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Parricide | The Act of Killing One’s Own Parents

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Parricide is a type of murder or murder-suicide in which a perpetrator kills a parent (mother or father) or another near relative such as a sister, brother, aunt, uncle, first cousin or in-laws.

Since the 1980s, the term Parricide has become increasingly identified by the public as the killing of one’s own parents. 

According to a study in 2019, Parricide is the rarest form of murder.

Parricide is also predominately committed by adult, middle-class, white males without any history of prior criminal acts. Parricides committed by females is very rare.

There are four types of parricide offenders: severely abused, severe mental illness, the severely enraged and the dangerously antisocial.

Most children and adolescents who kill their parents tend to fall into the first two types of parricide perpetrators: the severely abused or dangerously antisocial categories.

When adult children are the killers, they tend to fall into the dangerously antisocial or severely mentally ill categories.

Source: Criminal Justice – Read Full Post Here

Parricide

Parricide is usually committed by young men between the ages of 18 and 30 but is not beyond young women.

Parricide perpetrators normally fall into four major motive categories.

1The Severely Abused Child – The Severely Abused Child Parricide Offender is thought to be the most frequently encountered category of the three. The young perpetrators are typically viewed as ‘‘good kids’’ who murder under extraordinary circumstances. They murder their parents out of fear for their lives or the lives of others in the home that are caught up in an intolerable situation. They kill to protect themselves or out of desperation, seeing no other way to escape their plight. Severe abuse includes: physical, sexual, mental, verbal and psychological abuses, most often to the extreme. Gross neglect is also counted in this category.

digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu – read full post

Cody Posey parricide
Cody Posey

Cody Posey

The tales of Cody Posey’s physical abuse at the hands of his fathers was nearly unimaginable. Belittled, berated and psychologically abused was commonplace in his young life for as long as he could remember. He was forced to work long hours on the Donaldson’s New Mexico ranch without food, water or rest. He told of being kicked, punched, slapped and smacked around by his father daily. He told about being woken with an electric cattle prod, whipped with a lasso and being dragged behind a horse. But the final straw came when his father demanded he have sex with his stepmother.

Cody Posey snapped. He could take no more. He found a gun and one by one, murdered his step mother, stepsister and his father, ending the nightmare of abuse forever.

The Severely Abused Child Parricide Offender

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2The Severely Mentally Ill Child – These killers typically have a recognized, severe mental illness, such as psychosis, bipolarity or severe depression with psychotic features. They are more likely to be adults rather than children or adolescents.

The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice © 2013 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd – Pages 133 thru 135 | Read Full Study

Heatth Otto parricide
Mohammed Riaz

 Heath Otto

Heath Otto obviously suffered from some kind of mental illness. His mother and his sister, were both nurses, so they recognized a certain level of paranoia and anxiety in Heath that was never quite normal. He was never formally diagnosed, but his sister was certain he had schizophrenia,”

Carol Simon wanted her son to be committed to a mental health facility, but South Dakota laws required that he be a danger to himself or others. To this point, Heath was not.

But all that changed one Sunday morning when he slit is mothers throat because the CIA demanded it in order to avert World War III.

The Severely Mentally Ill Child Parricide Offender

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3

The Dangerously Antisocial Parricide – This category of parricide offender kills to serve a selfish purpose, such as gain an inheritance, be able to date a boyfriend or a girlfriend of their choosing or obtain some level of freedom they feel they cannot possess if their parents are living.

Jasmine Richardson parricide
Jasmine Richardson

Jasmine Richardson

“I have this plan,” 12 year old Jasmine Richardson messaged her 23 year old boyfriend. “It begins with me killing them and ends with me living with you.”

And thus, the first solicitation of premeditated, cold blooded murder, had been penned. And it had been penned by a child.

The victims would be Jasmine’s parents and 8 year old brother! Her parents for trying to keep her from the man she loved and her brother so he didn’t have to be alive without his mom and dad.

Jasmine is believed to be the youngest person in Canadian history convicted of multiple murder.

 

Dangerously Antisocial Parricide Child Offender

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4

The Enraged Parricide Offender – This person kills because of an “explosive rage that becomes unleashed.” The murder is typically not planned. It may be reactive to something that has gone on in the past, but they’re not killing to end abuse. Something triggers that rage and they act on it.

Nehemiah Griego parricide
Nehemiah Griego

Nehemiah Griego 

On the night of January 18, 2013, 15 years old Nehemiah Griego and his mother got into an intense, heated argument. He was sent to bed early, extremely angry.

Around midnight, Nehemiah walked into his parent’s room, grabbed his father’s .22 caliber rifle and shot his mother in the head as she lay sleeping next to his nine-year-old brother.

Before his rampage ended, he had murdered everyone in the house and laid in wait for his father to return home from work. When he entered the house, Nehemiah shot him dead.

Enraged Parricide Child Offender

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RELATED

Matricide is the act of killing one’s mother.

Patricide is the act of killing one’s father.

Siblicide is the act of killing one’s sibling

Sources: thestar.com | xyonline.net | en.wikipedia.org | jaapl.org | scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu | digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu | onlinelibrary.wiley.com | researchgate.net |

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Kipland Kinlel parricide
Kipland Kinlel

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The Thurston High School Shooting

On May 20, 1998, 15-year-old Kipland Kinkel was suspended from Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, for being in possession of a loaded, stolen handgun. His father threatened him with military school if continued to misbehave in such fashion.

According to Kinkel’s taped confession, he shot his father in the back of the head and then laid in wait for his mother. Kinkel met her in the garage, told her he loved her, then shot her twice in the back of the head, three times in the face and once in the heart. 

In a note Kinkel left on a coffee table in the living room, he described his motive for killing his parents. “I just got two felonies on my record. My parents can’t take that! It would destroy them. My head just doesn’t work right. God damn these voices inside my head. I have to kill people. I don’t know why. I have no other choice.

He then headed to the Thurston High School as his murder spree was not yet complete.

Enraged Parricide Child Offender

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