Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 24, Issue 11, November 2000, Pages 1451-1460
Child Abuse & Neglect

A qualitative study of filicide by mentally ill mothers

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0145-2134(00)00198-8Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective: To examine descriptions of maternal filicide committed in the context of major mental illness from the frame of reference of a group of perpetrators.

Method: Participants were accessed via their treating psychiatrists. A naturalistic paradigm was used. Semi-structured individual interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. Theme analysis of the transcripts was done by repeated reading of transcripts and coding utterances, individually, then jointly by the authors.

Results: Six women were identified, and interviewed. They described intense investment in mothering their child(ren). Descriptions of external stressors were not extreme, but the experience of illness was described as extremely stressful. They described little or no warning or planning. Their descriptions of their children were unremarkable. Motivation was described as altruistic or as an extension of suicide. They described regretting the killings and feeling responsible even though they knew they had been ill at the time.

Conclusions: The findings underline the difficulty of identification of risk and prevention of maternally ill filicide in the women who described being very caring towards their children, and little or no warning of filicidal urges. They may be better understood in terms of the illness than individual stress or psychodynamics.

Introduction

FILICIDE IS A profoundly shocking event. Cross-culturally, the killing of unwanted female children is most common (Judson, 1994). However, child homicide is a significant cause of child mortality in wealthy industrialized nations Jason et al 1983, Marks and Kumar 1993, Sakuta and Saito 1981, Somander and Rammer 1991. Most child homicide, particularly of young children, is perpetrated by parents though in the United States there is a significant group of older children who are killed by non-family members (Jason et al., 1983). Study of maternal filicide is more developed than that of paternal filicide.

Population based epidemiological studies have identified three broad, overlapping groups of filidical mothers Cheung 1986, d’Orban 1979. The first described (Resnick, 1970) and most clearly delineated of these is the neonaticides, where a child is killed on the first day of life. Perpetrators are usually young, unmarried, poorly educated women who have concealed or not acknowledged their pregnancy. This can be understood in terms of primitive defenses such as denial and dissociation in young, uneducated women (Marks, 1996). The second and largest group was described by Resnick (1969) as “accidental filicide,” by d’Orban (1979) as “battering mothers” and is more generally referred to in the child abuse literature as “fatal child abuse” or “fatal maltreatment.” These deaths occurred in a context of psychosocial stress and limited support. There was not a clear impulse to kill, but a sudden impulsive act characterized by loss of temper (d’Orban, 1979). Steele (1987) described death in cases such as these as, “…an unexpected, undesired, incidental result of the abuse” (p. 102).

Understanding of these cases is an extension of understanding of child abuse in general. Steele (1987) has identified a set of necessary conditions for abuse which relate to the predisposition of the perpetrator, a crisis causing increased stress, actual or perceived lack of support and perceived shortcomings in the victim. Korbin (1989) focussed on the role of perpetrators’ networks in an ethnographic qualitative study of a group of female perpetrators of fatal maltreatment. She identified a circular process whereby denial of the seriousness of previous abuse in the mothers and minimization of this abuse in members of the support networks fed back to augment each other and undermine the urgency with which the cases might otherwise have been viewed.

The third major group of maternal filicides, which comprised approximately one third of d’Orban and Cheung’s samples Cheung 1986, d’Orban 1979, is the mothers who killed in the context of major mental illness. These women were older, more often married and had a lower level of psychosocial stress than those who killed in the context of fatal child abuse. This group has been understood in terms of altruism as described by Baker in 1902 (Baker, 1902) “It may seem paradoxical, but it is not vice that leads to the death of the infant, rather is it morbid and mistaken maternal solicitude” (p. 16). Almost half of Resnick’s (1969) reviewed case studies were categorized as “altruistic filicides.” McGrath (1992), in his series of mentally abnormal filicides, cited examples of offenders’ initial statements, consistent with this theme, such as “I’ve given her peace… I loved her more than anything else in the world.” “I’m not worthy to live, I’m not worthy to die… I loved him so.” (McGrath, 1992, p. 284).

