The Social Structure of Homicide-Suicide

• Author: Jason Manning
• Published date: 01 November 2015
• Date: 01 November 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/1088767914547819
• Subject Matter: Articles

Homicide Studies

2015, Vol. 19(4) 350 –369

© 2014 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1088767914547819

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Article

The Social Structure

of Homicide-Suicide

Jason Manning1

Abstract

This article focuses on intimate partner killings to address the question of why some

killers subsequently commit suicide whereas others do not. Utilizing Blackian theories

of conflict management and Manning’s theory of suicide, it advances hypotheses about

when intimate partner conflict will result in homicide-suicide rather than homicide

alone. These hypotheses propose that differing amounts of status superiority and

relational distance predict and explain different patterns of lethal violence. The

hypotheses are illustrated and supported with data taken from a study of intimate

partner homicides in the state of West Virginia. The article concludes by arguing for

a micro-structural model that addresses suicide, homicide, and homicide-suicide.

Keywords

victim/offender relationship, multitrait-multimethod, methodology, structural causes,

subtypes, intimate partner

Homicide-suicide is an event in which a perpetrator commits suicide shortly after

killing someone else. Although statistically rare, it is a sociologically important

form of violence that poses challenges to theories of homicide and of suicide.1 Thus,

much of the growing literature on homicide-suicide has been concerned with estab-

lishing whether the phenomenon is best understood as a kind of homicide, as a kind

of suicide, or as a completely distinctive behavior (e.g., Marzuk, Tardiff, & Hirsh,

1992).

This study approaches the problem by considering homicide-suicide as a form of

conflict management—that is, as a way of handling grievances. The following pages

argue that the same micro-structural factors that make a conflict more likely to result

1West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jason Manning, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, West Virginia University, 316 Knapp Hall,

P.O. Box 6326, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA.

Email: jason.manning@mail.wvu.edu

547819HSXXXX10.1177/1088767914547819Homicide StudiesManning

research-article2014

Manning 351

in suicide also make it more likely to result in homicide-suicide rather than homicide

alone. Specifically, it shows how Manning’s (2012) theory of moralistic suicide can be

used to make testable predictions about the differences between homicide and homi-

cide-suicide. Some aspects of this theory are illustrated and supported by an analysis

of 40 intimate partner killings in West Virginia. The article concludes by presenting a

multidimensional, micro-structural model of homicide and suicide. But before turning

to theory, first consider the previous research on homicide-suicide and its connection

to the study of conflict.

Research on Homicide-Suicide

Comparisons of homicide and homicide-suicide have revealed several similarities and

differences between these forms of behavior and between the kinds of individual likely

to commit them. In the United States, for instance, homicide-suicide perpetrators are

more likely than ordinary killers to be older, male, and White (Riedel, 2010; Stack,

1997). Homicide-suicide also differs from ordinary homicide in that it is more likely

to involve multiple victims, female victims, and victims who are children (Liem,

Barber, Markwalder, Killias, & Nieuwbeerta, 2011; Liem & Nieuwbeerta, 2010).

Furthermore, homicide-suicide is much more likely than other killings to take place

between family members and intimate partners (Marzuk et al., 1992; Riedel, 2010;

Stack, 1997). For example, an analysis of Chicago data found that 45% of homicide-

suicides occurred between spouses, as compared with 9% of homicides in general

(Stack, 1997, p. 447). Similar patterns are found throughout the United States and in

other nations (Chan, 2007; Gillespie, Hearn, & Silverman, 1998; Liem et al., 2011;

Liem & Nieuwbeerta, 2010; Liem & Roberts, 2009; Marzuk et al., 1992; Milroy,

1998; Saleva, Putkonen, Kiviruusu, & Lönnqvist, 2007).

Comparisons between homicide-suicide and its constituent behaviors are compli-

cated by the fact that homicide-suicide is not a unitary phenomenon, but includes

several different types. One major pattern, captured with such terms as “dependent-

protective” killing, “altruistic homicide,” and “mercy-killing suicide,” occurs when a

suicidal person decides to kill one or more close dependents to spare them from shame

or deprivation (Hanzlick & Koponen, 1994; Harper & Voigt, 2007; Marzuk et al.,

1992). Suicidal mothers sometimes kill their young children first rather than leave

them without a mother to care for them (Berman, 1996, p. 345). Homicide-suicide

among elderly couples often occurs because declining health threatens to prevent one

partner from continuing to care for the other (Barraclough & Harris, 2002; Malphurs

& Cohen, 2002). In a subtype known as “family annihilation,” a breadwinner facing

major financial, legal, or health problems kills his dependent wife and children before

killing himself (Daly & Wilson, 1988, pp. 216-217; Harper & Voigt, 2007, p. 305;

Marzuk et al., 1992, p. 3181). For example, one upper-middle class South African man

who suffered a string of financial losses shot his wife and teenage sons while they slept

before shooting himself. His suicide note read “I’m not proud of what I’m about to do

but I cannot let my family suffer the degradation of losing everything we possess and

being thrown penniless onto the street” (Graser, 1992, p. 28).