@article{ref1,
title="Homicide-suicide events in Southwestern Croatia, 1986-2009",
journal="Medicine, science, and the law",
year="2012",
author="Cengija, Morana and Cuculic, Drazen and Petaros, Anja and Sosa, Ivan and Bosnar, Alan",
volume="52",
number="4",
pages="217-222",
abstract="The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence and characteristics of homicide-suicide events in Southwestern Croatia from 1986-2009 relying on autopsy reports of the Department of Forensic Medicine and Criminalistics, Rijeka and police records. A total of 17 cases involving 19 victims were identified. The perpetrators were most often men (82%), living in a spousal relationship with the victim. In 76.5% cases, suicide was committed immediately after homicide, and the same mean (most often an illegal firearm) was used for both. After examining the belongings of those involved in homicide-suicides, two factors differentiated our study from others, i.e. more victims and perpetrators were from the lower socioeconomic class and explosives were used in two homicide-suicide (12%) cases. The greater frequency of explosive used in homicide-suicide events may be a result of factors associated with the recent war fought in Croatia. These data prove the influence of sociological, historical and also political factors on the characteristics of a rare event such as homicide-suicide.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0025-8024",
doi="10.1258/msl.2012.012006",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1258/msl.2012.012006"
}