Thus there appear to be material differences in the processes underlying maternal filicide in the context of major mental illness from those underlying fatal maltreatment or neonaticide. As a base to developing understanding of any phenomenon adequate description is required. The purpose of this study was to access the perpetrators’ frame of reference. This was done by collecting and analyzing descriptions of the experience of a small number of women who killed their children in the context of major mental illness

Section snippets

Method

This study used a naturalistic paradigm (Morse, 1994). This implies a commitment to constructivist epistemologies, an emphasis of description rather than explanation, the representation of reality through the eyes of the participants and emphasizing the emergence of concepts from the data rather than their imposition from current theory. Thus the descriptions given by the participants are the focus of the study, rather than being used as a means to access internal psychological states or

The participants

Twelve women were identified by psychiatrists. One woman remained too psychiatrically unwell to be approached. Two women were difficult to engage in services for treatment and therefore approaching them for involvement in research was not considered suitable by their psychiatrists. For one woman the treating team was not able to assure the availability of extra support should she become unwell. A further woman was approached but declined to participate.

Consent was obtained from seven women who

Discussion

Clearly mentally abnormal filicide has some overlap with fatal maltreatment (Simpson & Stanton, 2000). Silverman and Kenedy (1988) raised concerns about high rates of mental illness at times reported among maternal filicide perpetrators as being based on the tautology, ”if they killed their kids they must be crazy“ (p. 123). The legal processes have tended to deal leniently with maternal filicide offenders. Marks and Kumar (1993) reported that men committing filicide were more likely than women

References (26)

  • P.P. Judson

    Killing the sex ratio

    Nature

    (1994)
  • C.F. Lewis et al.

    Factors associated with weapon use in maternal filicide

    Journal of Forensic Science

    (1998)
  • B. Link et al.

    Psychotic symptoms and the violent illegal behaviour of mental patients compared to community controls

  • Cited by (74)

    • Cortisol and ACTH plasma levels in maternal filicides and violent psychiatric women

      2013, Journal of Psychiatric Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      Thus significant differences were found in the expected direction despite pharmacological treatment tends to cancel or reduce these effects. Concerning the important clinical dimension of the stressful antecedents, in line with past literature specifically regarding those found not guilty by reason of insanity for filicide (Lewis and Bunce, 2003; McKee and Shea, 1998; Resnick, 1969; Stanton et al., 2000), filicides' clinical records showed that, before admission to the psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, they had undergone many adverse and traumatic events (Table 1). Among others, filicidal subjects had suffered loss and mourning, serious family problems (e.g., depressed mothers and/or alcoholic fathers, conflict with parents, etc.), complicated pregnancies, lack of support and help from partners, and/or sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence.

    • Child homicide by parents in Chile: A gender-based study and analysis of post-filicide attempted suicide

      2013, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry
      Citation Excerpt :

      In this context, studies involving only filicidal mothers agree that the mothers are often married, employed (Haapasalo & Petäjä, 1999; Rougé-Maillart et al., 2005), have medium-low socioeconomic status (Friedman, McCue-Horwitz and Resnick, 2005) and have previous psychological antecedents (Lewis & Bunce, 2003; Somander & Rammer, 1991). The most common diagnoses were depressive disorder and psychotic disorder (Bourget & Gagné, 2002; Kauppi et al., 2008; Stanton et al., 2000). A high percentage of these women had previously attempted to commit suicide (Friedman et al., 2008; Krischer et al., 2007), but the percentage of women who attempted to commit and/or committed suicide after committing filicide was lower.

    • Child Murder by Parents and Evolutionary Psychology

      2012, Psychiatric Clinics of North America
      Citation Excerpt :

      Limited information is available about the length of time spent contemplating filicide by mentally ill parents before their filicide. In one small qualitative study, Stanton and colleagues reported that psychotic mothers developed no plans for killing their children in advance, whereas depressed mothers contemplated killing their children for days to weeks.2 No psychological test has been designed to ascertain the motive or culpability for filicide or neonaticide.

    • Mothers who kill their offspring: Testing evolutionary hypothesis in a 110-case Italian sample

      2012, Child Abuse and Neglect
      Citation Excerpt :

      Mothers may also kill their own children later than at birth, as during their first year of life (infanticide) (Hatters Friedman et al., 2005; Scrimshaw, 1984) and after their first year of life (filicide) (Bourget, Grace, & Whitehurst, 2007; Hatters Friedman et al., 2005). In a relevant number of mothers killing older offspring, psychopathology seems to be implicated (Bourget & Gagné, 2002; Resnick, 1970; Rodenburg, 1971; Spinelli, 2004; Stanton, Simpson, & Wouldes, 2000), while in others, jealousy toward the partner induces the mother to kill her offspring (the Medea Complex) (Liem & Koenraadt, 2008). Other cases might be triggered if the child possesses severe disabilities (altruistic filicide).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text