Murder Followed by Suicide
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Murder Followed by Suicide
Murder followed by suicide is a rare case and when it occurs it involves love issues, men are said to be the ones who commit suicide after murdering their female partners with either a gun. The article on Murder Followed by Suicide uses a newspaper surveillance approach to study on the history of the murder – suicide cases combined with the recent cases. Below is a summary of the article with the main details from it.
The articles research shows that there have been a raise in suicides and attempted suicides in the years between 1997 to 1999. Most of them was as a result of disagreement in relationships that ended with men killing their female patterns with guns apart from one. The victims were said to be more committed in their relationships but still users of alcohol, after the murder suicide followed with less than twenty four hours.
The highest geographic region with the cases is Florida, and from the National Institute of Justice with the National Institute of Drugs Abuse in a research they conducted on domestic violence. The research indicated that most of the females killed by their intimate partners are over 80% while those who were not killed was 40% concluding that domestic violence is mostly followed by murder suicide.
Depression is said to be a factor that contributes to murder suicide, when one partner feels overworked with the responsibilities of the family or the relationship chances of committing murder followed by suicide are high Nikunen (2006). The feeling of helpless depresses them till a point where they can no longer take it.
Partners who are jealous end up in this situations. For example when there is a proposed divorce or end of the relationship it mostly leave one feeling worthless and helpless resulting. It causes pain that leads them to taking actions of ravage towards their ex-partners later feeling guilty and that is how they end up committing suicide.
The methodology of the article included Newspaper Surveillance where the news York times index archive is used as the main source. The variables that were included in the research are the dates, months, years of the murder and the suicide. It was followed by the location of the murder and suicide. The gender of the victim and that of the perpetrator. Ending with the relationship between the victims and the perpetrator. All the information in the variables was coded.
From the findings of the research, the month that had the highest cases was December, August, and then September. Men were the highest in perpetrators with 86.1% followed by women with 13%. From the results 60% of the cases came from the Middle Atlantic Division, 12% from New England division Chesebro & McMahan (2006). Analyses of murder instruments used shows that the gun was the most used weapon for both murder and suicide.
The victims and perpetrators relationship that indicated it was mostly an intimate one from the bivariate findings. The method of murder here is show as a self-determining variable while on the other case suicide was indicated as a dependent method. It was because of the flow of events. Suicide followed murder meaning if there was no murder then suicide could not have occurred.
The most popular thing seen from research is the use of firearm as the murder and suicide instruments. Poisoning has reduced with time while the use of the knife increased. The place of murder have mostly been private like home and at times hotel rooms but it has changed to public places like businesses environments with fewer cases in the countryside.
Murder suicides cases are situations that are very rare to occur. The research article indicates that where the case occurs is usually because of intimate relationships that fail to work. The victims are female who get killed by their husbands or boyfriends and their children might fall in the victim position at times. The common place of the murder suicide is their homes and firearms are mostly used instruments.
References
Chesebro, J. McMahnan, D. (2006). Media Construction of Mass Murder Suicides as Drama:
the New York’s Time Symbolic Constructions of Mass Murder Suicides 54
Pitrkit, J. Burgess, P. Francis, C. Blood, W. Jolley, D. (2006). The relationship between media
Reporting of suicides and actual suicides in Austrailia. Sococial Science 62
Nikunen, M. (2006). Parenthood in murder suicide news. Idealized Father and
Murderous Mums7