| content |
 |
| Homicide |
| Murder |
| Assassination · Child murder Consensual homicide Contract killing · Honour killing Lust murder · Lynching Mass murder · Murder-suicide Proxy murder · Ritual murder Serial killer · Spree killer Torture murder · Feticide |
| Manslaughter |
| in English law Negligent homicide Vehicular homicide |
| Non-criminal homicide |
| Note: Varies by jurisdiction |
| Justifiable homicide Capital punishment Human sacrifice Feticide |
| By victim or victims |
| Suicide |
| Family Familicide · Avunculicide Fratricide / Sororicide Mariticide / Uxoricide |
| Other Genocide / Democide Regicide / Tyrannicide |
Filicide is the deliberate act of a parent killing his or her own son or daughter. The term can also be applied to the parent who has committed such an act. The word filicide derives from the Latin word filius meaning "son".
In some cultures, killing a daughter who is deemed to have disgraced the family is a common occurrence (see honor killing).
A 1999 US Department of Justice Study concluded that between 1976 and 1997 in the U.S., mothers were responsible for a higher share of children killed during infancy while fathers were more likely to have been responsible for the murders of children age 8 or older. Furthermore, 52% of the children killed by their mothers were male (maternal filicide), while 57% of the children killed by their fathers were male (paternal filicide).
Sometimes there is a combination of murder and suicide in filicide cases.
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Psychology
A number of academics attribute it, both modern and historical, to psychological inability to raise children. Contemporary data suggests that modern filicide is sometimes brought about by a psychological unreadiness to raise children.citation needed It could also be exacerbated by schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It is also attributed, in some cases, to the desire of unwed, underage parents to conceal their sexual relations and/or avoid the responsibility of childrearing.citation needed It is attributed in other cases to a strong feeling of alienation or genetic disaffection; in such cases other children are not thought to be at risk and the mother often takes on a new role in child carecitation needed.
Known or suspected filicides
- Ivan IV of Russia (Ivan the Terrible) killed his son and heir to the throne in a fit of rage.
- Peter the Great of Russia had his son tortured to death, being present at several of the torture sessions and allegedly participating in some of them.
- Josef and Magda Goebbels poisoned their six children, in order to protect them from the invading Soviet Army, before committing suicide.
- Ptolemy XII of Egypt had his daughter Berenice IV and her husband beheaded in 55 BC. This was after she had dethroned him and poisoned her sister, Cleopatra VI.
- Professional wrestler Chris Benoit killed his seven year old son Daniel, along with his wife and himself, on June 23, 2007.
Filicides in myth and fiction
- In the book series Wariors, Yellowfang kills her son Brocktail. It was a mercy killing because Brockentail was blind and sustained very bad, perminent injuries. Yellowfang killed him with a heavy heart to end his suffuring.
- In the 2007 film Stephen King's The Mist, the main character, David Drayton, murders his son to save him being slaughtered by vicious creatures.
- In the PS2 God of War (video game) series, Kratos is tricked, by Ares, previous god of war, in the series, into killing his own child and his wife. Kratos decides to get back at Ares for doing so, as well as for what Ares did to Athens.
- In the PS2 sequel to God of War (video game), God of War II, Zeus, attempts to kill Kratos, who at the end of the game is revealed to be Zeus's son. Although this merely counts as attempted filicide, due to Kratos' release from the grips of Hades (The Greek god of the Underworld).
- Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare - Title character kills his daughter Lavinia. This is an attempt to restore her honor after she was raped, her hands were amputated, and her tongue cut out. Titus previously kills her attackers (then apparently puts pieces of the men's dead bodies into a pie that he serves their mother), marking this play as Shakespeare's most gruesome.
- La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) - This Hispanic American folktale tells of a woman, Maria, whose husband is unfaithful. In her rage, she throws their children into the river, where they are drowned.[1]
- In the Medea of Euripides, Medea kills her children, in retaliation for being abandoned by her husband, Jason.
- In The Bacchae, also by Euripides, Agave kills her son Pentheus while possessed by Dionysus.
- Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter, Iphigeneia, to the goddess Artemis in Aeschylus' The Oresteia and in Euripides' Iphigeneia at Aulis.
