ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a domestic homicide-suicide incident as an incident involving one or more domestic homicides followed by the suicide of the suspected perpetrator within 24 hours. Explanation for the relative overrepresentation of male perpetrators could lie in the fact that the majority of homicide-suicides include male perpetrators and female victims. In further examining various homicide-suicide subtypes, the chapter subsequently covers intimate partner homicide-suicide, filicide-suicide, familicide-suicide as well as ‘other’ homicide-suicides within the family, such as the killing of a parent, sibling or extended family member followed by suicide. Cross-culturally, studies report a high prevalence of previous physical abuse by intimate partner homicide-suicide perpetrators. An analysis of the data revealed three different groups that were uniform in composition. The first group has a primarily homicidal nature, the second group was mostly suicidal and the third group consisted of homicide-parasuicide cases, which were committed as a ‘total solution’.
