Family annihilators receive little attention as a separate category of killer – but the terrible tragedy in Kilmarnock has put these horrific crimes firmly in the public’s mind.
Trying to get into the minds of those who deliberately harm their family members is a very dark place to go.
So-called ordinary men who were loving husbands and fathers can do extraordinarily appalling things to partners, ex-partners and children.
For all intents and purposes, these were loving husbands and good fathers, often holding down decent jobs and seen publicly as competent and successful people.
The clearest unifying factor is that this is overwhelmingly a male crime.
In a paper I co-authored with two other criminologists in 2013, we analysed three decades of cases.
Analysing shared traits and motivations allowed us to identify four types of “family annihilators”:
Self-righteous
The killer seeks to locate blame for his crimes upon the mother who he holds responsible for the breakdown of the family. For these men, their breadwinner status is central to their ideal of the family.
Disappointed
This killer believes his family has let him down or acted in ways to undermine or destroy his vision of ideal family life – such as disappointment that children are not following traditional religious or cultural customs.
Economic
The father sees family as the result of his economic success. If the father becomes an economic failure, he sees family as no longer serving this function.
Paranoid
Those who perceive an external threat to the family – often social services or the legal system. The killer is motivated by a twisted desire to protect the family.
Whatever the motivation, family annihilators need to be studied, understood and, hopefully, stopped before they kill.
