Murder–suicide

A murder–suicide is an act where an individual intentionally kills one or more people before killing themselves. The combination of murder and suicide can take various forms:

  • Suicide after or during murder inflicted on others
    • Suicide after murder to escape criminal punishment(s)
    • Suicide after murder as a form of self-punishment due to guilt
  • Murder that entails suicide, such as suicide bombing
    • Suicide by pilot, or the deliberate crash of a vehicle carrying the perpetrator and others
  • Murder of an officer or bystander during the act of suicide by cop
  • Suicide before or after murder by proxy
  • Murder linked with a person with suicidal ideation
    • Joint suicide in the form of killing the other with consent, and then killing oneself

Suicide-lawful killing has three conceivable forms:

  • To kill one's assailant through proportionate self-defense, killing oneself in the process
  • Lawful killing to prevent an individual from causing harm to others, in so doing killing oneself
  • Lawful killing indirectly resulting in or contributing to suicide

Many spree killings have ended in suicide, such as in several school shootings. Some cases of religiously motivated suicides may also involve murder. All categorization amounts to forming somewhat arbitrary distinctions where relating to intention in the case of psychosis, where the intention(s) is/are more likely than not to be irrational. Ascertaining the legal intention (mens rea) is inapplicable to cases properly categorized as insanity.

Some use the term murder–suicide to refer to homicide–suicide, which can include manslaughter and is therefore more encompassing.

According to an analysis of the London Times' reports of murder (1887-1990) by Danson and Soothill (1996), there is a much higher proportion of British male murder-suicides, in general, than female. Overwhelmingly the women committing murder-suicide tend to kill their children and then themselves. Men, on the other hand, tend to kill their spouses or partners and then themselves.