The father was not on drug I presume.
I don't know what to think about it. I never did a research on fathers killing their children.
I don't know.
If he used another method he would not be here but perhaps would be at the news causing horror to all viewers.
This is one of those stories that creates a lot of questioning and rage in public
Whenever mainstream media starts focusing on a story - no drug related, of course - like this there's a huge commotion, communities are open on social networkings and lots of people start the same discussion.
I think it's a hard question.
I feel like saying "monstrous" but it's a description.

there is a literature on these tragic events - filicide or pedicide are the terms. Individual cases would vary but a combination of depression and or psychosis, triggering narcissistic injury in terms of rejection in a marital or relationship breakup, drugs including akathisic reactions to medication, and underlying personality disorder/traits of a narcissistic nature - in the end often a blurring of boundary of self between parent and child and in that sense the projection of self into one's child and then murdering them is a kind of suicide - often why suicide commonly accompanies such tragic acts.

"Filicide is the murder of a child by a parent. Historically, filicide was regarded as a female crime, but nowadays, in the West, men have become increasingly likely to be convicted of killing their child."

I believe it's a complex issue that involves many aspects and must be studied not only by psychiatrists but also by other fields.
Giving a list of mental illness whose symptoms include parricide, filicide or suicide don't seems to be very productive even to prevent the cases.

Unfortunately I don't have time and... of course skills or a good team to work with me.

Philip,

According to the newspaper story this man was being treated for depression. The Seroquel and the benzo were only mentioned because these were the two drugs he gave to one of the sons.

When I read Google Groups, never is a person being treated for depression with Seroquel & a benzo alone. There is always an antidepressant in there some place.

On www.ssristories.com there are 66 cases of fathers killing their children and one hundred and fifty-eight cases of woman killing their children, plus an additional 44 postpartum murders for a total of 202 cases of mothers killing their children.

Anyone who has ever BOTHERED to read and study SSRI Stories always writes that they were "blown away" by the sheer number of tragic cases involving SSRIs & SNRIs. Right now there are over 3,000 cases. And to think that depression used to be considered such a benign disease in regard to violence.

Here is the way that article on the tragic case in Illinois reads: Paragraph one reads: "Michael Connolly gave one son a lethal dose of psychiatric medication and fatally stabbed the other before hanging himself in March in a remote area near Hennepin, the Putnam County death investigator announced Wednesday night."

Paragraph six reads: "Prescription medication bottles were found at the scene, authorities said previously. Connolly had been under treatment for depression, they said."

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2009/05/06/news/doc4a02428a70eaf994231423.txt

Investigator: Jack died from stab wound, Duncan drugged to death
By Edith Brady-Lunny
eblunny@pantagraph.com

It is relatively easy to find these cases on SSRI Stories of mothers and fathers murdering their children while on antidepressants. Once a person scrolls down in the Index past the 48 school shootings, the "won" cases, the Journal Articles and the highly publicized cases, then the articles are arranged alphabetically in the "Additional Column". Scroll down to the "F's" for Fathers, the "M's" for Mothers and the "P's for postpartum cases.

"in the end often a blurring of boundary of self between parent and child and in that sense the projection of self into one's child and then murdering them is a kind of suicide"

I'm sorry Aussie but you did a kind of melange here.
First you start with the psychiatric approach and end with this psychoanalytical approach that I'm sorry, makes no sense or makes sense in one case but could never be used in a general explanation like that.
Wow! I'm really can see why people don't believe in therapy any longer.

"...Individual cases would vary but a combination of depression and or psychosis, triggering narcissistic injury in terms of rejection in a marital or relationship breakup, drugs including akathisic reactions to medication, and underlying personality disorder/traits of a narcissistic nature - in the end..."

I believe this paragraph should be rephrased.
I'm sorry I'm not understanding.

Evidently, psychiatrists don't believe that changing the neurotransmitters of the brain could have accounted for this tragic murder-suicide. They want to blame narcissitic personality disorder. Give me a break.

On SSRI Stories, the drugs are changing the known ratio of men to women who are committing COMPLETED murder-suicides.

SSRI Stories has 189 completed murder-suicides - 55 by women and 134 by men appearing on SSRI Stories. In order to compare these numbers, SSRI Stories must scale them to account for the fact that women are two and one-half times more likely in the general population to be taking an antidepressant.

So SSRI Stories took the number 55 [women on antidepressants] and scaled it to account for this additional two and one-half times [more women on antidepressants] and came up with the number 22. Thus, after the scaling, SSRI Stories ended up with 22 women and 134 men for a total of 156. Looking at 22 women out of 156 people, SSRI Stories gets 14.1 percent.

SSRI Stories would have expected, in the general population, to have only 5 percent [ because SSRI Stories has already scaled ] of women committing these completed murder -suicides. The 5% figure comes from a study of the year 2007 [ six months of records nationwide for completed murder-suicides]. http://www.tcfv.org/tcfv-content/new-study-on-murder-suicide-cases/

Thus, SSRI Stories has concluded that women are almost three times as likely [14.1% vs. 5%] to commit a completed murder-suicide using the SSRIs as are men. Since men & woman both belong to the human race :-), we can assume that men are also committing more murder-suicides than they use to commit[ because of the SSRIs} but we don't have any stats for this concept. The only stats we have are for the women on SSRI Stories.

I wonder why people don't understand this. It all seems so obvious. But, no, instead we have to say that the perpetrator was narcissitic or psychopathic or some other word. I don't get it!

Rosie,
Thank you for the data.
I remember that in 1991 a man has killed his father while taking Halcion. I've read it at Newsweek, October, 1991. He was not judged guilty.

There are very interesting studies on narcissism injury. I'm amazed!
At this one here:
From, "The sociology and psychology of terrorism, Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?" Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, September 1999.

""Taking the-terrorists-as-mentally-ill approach, this hypothesis concerns the early development of the terrorist. Basically if primary narcissism in the form of the "grandiose self" is not neutralized by reality testing, the grandiose self produces individuals who are sociopathic, arrogant and lacking in regard for others.

For Crayton, terrorism is an attempt to acquire or maintain power or control by intimidation. He suggests that the "meaningful high ideals" of the political terrorist group "protect the group members from experiencing shame." "

Interesting...
But this one is better:

"As defined by Sigmund Freud, narcissistic injury occurs when you take as a personal attack, an injury to a member of the group to which you belong. If someone attacks a member of your family, and you react as if it were an attack on yourself, you are experiencing narcissistic injury; and if, in your anger, you decide in return to attack a member of your aggressor’s family, (other than the person who was actually responsible for the original attack), you are engaging in a calculated form of “narcissistic rage” or what may be called narcissistic revenge. The group to which you belong, however, can be much larger than your family. It can, for example, be defined by the race to which you belong, your nationality, or your religious sect.

After 9/11, American who sought to take revenge against Muslims solely because the 9/11 hijackers were Muslim, and Islamic extremists who seek to kill Americans solely because they are Americans, are experiencing narcissistic injury and engaging in narcissistic revenge."

I'm going to hide under my bed.

Hi Ana,

Thank you for thanking me for the data :-). It is much appreciated.

I hope you have a nice week-end in Brazil.

Rosie,
Thank you for thanking my thanks.... :)
SSRI Stories is a great source. Sometimes I watch some terrible news and get suspicious. I go to SSRI Stories and find the answer.
I still remember Eric Pekka, too sad story.
Have a nice week-end!