Abstract
Maternal filicide, the murder of a child by his or her mother, is a multidimensional phenomenon with various characteristics, motivations, and patterns. It transcends geographic boundaries, occurring in every country and culture (Friedman, Horwitz, & Resnick, 2005). And, although maternal filicide has been discussed in the medical, mental health, and child abuse fields, little research exists with a criminal justice or law enforcement perspective.
Notes
- 1.
Filicide dates back to ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, and among the Vikings, Irish Celts, Gauls, and Phoenicians (Meyer et al., 2001).
- 2.
Puerperal (post-partum) psychosis is an abrupt onset of severe psychiatric disturbance that occurs shortly following birth. It is estimated to occur in 1–4 women per 1000 deliveries. Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, loss of reality, illogical thoughts and behavior, and possible suicidal or homicidal tendencies (Chaudron & Pies, 2003; Schwartz & Isser, 2006).
- 3.
These countries included Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK (Friedman & Resnick, 2007).
- 4.
Some researchers have suggested that physical abuse by maternal figures is more disruptive of healthy child development than physical abuse by paternal figures (Feshbach, 1989).
- 5.
Emotional dysregulation is occurs when the individual is unable to process the pain induced situation, resulting in feelings of anxiety and/or anger (Garber & Dodge, 1991). When this dysregulation becomes chronic it may be indicative of psychopathology defined as an inability to cope with one’s feelings or emotional instability.
- 6.
The term splitting refers to a defense mechanism in which people resolve contradictory or ambivalent feelings by “splitting” off negative aspects of the object in order to maintain the positive aspects (Vandenbos, 2007).
References
Alder, C., & Baker, J. (1997). Maternal filicide: More than one story to be told. Women and Criminal Justice, 9, 15–39.
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text rev.). Washington, DC: Author.
Amin, S. (2008, October 14). Social work guide to personality disorders and impact on parenting. Retrieved from http://www.ccinform.co.uk/articles/2008/10/14/2655/guide+to+personality+disorders+and+impact+on+parenting.html .
Anderson, R., Ambrosino, R., Valentine, D., & Lauderdale, M. (1983). Child deaths attributed to abuse and neglect: An empirical study. Children and Youth Services Review, 5, 75–89.
Arboleda-Florez, J. (1976). Neonaticide. Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, 21, 31–34.
Bartholomew, K., & Horowitz, L. M. (1991). Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of personality and social psychology, 61, 226.
Bartholomew, A., & Milte, K. (1978). Child murder: Some problems. Criminal Law Journal, 2, 1–17.
Beekman, P., Saunders, S., Rycus, J., & Quigly, P. (2010). Journal highlights: Parents who kill their children. APSAC Advisor, 22, 26.
Beyer, K., Mack, S., & Shelton, J. (2008). Investigative analysis of neonaticide: An exploratory study. Criminal Justice & Behavior, 35, 522–535.
Bourget, D., & Bradford, J. (1990). Homicidal parents. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 35, 233–238.
Bourget, D., Grace, J., & Whitehurst, L. (2007). A review of maternal and paternal filicide. Journal of American Academy Psychiatry Law, 35, 74–82.
Bourget, D., & Labelle, A. (1992). Homicide, infanticide and filicide. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 15, 661–673.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Attachment. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Attachment. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Brewster, A., Nelson, J., Hymel, K., Colby, D., Lucas, D., McCanne, T., & Milner, J. (1998). Victim, perpetrator, family and incident characteristics of 32 infant maltreatment deaths in the United States Air Force. Child Abuse & Neglect, 22, 91–101.
Center of Disease Control. (2011). Child maltreatment: Risk and protective factors. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childmaltreatment/riskprotectivefactors.html .
Chaudron, L., & Pies, R. (2003). The relationship between postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder: A review. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 54, 1284–1292.
Cherek, D. R., & Steinberg, J. L. (1987). Effects of drugs on human aggressive behavior. Advances in Human Psychopharmacology, 4, 239–289.
Cheung, P. (1986). Maternal filicide in Hong Kong, 1971-1985. Medicine, Science and the Law, 26, 185–192.
Corey, T., & Collins, K. (2002). Pediatric forensic pathology. In J. T. Stocker & L. P. Dehner (Eds.), Pediatric pathology (2nd ed., pp. 247–286). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
Cox, J. L., Murray, D., & Chapman, G. (1993). A controlled study of the onset, durations and prevalence of postnatal depression. British Journal of Psychiatry, 163, 27–31.
Crimmins, S., Langley, S., Brownstein, H., & Spunt, B. (1997). Convicted women who have killed their children: A self-psychology perspective. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12, 49–69.
Crittenden, P. M., & Craig, S. E. (1990). Developmental trends in the nature of child homicide. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 5, 202–216.
Crowell, J., & Theboux, D. (1995). A review of adult attachment measures: Implications for theory and research. Social Development, 4, 294–327.
