Family annihilators

Why do ordinary people murder their families?

"What could the motive for such a crime possibly be?
Typically the motive is either revenge or altruism. We like to think that we're safe with our loved ones but the largest number of mass killings in the U.S. occurs in the family. [Second is the workplace, third is at schools] About 30 percent of mass killings are within the family."<snipped>

http://www.newsweek.com/2009/02/18/better-off-dead.html

I have never been able to understand the psychology behind the anihilators. My logical brain gets the whole "criminal minds" tv series explanation but really understand what forms this personality, that one is a mystery to me.

They say it's mostly men that do this. and that women tend to have a mental illness diagnosis who kill their families.. but I wonder if it's just less men are likely to be diagnosed with MI because of the stigma attached.. or less men are willing to admit to the signs and symptoms of MI...?

Money is another driving force for someone to kill a member of their family. Insurance money, the home, the bank account...JMHO

I think of Chris Coleman. He wanted to start a new life and felt the threat of losing his job if he got a divorce.

I don't know that we will ever know the answer to this question, but if I had to venture a guess I would say it is either a major psychotic illness or a personality disorder. Several of the cases I have read had to do with someone trying to save their family from a percieved "worse outcome". Those could be real, but most likely are due to pathology clouding perception of the actual situation. As for the personality issues, I feel that there are some people (psychopaths) that are just unable to form real and lasting relationships with others. They can play the part and usually know what to say in order to make people feel they love them. In reality, they tend to just use people and then when there is no more need for them they are discarded. Sometimes they are just left behind, but if they know something that could be dangerous to the psycopath they may be seen as a threat and therefore need to be "eliminated".

There is my $.02.

^I'm with you. No matter what the motive may be, there has to be some sort of psychological or mental illness for you to annihilate your family.

I've also read of a few cases when the father murders the family because he couldn't feed them.

Neil Entwhistle did this didn't he? There are cases when people are living a lie and kill when they are about to be found out...desperation?

LiveLaughLuv said:

Money is another driving force for someone to kill a member of their family. Insurance money, the home, the bank account...JMHO

Click to expand...

That's what I am thinking too. We've seen many of them.

August 21, 2018
When people kill close relatives: Explaining 'family annihilators'
Family annihilators "are driven to kill their family for a number of reasons," Garrett said. "Many times it's for financial problems. And the belief is that men, in particular, will kill their family because they have lost their ability to support them. And it gets into the male ego identity.

"Losing identity is the key component here.”

Family annihilators don't typically think through the end result -- potentially being arrested -- instead focusing on "the immediate need and gain of the moment," Garrett said.

But "family annihilators are never spontaneous," he said, adding that the crimes are premeditated and build up over week or months. In a vast majority of family annihilation cases, Garrett said, the suspect either commits suicide or confesses.

"Like anybody else that commits some horrible, horrendous act, and they do it based on emotion and immediate need or gain," after arrested, he or she confesses because "they see the reality of what they're facing" and often create an "alternative version of what happened."

Firstly it's a problem in the family and nurture

Having known (tangentially) a family annihilator (Brian Short) I think that the overarching factor is control. The annihilator must control the outcome of whatever the triggering situation is.
If they decide to end their own life- they must control what happens after they are gone. And the only way to control 100% is to kill.
It is interesting to me that the business Brian left behind (a very well-known website much like this one with over 1 million international subscribers) has never acknowledged how he died- just that he did. It is bizarre to me.

How could a man like Chris Watts so callously slaughter his entire family?
Familicide is the act of murdering multiple close family members in quick succession. Often these men are deeply depressed and feel ashamed of themselves. They try to spare their family from imminent financial ruin or status loss and embarrassment. Other disappointed familicide killers want to punish the family for not living up to their grandiose ideas of family life. Half of these family annihilators attempt suicide after the crime. This is where Chris Watts is a bit of an anomaly.

[...]

Like most sociopaths/psychopaths, Chris' romantic relationships and the feelings of being “in love” was not experienced the way a healthy, well-adapted person falls in love.

Sociopaths enter romantic relationships based on an agenda. They always consider what they can get from others first. Men like Chris are not able to be intimate or express empathy or deep emotions. Given these emotional limitations, Watts was drawn to his wife Shanann, because he believed she could make him loved, healthy, normal and whole. He was not able to get these feelings on his own. He very likely thought Shanann could help him feel this way because she had this amazing ability to create an image of satisfaction and success. She also was madly in love with him.

We can assume that Shanann Watts had the capacity to make Chris' world look and feel magical; this worked for him for a period of time, until it no longer did. After some financial difficulties and other frustrations associated with family life, Chris' must have believed he had made a drastic mistake in marrying and having a family with Shanann. It became clear to him that she could not make him feel healthy, happy or whole.

As Chris found himself feeling increasingly more depressed, angry and trapped, he knew he needed to escape this life he had created for himself. This was what partially prompted his work affair/romance.

[...]

