of this end the relationship ( 69; 70; 71; 72);
unbearable loss. Suicide subsequent to homicide, therefore, Thus, when the relationship with the elective partner fe-
is an evident marker of the importance of the bond between atures insufficient social interaction and is prevalently based
the murderer and the victim (Marchetti, 2004) (56). In fact, on esclusiveness and authoritarianism, the person becomes
a strong attachment increases the likelihood of suicide of the unable to accept the loss of the love object ( 73), and after
former after the death of the latter, and further demonstrates the separation, since any other point of reference is lacking,
the fact that homicide-suicide is a phenomenon associated the situation of bereavement ends up by coinciding with their
practically exclusively with the family and/or the couple. own end (74). The crime is born of the fear of abandonment
Referring to the type and quality of the bond between and/or betrayal, that invades the murderer’s thoughts and in
the two subjects involved, homicide-suicide has also been some cases is transformed into jealous delusions of absolute
defined as an “altruistic homicide” (57) or an “enlarged type ( 75; 76; 63; 77), together with a paranoid conviction
suicide” (58), emphasizing the fact that the acts are linked of the partner’s affective and sexual unfaithfulness (78). In
to depression, as well as being motivated by a peculiar such cases a deviation of natural jealousy in love occurs,
form, likely perverse, of selflessness: “A true speciality of because the jealous person needs to keep constant control
melancholics is the so-called altruistic suicide, or compas- over the partner in order to keep at bay their intense anguish
sionate homicide-suicide, that consists of a suicide preceded and fear of being abandoned. This is why, when they kill,
by the homicide of one or more people under the delusionary they continue to love the victim and the crime produces in-
idea of subtracting other people from the suffering that tense regret, and hence the decision to commit suicide (often
is the sense of existence” (Ferri, 1892, p.141), (57). The already present before the homicide). From this perspective
crime, therefore, can be of an apparently altruistic naure, men do not kill for love but to demonstrate their absolute
indeed an “extreme act of love” that could have “...the aim possession of the love object ( 79).
of subtracting the victim from a life of misery and disease Therefore, according to international statistics, clinical
and symbolically protecting them from a life of distress, sin depression combined with specific components like jealousy,
and unhappiness” (Ferri, 1892, p.108). (58). redemption paranoia, omnipotent fantasies of salvation and
Nevertheless, when considering, as reviewed above, catharsis (48), as well as a history of previous self-destructive
the quality and type of this focus on the love object, it can attempts, are important risk factors that drive the deficient
actually be seen as a refined form of egoism not altruism, and dysfunctional mechanisms underlying the homicide-
above all in those cases where it is the victim that wants suicide acts.
to abandon her/his partner, and it is in fact possessiveness, In Italy, an epidemiologic study of homicide-suicide
certainly not selflessness, that lies at the origin of the act spanning the years from 1985 to 2008 (80) revealed 662
(Ferrio, 1959). (58) In many cases of crimes of passion, the cases, of which 560 had been perpetrated by men and 102
inability to distinguish between the Self and the Other, and by women. In 24% of cases the motive was jealousy (the
to respect the latter’s autonomy, will and rights, including most common reason); of these, 92.3% were committed
the right to life, has been highlighted (59), and in such by men and 7.7% by women. Those responsible were
situations, a depressive state of the aggressor has also been mostly young men, with a specific criminal record in 34%
documented (60). International and national statistics amply of the cases, impelled by intense jealousy, the fear of lo-
confirm these data. sing the loved one and difficulties in handling separation,e222 C. Barbieri et al.
experienced as persecution. The other cases consisted of suicide pact as compared to all the other forms in the
depressed, desperate mothers, or elderly men with ill wives. category.
The main victims were female partners, relatives or blood In the context of this classification, the case series is focu-
relations, often minors that were generally the murderer’s sed on true homicide-suicide, the prodromic background and
own children. dynamics of which stem from an intricate series of factors
In another research work conducted in Milan and the pro- that cannot be confined within the exclusive constructs of
vince between 1990 and 2003, 51 cases of homicide-suicide the inability to tolerate frustration, a tendency to impulsive
were examined, in which 51 aggressors and 57 victims of actions, depression, etc. In fact, this phenomenon involves a
homicide were implicated (31). The differences in number true “dual death” where the two actions, homicide and sui-
between the episodes and victims are due to the fact that cide, are triggered by a highly complex, closely interwoven
some cases were family massacres, where one aggressor relationship that confers them a significance that transcends
killed several people. Practically the same number of deaths the specificity of the two acts taken singly. Although oppo-
occurred in the city (26 cases) and province (25 cases). In the site phenomena they are specular diaphenomena, being two
fourteen years examined, the mean calculated rate x 100,000 faces of the same coin (33; 35), like two-faced Janus, whose
inhabitants was 0.09 homicides-suicides in Milan and the ambivalence, in turn, mirrors not only that existing between
province, quite similar to many of the rates in other research Self and the Other but also between Life and Death.
conducted in Europe but remarkably different from those in
the US and some other socio-geographic realities (75).
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