Crume, T., DiGuiseppi, C., Byers, T., Sirotnak, A., & Garrett, C. (2002). Underascertainment of child maltreatment fatalities by death certificates, 1990-1998. Pediatrics, 110, e18.
DiMaio, J., & DiMaio, V. (2001). Forensic pathology: Practical aspects of criminal and forensic investigations series. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Dobson, V., & Sales, B. (2000). The science of infanticide and mental illness. Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law, 6, 1098–1112.
d’Orban, P. T. (1979). Women who kill their children. British Journal of Psychiatry, 134, 560–571.
D’Silva, S., & Oates, R. (1993). Child homicide – The extreme child abuse. The Medical Journal of Australia, 58, 300–301.
Emery, J. L. (1985). Infanticide, filicide, and cot death. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 60, 505–507.
Falkov, A. (1996). Study of working together “part 8” reports: Fatal child abuse and parental psychiatric disorder: An analysis of 100 area child protection committee case reviews conducted under terms of part 8 of working together under the Children Act 1989. London: Department of Health.
Feshbach, N. (1989). The construct of empathy and the phenomenon of physical maltreatment of children. In D. Cicchetti & V. Carlson (Eds.), Child maltreatment: Theory and research on the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Finkel, N. (1995a). Commonsense justice: Jurors’ notion of the law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Finkel, N. (1995b). Achilles fuming, Odysseus stewing and Hamlet brooding: On the story of the murder/manslaughter distinction. Nebraska Law Review, 74, 742–903.
Finkel, N. (1996). Culpability, and commonsense justice: Lessons learned betwixt murder and madness. Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, 10, 11–64.
Finkel, N. (1997). Crime prototypes, objectives versus subjectivity, culpability, and a commonsense balance. Law and Human Behavior, 15, 405–429.
Finkel, N., & Groscup, J. (1997). When mistakes happened: Commonsense rules of culpability. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 3, 1–61.
Finkel, N., & Sales, B. (1997). Commonsense justice: Old roots, germinant ground, and new shoots. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 3, 227–241.
Finkelhor, D., & Ormrod, R. (2001). Homicides of children and youth. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, 1–12.
Friedman, S., & Friedman, J. (2010). Parents who kill their children. Pediatrics in Review, 31, e10–e16.
Friedman, S., Horwitz, S., & Resnick, P. (2005). Child murder by mothers: A critical analysis of the current state of knowledge and a research agenda. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 1578–1587.
Friedman, S., Hrouda, D., Holden, C., Noffsinger, N., & Resnick, P. (2005). Child murder committed by severely mentally ill mothers: An examination of mothers found not guilty by reason of insanity. Journal of Forensic Science, 50, 1466–1471.
Friedman, S. H., & Resnick, P. J. (2007). Child murder by mothers: Patterns and prevention. World Psychiatry, 6, 137–141.
Friedman, S. H., Resnick, P. J., & Rosenthal, M. (2009). Postpartum psychosis: Strategies to protect infant and mother from harm. Current Psychiatry, 8, 40–46.
Friedman, S., Sorrentino, R., & Stankowski, J. et al. (2006, May). Mothers with thoughts of murder: Psychiatric patterns of inquiry. Presented at the meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Toronto, ON.
Garber, J., & Dodge, K. A. (1991). The development of emotion regulation and dysregulation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Goetting, A. (1988). When parents kill their young children: Detroit 1982-1986. Journal of Family Violence, 3, 339–346.
Haapasalo, J., & Petaja, S. (1999). Mothers who killed or attempted to kill their child: Life circumstances, childhood abuse, and types of killing. Violence and Victims, 14, 219–239.
Harder, T. (1967). The psychopathology of infanticide. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 43, 196–245.
Hays, S. (1998). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Jason, J., Gilliland, J., & Tyler, C. (1983). Homicide as a cause of pediatric mortality in the United States. Pediatrics, 72, 191–197.
Jennings, K., Ross, S., Popper, S., & Elmore, M. (1999). Thoughts of harming infants in depressed and nondepressed mothers. Journal of Affective Disorders, 54, 21–28.
Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Brown, J., Smailes, E. M., & Bernstein, D. P. (1999). Childhood maltreatment increases risk for personality disorders during early adulthood. Archives of General Psychiatry, 56, 600.
Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Chen, H., Kasen, S., & Brook, J. S. (2006). Parenting behaviors associated with risk for offspring personality disorder during adulthood. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63, 579.
Kaye, N. S., Borenstein, N. M., & Donnelly, S. M. (1990). Families, murder and insanity: A psychiatric review of paternal neonaticide. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 35, 133–139.
Kernberg, O. F. (1976). Object relations theory and clinical psychoanalysis. New York, NY: Aronson.