Chris is a pathological narcissist and psychopath. All that matters to him are his own needs, his own sense of happiness and his own well-being. He has no sense of connection or feelings toward others, even his own blood. Anyone in the way of his goal was an obstacle that should not continue to exist.

Chris is also a blamer. He blames others for his failures and frustrations. He suppressed these emotions until the violence erupted. This time the target was his pregnant wife and two young daughters. In his tangled thinking, his family, all of them, was guilty, and since Chris blamed his wife and children for his own failings, they had to go.

[...]

Chris Watts may not have been able to find his relevance in the real world, but seems to have found it in prison. In prison, Chris feels like an important man; the man he always thought he should be. He gets fan mail and love letters. His newly revealed confessions, after “finding God” are making him even more of a global star, albeit a notorious one. He is making his mark on history, so he thinks. His egotistical plan and sick need for distinction and recognition are finally being met. Criminality led to his celebrity. A convoluted ending for this psychopathic killer who destroyed three beautiful and innocent lives.

AUG 16, 2018
Why do men kill their families? After Colorado husband’s arrest, a look at 4 categories
One of the most-cited studies came in 2013 from a leading team of criminologists at Birmingham City University, where researchers—analyzing three decades of media reports on such crimes—determined it to be a “male-dominated crime found to be most common in August.” (Out of 71 annihilators identified by the researchers, 55 were male, and more than half were in their thirties.)

In the study, the researchers also attempted to isolate motivations. In doing so, they identified four types of family annihilator:

• Self-righteous: These men hold the mother responsible, blaming them for a “breakdown of the family.” They also tend to highly prize their own role as family breadwinner.
• Disappointed: In these cases, the killer believes his family has “let him down,” or acted in a way that undermined the family.
• Anomic: These killers link the idea of family and economy together. If they become economic failures, they may see the family as no longer their function.
• Paranoid: These killers act out because they perceive an external threat to the family—often a social service or the legal system, which stokes fears that the children will be taken away. In these cases, the murder is motivated by a warped desire to protect the family.

OCT 29, 2013
Characteristics of family killers revealed by first classification study | Birmingham City University
[...]
"Family annihilators have received little attention as a separate category of killer," said Professor David Wilson, one of the paper's three authors and Director of the Centre of Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University.

"Often they are treated like spree or serial murderers, a view which presupposes traits, such as the idea that the murderer 'snaps', or that after killing their partner or children the killer may force a stand-off with the police."
[...]
"The clearest unifying factor is that this is overwhelmingly a male crime. While 71 family annihilators were identified, 59 were male," said Professor Wilson. "We also found that the rate at which this type of crime is being committed has increased, with the first decade of the 21st century claiming over half of all cases."

Over half of these men, 55 per cent, were in their thirties; 10 per cent were in their twenties and the oldest was discovered to be 59.

August was found to be the most common month for the killing to take place, accounting for 20 per cent of cases. Just under half of all murders were committed over weekends, especially on a Sunday.

"This is partly because the father had access to his children in the middle of the school holidays when he is not at work," said Wilson. "There may also be a symbolic factor as estranged fathers know that by the end of the weekend they will have to hand their children back to the mother."

81 per cent of the men attempted suicide after the act, which refutes the traditional idea that family annihilators may force the police to shoot them, as is common with spree murderers. There were no recorded cases of stand-offs with the law.

Also refuted is the idea that murderers may be unhappy or frustrated men with a long life history of failure. Some had been highly successful in their careers before the murder. 71 per cent were employed, with occupations ranging from surgeons and marketing executives, to postmen, police officers and lorry drivers.

peeples said:

They say it's mostly men that do this. and that women tend to have a mental illness diagnosis who kill their families.. but I wonder if it's just less men are likely to be diagnosed with MI because of the stigma attached.. or less men are willing to admit to the signs and symptoms of MI...?

Click to expand...

I'm an ID, and OWN junkie.

There are countless cases involving female murderers of all types including many who were family annihilators.

At the moment, I cant remember one case I saw on these channels, where any of the female defendants were declared mentally ill/insane.

The many cases I've seen for over a decade now the females were perfectly competent to stand trial, and 99 percent were found guilty.

The only case I do remember where the defendant was ruled mentally ill was Andrea Yates. I'm sure there are others but the percentage is very low for those who were declared to be mentally ill before trial.

Imo, it's a myth that women have to be mentally ill to become family annihilators or to become deadly murderers.

The courts system verdict results just does support females have to suffer from some type of mental illness to murder anyone including their own family members.

In fact their motives are just about the exact same as any male murderer, who are rarely ruled to have any mental illness, just like most female murderers weren't mentally ill either.

Now do women try to say they were mentaly ill as a defense tactic, if charged with cold blooded premeditated murders?

Of course they do trying to diminish their own responsibility, and culpability, but it rarely is bought by juries since there will be an overwhelming amount of evidence showing clear cognitive thinking, and preplanning including during the coverup, and aftermath.

Jmo