- Orchamus, a king in Greek mythology ordered his daughter Leucothea buried alive upon learning that she was in love with Apollo.
- In the HBO series Oz, white supremacist Schillinger has his son killed by providing him with poisoned narcotics while he is in solitary confinement.
- In the video game Castlevania, a witch named Actrise relishes the memory of sacrificing her child to the Devil in return for eternal life.
- In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, Cuchulainn unwittingly kills his son Conlaoch when Conlaoch arrives in Ulster and, under a geis from his mother, the warrior queen Aoife, refuses to give his name to the king. Cuchulainn recognizes his son by a golden ring only after he inflicts a mortal wound with his magical spear, the Gae Bolga.
- In the 1990 film The Grifters, con artist Lilly Dillon unintentionally kills her son while trying to take his money.
- In Beloved, Sethe kills her daughter Beloved to save her from being returned to slavery.
- Hercules of Greek Mythology killed his wife and children in a fit of rage induced by Hera
- In the FOX Network show Justice, a woman is tried and convicted of shooting her son, who threatened to reveal the mother's drug dealing business.
- In the FOX Network show 24, Graem Bauer (Paul McCrane) is killed by his father, Phillip Bauer (James Cromwell) before he can reveal Phillip's involvement in the nuclear attacks against America in Season 6.
- In the V.C. Andrews novel Flowers in the Attic, Corrine kills her young son Cory and then tries to kill her other children (including main character Cathy) with aresnic in order to get her parents' inheritance.
- The 2007 film Before the Devil Knows You're Dead ends with a scene in which the character played by Albert Finney smothers his son (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) with a pillow after Hoffman's character confesses that he was responsible for the botched robbery that resulted in his mother's death.
- In the story line of Alternative Rock band "Coheed and Cambria," Coheed is tricked into killing three of his children, Maria, Matthew, and Josephine. His son, Claudio, manages to escape.
- In the Death Note anime, Soichiro Yagami threatens to kill his son, Light, but the murder attempt was simply an act (using a revolver loaded with blanks) to determine whether or not Light was the notorious serial killer, "Kira".
- In the Family Guy episode, Lois Kills Stewie, Peter and Lois Griffin kill Stewie.
- In the "evil" endings of The Suffering video games, Torque murders his two sons and wife.
- In William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice, the title character is ordered by a Nazi to choose between her two children, telling her that the one she chooses will live, the other will die. She chooses, and the child she chose to live is the one murdered.
- In the director's cut of the 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven, Sibylla of Jerusalem poisons her son Baldwin V to spare his suffering when he is diagnosed with leprosy.
- In Silent Hill: Homecoming, several cult members sacrifice their children. Also, in one of the endings, Alex Shepherd is murdered by his father.
- In Silent Hill 3, Harry Mason mentioned in one of his notes he left behind in Silent Hill that he considered killing his foster child Heather/Cheryl at one point in his life.
- In the Septimus Heap book series, the third book Physik has the character Queen Etheldredda who killed her own daughters so that she will have unparalleled control over the kingdom and no one can be her successor.
- In Kathryn Lasky's book series Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Nyra, evil queen of the Pure Ones, tries to kill her son Nyroc (later Coryn) after he left the Pure Ones. However, Nyra's close ally, the Striga, kills Coryn in book 15.
Related terms
- Prolicide is the killing of offspring.
- Infanticide is the killing of an infant from birth to 12 months.
- Patricide and matricide are the converse of filicide: the killing of a parent by his or her child.
- Fratricide and sororicide refer to the killing of one's sibling.
And as for non-familial killing terms from the same root:
- Regicide is the killing of a king or ruler.
- Tyrannicide is the killing of a tyrant.
- Homicide is the killing of a human.
- Genocide is the killing of an ethnic, religious or national group.
- Suicide is the killing of oneself.
- Deicide is the killing of a god.
- Uxoricide is the killing of one's wife.
Also consider filial cruelty (cruelty toward one's own child), child cruelty (cruelty toward an unrelated child), and child murder (the murder of a child in general).
See also
External links