Klevens, J., & Leeb, R. (2010). Child maltreatment fatalities in children under 5: Findings from the National Violence Death Reporting System. Child Abuse & Neglect, 34, 262–266.
Koenen, M., & Thompson, J. (2008). Filicide: Historical review and prevention of child death by parent. Infant Mental Health Journal, 29, 61–75.
Kumar, R., & Marks, M. (1992). Infanticide and the law in England and Wales. In J. A. Hamilton & P. N. Harberger (Eds.), Postpartum psychiatric illness: The picture puzzle of postpartum psychosis (pp. 257–274). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Kumar, R., & Robson, K. M. (1984). A prospective study of emotional disorders in childbearing women. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 35–47.
Kunz, J., & Bahr, S. (1996). A profile of parental homicide against children. Journal of Family Violence, 11, 347–362.
Levine, M., Freeman, J., & Compaan, C. (1994). Maltreatment-related fatalities: Issues of policy and prevention. Law and Policy, 16, 449–471.
Lewis, C., Baranoski, M., Buchanan, J., & Benedek, E. (1998). Factors associated with weapon use in maternal filicide. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 43, 613–618.
Lucas, D., Wezner, K., Milner, J., McCanne, T., Harris, I., Monroe-Posey, C., & Nelson, J. (2002). Victim, perpetrator, family and incident characteristics of infant and child homicide in the United States Air Force. Child Abuse and Neglect, 26, 167–186.
Marks, M. N., & Kumar, R. (1993). Infanticide in England and Wales. Medicine, Science, and the Law, 33, 329.
Marks, M., & Kumar, R. (1996). Infanticide in Scotland. Medicine, Science and the Law, 36, 201–204.
Mayhew, L. (2007). Child death investigations: Interdisciplinary techniques from cradle to court. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
McKee, G. (2006). Why mothers kill: A forensic psychologist’s casebook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
McKee, G., & Shea, S. (1998). Maternal filicide: A cross-national comparison. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 54, 679–687.
Mendlowicz, M. V., Rapaport, M. H., Mecler, K., Golshan, S., & Moraes, T. M. (1998). A case-control study on the socio-demographic characteristics of 53 neonaticidal mothers. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 21, 209–219.
Meyer, C. L., Oberman, M., White, K., & Rone, M. (2001). Mothers who kill their children: Understanding the acts of moms from Susan Smith to the “Prom Mom”. New York, NY: University Press.
Mickelson, K. D., Kessler, R. C., & Shaver, P. R. (1997). Adult attachment in a nationally representative sample. Journal of Personality Social Psychology, 73, 1092–1106.
Motz, A. (2008). The psychology of female violence: Crimes against the body. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Neroni, H. (2005). The violent woman: Femininity, narrative and violence in contemporary American cinema. Albany, NY: State University New York Press.
Nock, M. K., & Marzuk, P. M. (1999). Murder-suicide: Phenomenology and clinical implications. In D. G. Jacobs (Ed.), The Harvard Medical School guide to suicide assessment and intervention (pp. 188–209). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Oberman, M. (1996). Mothers who kill: Coming to terms with modern American infanticide. American Criminal Law Review, 34, 1–110.
Overpeck, M., Brenner, R. A., Trumble, A. C., & Trifilliti, L. B. (1998). Risk factors for infant homicide in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine, 339, 1211–1216.
Pearson, P. (1997). When she was bad: Violent women and the myth of innocence. New York, NY: Viking Press.
Perlin, M. (2003a). Psychodynamics and the insanity defense: “Ordinary common sense” and heuristics reasoning. Nebraska Law Review, 69, 3–70.
Perlin, M. (2003b). She breaks just like a little girl: Neonaticide, insanity defense and the irrelevance of ‘ordinary common sense’. William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law, 10, 1–31.
Pianta, R., Egeland, B., & Erickson, M. F. (1989). The antecedents of maltreatment: Results of the mother-child interaction research project. Child maltreatment: Theory and research on the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect (pp. 203–253). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Putkonen, H., Collander, J., Weizmann-Henelius, G., & Eronen, M. (2007). Legal outcomes of all suspected neonaticides in Finland 1980–2000. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 30, 248–254.
Resnick, P. J. (1969). Child murder by parents: A psychiatric review of filicide. American Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 1414–1420.
Resnick, P. J. (1970). Murder of the newborn: A psychiatric review of neonaticide. American Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 1414–1420.
Riley, L. (2005). Neonaticide: A grounded theory study. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 12, 1–42.
Robbins, P. C., Monahan, J., & Silver, E. (2003). Mental disorder, violence, and gender. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 561–571.
Roberts, J. E., Gotlib, I. H., & Kassel, J. D. (1996). Adult attachment security and symptoms of depression: The mediating roles of dysfunctional attitudes and low self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 310–320.
Rodenburg, M. (1971). Child murder by depressed parents. Canadian Psychiatry Association Journal, 16, 41–48.
