Filicide (murder of one’s own children): its 5 types and motivations

A serious type of Blood crime that is unfortunately more common than it seems.

Our children are probably the people most of us love the most. They are fragile creatures whom we have seen born, who have needed and conquered us from the moment they came into the world and for whom we would give everything. Protecting our offspring is something natural for most human beings and for many other animals, with many parents often going so far as to risk or sacrifice their own lives in order to protect them.

And not only on a biological level: our culture also places the family and the protection and care of the family and especially the offspring as one of the most important institutions. That is why cases such as that of Breton, who murdered his two children, have shocked society. We are talking about one of the most mediatized filicide cases of recent times. Y it is this type of crime, filicide, that we are going to talk about in this article. throughout this article.

Filicide: the murder of one's own children.

It is known as filicide the murder of one's own offspring at the hands of one or both parents, regardless of the motive of the action or the motive of the act.The context in which the murder takes place is the context in which it occurs. The context in which such murder or homicide occurs can be very variable, ranging from puerperal psychosis to the presence of domestic violence or the use of the child as an object to harm the other partner.

With respect to the victims, although filicide does not refer to the age of the victim, children under six months of age are generally at greater risk of lethal violence by their parents. With regard to gender, no differences have generally been detected in Western society.

It is a crime that most of society considers at the very least abject and unnatural and is generally seen as something infrequent, but although it is not common, it unfortunately occurs in greater proportion than it seems at first glance. In fact, filicide is one of the types of crime that generates most of the unnatural deaths of children, being a great majority of violent deaths.The vast majority of violent deaths of minors are caused by the parents themselves (the percentage of violent deaths of children by people outside the family is around 25%).

We are facing a very serious blood crime severely punishable by lawIt is not only due to the fact of killing a person voluntarily, but also due to the aggravating circumstance that it is carried out by someone related to the victim, abusing the victim's trust and relationship with the murderer.

In addition, in many cases we are dealing with a murder in which there was a relationship of dependence and a great difference in the power relations between the victim and the murderer. a great difference in the power relations between the two, abusing the difference in the power relations between them.The difference in physical strength or superiority in age, experience and dynamics of power and dependence for the sustenance and even the survival of the victim to her executioner.

Filicide or infanticide? Differences

The truth is that although the concept is easily understood, the term filicide is not so well known among the general population, being much more common the use of the term infanticide for this type of crime. However, the truth is that although a filicide can be an infanticide, they are not synonymous concepts but have clear differences between them.

First of all, while infanticide refers to the death of a child caused by an adult, filicide implies that the perpetrator of such death is one of the persons maintaining a filial relationship with the child. one of the persons who maintains filial relationship with the minorone of the parents.

One aspect that we also have to take into account is that when we think of a filicide we usually think that the murdered person is a child, but the truth is that the concept actually refers to the intentional provocation of the death of a son or daughter regardless of the child's age.

What are the motivations of filicides?

It is difficult to imagine what might motivate a person to actively provoke the death of one or more of his or her own children. However, some authors such as Resnick have attempted to make a general classification of the motives that have manifested themselves in different cases. The research conducted reflected the following categories or types of filicide.

1. Altruistic filicide

This type of filicide usually occurs when the child has some type of medical condition that causes or is considered to cause him/her to suffer all his/her life, or suffers from some type of terminal illness. It is about causing the death of the son or daughter as a method of avoiding suffering.

Another subtype of filicide considered altruistic by the perpetrator is directly linked to the suicide of the aggressor himself. The parent intends to commit suicide and considers that his or her children will not be able to live or that it would be unfair to abandon them, preferring to kill them rather than make them face the situation.

2. Generated by psychosis or mental disease

Although the consideration that the people who carry out this type of acts are people with mental disorders is unrealistic, the truth is that in some cases filicides do occur in the context of mental illness. An example is during some type of psychotic outbreak, in the context of hallucinations or delusions in which the child is confused with a possible enemy, persecutor, murderer, alien or demon. Another option is that it occurs in women with postpartum depression, with the first few days being especially risky.

3. Unwanted child

This type of filicide is motivated by the fact that the child in question was unwanted by the parents or by one of them, or because they were unable to take care of the child. Technically, some authors consider abortion as such, although filicide is usually reserved for children already born. A less dubious and controversial and more direct example is the one that occurs neglect of the child's needs or abandonment of the child..

4. Accidental filicide

It is considered as such the filicide that was not intended to cause the death of the child in question, but that ends up leading to it. It is frequent in the context of intrafamilial abuse or vicarious violence to bend the will of the partner in the case of gender violence. It can also occur in the context of a fight.

5. Revenge or Utilitarian Filicide

The death of the child is used as an instrument of torture and revenge, generally to hurt the partner for some kind of harm or rejection. This is a type of vicarious violence directed not so much towards the child himself (his death is for the aggressor the least important thing) but with the infliction of harm to another person.

The filicide: common characteristics

Killing a child is not, as we have said above, a frequent occurrence. However, there are certain circumstances and characteristics that can facilitate the commission of this type of act.

Among them, it has been observed that many of the cases of filicide occur in persons with diminished capacity for maternity or paternity.. In some cases there has been a deprivation of affection in the parent's own childhood, living the parent-child relationship as something negative in which there has been no love and possibly some kind of abuse.

Other possible risk factors are found with young mothers and fathers, whose first child appears before the age of 19, and with few economic and social resources. Finally, another distinct profile includes the presence of sadistic and psychopathic characteristics, lack of emotional attachment to the child and use of the latter as an instrument to manipulate, control or assault the other (this last profile also corresponds to that of the abuser).

Bibliographical references:

• Company, A., Pajón, L., Romo, J. & Soria, M. Á. (2015). Filicide, infanticide and neonaticide: descriptive study of the situation in Spain between 2000-2010. Revista Criminalidad, 57 (3): 91-102.
• González, D. & Muñoz-Rivas, M. (2003). Filicide and neonaticide: A review. Clinical Legal and Forensic Psychopathology, 3 (2): 91-106.
• Kalinsky, B. (2007). Filicide. Some conceptual considerations. Nómadas. Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas, 16 (2).
• Resnick, P.J. (1970). Murder of the newborn: a psychiatric review of neonaticide. Am J Psychiatry, 126(10): 58-64.