Citation

Roma P, Spacca PD, Pompili PD, Lester D, Tatarelli R, Girardi P, Ferracuti S. Forensic Sci. Int. 2012; 214(1-3): e1-5.

Affiliation

NESMOS Department (Neurosciences, Mental Health and Sensory Organs), Sapienza University of Rome, Sant'Andrea Hospital, Via di Grottarossa 1035-1039, 00198 Rome, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.forsciint.2011.06.022

PMID

21764533

Abstract

Homicide-suicide is an event in which the murderer commits suicide after the homicide. There are at least 14 epidemiological studies on the topic, and all have found that homicide-suicide is more common among family members. The murderers are most often males and the victims females. There is no recent research on this phenomenon in Italy. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the incidence of homicide-suicide in Italy over a period of 24yrs and to compare Italian data with published international data. We used information gathered by press agencies and from the four major Italian newspapers. Between 1985 and 2008, 662 cases of homicide-suicide were identified, with 1776 deaths. The murderer was male in 84.6% of the cases, typically using a firearm. The most common motivation was romantic jealousy, followed by socio-economic stress. The rate of homicide-suicide was 0.04%. Comparison with international studies is not always possible due to the lack of information for certain categories. The common factors identified may be helpful for prevention.

Language: en