Rosenberg, R., Greening, D., & Windell, J. (2003). Conquering postpartum depression. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.
Rouge-Malillart, C., Jousset, N., Gaudin, A., Bouju, B., & Penneau, M. (2005). Women who kill their children. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 26, 320–326.
Sarkar, J., & Adshead, G. (2006). Personality disorders as disorganization of attachment and affect regulation. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 12, 297–305.
Schwartz, L., & Isser, N. (2000). Endangered children: Neonaticide, infanticide and filicide. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Schwartz, L., & Isser, N. (2006). Child homicide: Parents who kill. New York, NY: CRC Press.
Scott, P. D. (1973). Parents who kill their children. Medicine, Science and the Law, 13, 120–126.
Shelton, J., Corey, T., Donaldson, W., & Hemberger-Dennison, E. (2011). Neonaticide: A comprehensive review of investigative and pathologic aspects of 55 cases. Journal of Family Violence, 26, 263–276.
Shelton, J., Hoffer, T., & Muirhead, Y. (2014). Behavioral analysis of maternal filicide. Springer briefs in behavioral criminology. New York, NY: Springer.
Shelton, J., Muirhead, Y., & Canning, K. (2010). Ambivalence toward mothers who kill: An examination of 45 U.S. cases of maternal neonaticide. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 28, 812–831.
Silver, E. (1995). Punishment or treatment? Comparing the lengths of confinement of successful and unsuccessful insanity defendants. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 375–388.
Silverman, R., & Kennedy, L. (1988). Women who kill their children. Violence and Victims, 3, 113–127.
Smithey, M. (1998). Infant homicide: Victim/offender relationship and causes of death. Journal of Family Violence, 13, 285–297.
Smithey, M. (2001). Maternal infanticide and modern motherhood. Women and Criminal Justice, 13, 65–83.
Solomon, J., & George, C. (1999). The measurement of attachment security in infancy and childhood. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Spinelli, M. G. (2001). Systematic investigation of 16 cases of neonaticide. American Journal of Psychiatry, 158, 811–813.
Spinelli, M. G. (2003). Infanticide: Psychosocial and legal perspectives on mothers who kill. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing Inc..
Spinelli, M. G. (2004). Maternal infanticide associated with mental illness: Prevention and the promise of saved lives. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 1548–1557.
Stangle, H. L. (2008). Murderous Madonna: Femininity, violence, and the myth of postpartum mental disorder in cases of maternal infanticide and filicide. William and Mary Law Review, 50, 700–734.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families (US DHHS). (2009). Child maltreatment 2007. Washington, DC: Government Printing.
van IJzendoorn, M. H., Feldbrugge, J. T. T. M., Derks, F. C. H., Ruiter, C. D., Verhagen, M. F. M., Philipse, M. W. G., & Riksen‐Walraven, J. M. A. (1997). Attachment representations of personality‐disordered criminal offenders. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 67, 449–459.
Walker, A. (2006). Application of the insanity defense to postpartum disorder-driven infanticide in the United States: A look toward the enactment of an infanticide act, 6 U. MD. L.J. Race, Religion, Gender and Class 197.
Warren, J. I., & Burnette, M. (2012). Factor invariance of Cluster B psychopathology among male and female inmates and association with impulsive and violent behavior. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 23, 40–60.
West, D. J. (1966). Murder followed by suicide. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
West, S. (2007). An overview of filicide. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 4, 48–57.
Wilczynski, A. (1991). Images of women who kill their infants: The mad and the bad. Women and Criminal Justice, 2, 71–88.
Wilczynski, A. (1997). Prior agency contact and physical abuse in child homicide. British Journal of Social Work, 27, 241–253.
Wisner, K. L., Gracious, B. L., Piontek, C. M., Peindl, K., & Perel, J. M. (2003). Postpartum disorders: Phenomenology, treatment approaches, and relationship to infanticide. Infanticide: Psychosocial and legal perspectives on mothers who kill (pp. 35–60). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Wisner, K. L., Peindl, K., & Hanusa, B. H. (1994). Symptomatology of affective and psychotic illnesses related to childbearing. Journal of Affective Disorders, 30, 77–87.
Wisner, K. L., & Stowe, Z. N. (1997). Psychobiology of postpartum mood disorders. Seminars in Reproductive Endocrinoogyl, 15, 77–89.
Zeanah, C. H., Berlin, L. J., & Boris, N. W. (2011). Practitioner review: Clinical applications of attachment theory and research for infants and young children. Journal of Child Psychology Psychiatry, 52, 819–833.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shelton, J., Hoffer, T.A. (2017). Maternal Filicide. In: Van Hasselt, V., Bourke, M. (eds) Handbook of Behavioral Criminology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61625-4_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61625-4_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61623-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61625-4
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)