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Spouse Revenge Filicide  or  Retaliatory Filicide  or  Most Heinous Category of Filicide

"Filicide is the killing of a child by their mother, father or step-parent.  About 25 children are killed by a parent/s or step-parent every year in Australia, or one child almost every two weeks. Annexure B1  -  Filicide definitions and categories.

One of the most influential classifications of child murder was created by Phillip Resnick MD, a Professor of Psychiatry at Cleveland, OH .when in 1969 he published a ground breaking book 'Child murder by parents: A psychiatric review of filicide'.  It reviewed 131 cases of child murder by both men and women that were discussed in psychiatric literature dating from 1751 to 1967.  Phillip Resnick developed the below five categories of filicide to account for the motives driving parents or step-parents to kill their child or their children.

Below is an extract from When parents kill - ABC News - Hayley Gleeson - 22 March 2021

"Phillip Resnick developed the below Five Categories to account for the motives driving parents to kill their children:

·                   Altruistic filicide: A parent kills a child because they believe it’s in the child’s best interest, e.g. to relieve the suffering of a disabled or unwell child, or because the parent is planning on suiciding and does not want to leave them “parentless”.

·                   Acutely psychotic filicide: A parent who is experiencing psychosis kills the child with no other rational motive.

·                   Unwanted child filicide: The parent kills the child because they’re unwanted or considered a burden, or perhaps because their partner does not want children.

·                   Accidental or child maltreatment filicide: The parent unintentionally kills the child as a result of abuse or overzealous discipline.

·                   Spouse revenge filicide (or ‘Retaliatory filicide’): The parent or step-parent kills the child/ren to enact revenge on their spouse, in a deliberate attempt to make them suffer, perhaps after infidelity or separation."

Fathers, step-fathers (and former male partners of women with children from a prior relationship) commit approx. half (say 12 filicides annually) of the 24 circa filicide murders annually in recent years across Australia.  Approx 33% of those 12 circa filicides (say 4 filicides annually across Australia) fall within Phillip Resnick's category of Spouse Revenge Filicide where a parent or step-parent (or former male partners of a woman with children from a prior relationship) executes a child, or children, to enact revenge on their spouse in a deliberate attempt to make their spouse suffer.

 

The two primary reasons for Spouse Revenge Filicide are:

(a)      rejection by one of the parents of the other parent, step-parent or former male partner; and

(b)      the custodial parent denying the non-custodial parent fortnightly weekend visitation rights or similar access rights.   

          See:

           Femicide and Filicide

          Filicide offenders

          Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network Data Report: Intimate partner violence homicides 2010–2018 - ANROWS

         

 

 

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