History Main / PaterFamilicide

* [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Willett Alan Willet]] attempted to kill his family, succeeding at killing his eldest son and developmentally disabled brother. After his suicide failed, he was arrested, condemned, and executed.

* Ronald Gene Simmons killed ''fourteen'' members of his family, eight of them his own children (and one them [[ParentalIncest was also his grandchild]]).

* Dozens of these occurred [[BetterToDieThanToBeKilled during the fall of Nazi Germany]]; the most notable one is the case of Magda and Joseph Goebbels, who killed their own children with poison while they slept, before killing themselves as Berlin fell in 1945.

* Dozens of these occurred during the fall of Nazi Germany; the most notable one is the case of Magda and Joseph Goebbels, who killed their own children with poison while they slept, before killing themselves as Berlin fell in 1945.

** In 2004, abusive father John Sharpe killed his pregnant wife and infant daughter with a spear gun because he didn't want to have another child; the murders were so shocking, that the victims were buried [[NomDeMom under the mother's maiden name]]. Sharpe was given two life sentences.

** In an episode, Joe Kenda (the titular character), is very upset to realize that a man murdered his wife, daughter, and grandson before turning the gun on himself (he was upset about his daughter's impending divorce and somehow convinced that it reflected badly on him as a father). Ironically, Kenda was already suspecting this trope; he just assumed that the woman's ex was the one responsible.

* In September of 1995, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Borel Eric Borel]] shot and bludgeoned his mother, step-father, and brother, before going on a killing spree, murdering 12 and wounding 4 others before shooting himself.

* Gender-inverted in ‘’LightNovel/KaraNoKyoukai’’. Tomoe Enjou’s mother, after killing her husband, killed her son and then herself. The Tomoe that Shiki meets is an ArtificialHuman made from his preserved brain.

* In April 2011, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupont_de_Ligonnès_murders_and_disappearance Xavier DuPont de Ligonnes]] murdered his wife and their 4 children at their home in Nantes, France and buried their bodies in the backyard before disappearing. His primary motive is believed by authorities to be the significant debt he'd acquired (and hid from his wife and kids) due to failed business ventures and generally living way above and beyond his means. As of March 2016, he has yet to be found.

** [[spoiler:Threefolds, if you considered that Adrian Veidt's plan might be doomed to failure.]]

* In a variant, Tristan ap Blanc of ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' caused the deaths of almost his entire immediate family: his sons by accident, and his foster mother and wife on purpose. He also sealed his daughter up in prison, although whether she dies there or not depends on [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong the outcome of an adventure]].

* John List murdered his entire family rather than admit to them that he lost his job and that the family was in dire financial trouble. He went into hiding, adopted an alias, re-married, and would have gotten away with his crime if not for ''America's Most Wanted'' doing a special on him. In a real-life example of a CruelTwistEnding, when the abandoned List home burned down the year after the murders, investigators found an antique stained glass ceiling that was worth more than enough money to solve the family's financial problems, at least in the short term, making the deaths [[SenselessSacrifice especially pointless]].

* ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'''s Kratos killed his wife and child in a fit of battle rage induced by Ares. The subsequent nightmares drive him through the game's story and eventually cause him to [[DrivenToSuicide leap off a tall cliff]].

* Discussed in ''Film/{{Dobermann}}''. Mosquito asks the Abbot why he is painting the inside of the villa the gang is using as a hideout. The Abbot explains that the previous owner was a business who shot his wife, his children, and then himself, and he is painting over the bloodstains. Mosquito is [[{{Squick}} squicked]] as he realises what the stains on his bedroom ceiling are.

* Another GenderFlip version paired this with IfICantHaveYou. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Blood Susie Newsom]] divorced her husband Tom Lynch and took up with her ''cousin'' Fritz Klenner. When Tom filed for custody of their two sons because of the incestuous relationship (and among other things, Klenner was a fraud practicing medicine though he'd never even been to college, as well as a virulent racist), Fritz and Susie began killing people who could support Tom either financially or personally--his mother and sister as well as ''her'' parents and grandmother. When the cops came to confront the pair, they grabbed the boys and took off in their SUV. After a 15-minute chase, Susie fatally shot her sons[[note]]autopsies performed on the boys showed they were already dead before their mother and [[WickedStepmother stepfather]] blew the car up[[/note]], then detonated a bomb located under her seat, destroying the car and killing them both. The case was adapted into a book, ''Bitter Blood,'' which in turn was adapted as a MadeForTVMovie, ''In the Best of Families.''

* There's a particular kind of ghost called a "Woman in White" that results from a woman killing her children and then committing suicide. The idea seems to have come from South American legends of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llorona La Llorona]].

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' has a particular kind of ghost called a "Woman in White" that results from a woman killing her children and then committing suicide. The idea seems to have come from South American legends of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llorona La Llorona]].
** ''Supernatural'' loves this trope. It appears in an episode in which a house is haunted by the ghost of a farmer who murdered his family so they wouldn't starve, and pops up again with the father in a haunted family portrait who killed his family, and now murders whoever owns the picture. [[spoiler: It's subverted both times. The farmer ghost isn't real (long story), and it was the adopted daughter that killed everyone and then framed the father.]]

* In the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "Normal", the BAU predict that since the killer is murdering women resembling his wife, eventually he will kill his real family. [[spoiler:TheReveal is that he'd done it before the episode even began, and was hallucinating that they were still alive. In the end, he gets told that he killed them and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone breaks down]].]]

* In an episode of ''Series/HomicideHunter'', Joe Kenda (the titular character), is very upset to realize that a man murdered his wife, daughter, and grandson before turning the gun on himself (he was upset about his daughter's impending divorce and somehow convinced that it reflected badly on him as a father). Ironically, Kenda was already suspecting this trope; he just assumed that the woman's ex was the one responsible.

* In the ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' miniseries ''Children of Earth'', [[spoiler: civil servant John Frobisher is told that his two daughters must be sacrificed to the invading aliens (leaving the children to a fate worse than death) in order for the government to save face. He returns home, sends his family to one of the bedrooms, takes a gun and follows them up. [[GoryDiscretionShot The door closes]] and [[TearJerker three gunshots are heard, then a pause followed by a fourth]]. The final [[KickTheDog kicker]] comes from the fact that Torchwood defeats the alien threat a mere few hours later, which means Frobisher did it all for nothing.]]

** ''Series/LawAndOrder'':
** Subverted in one episode in which the father seems to fit the profile, but actually it's the daughter's druggie boyfriend.
** ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'':
*** In one episode, the wife seems to be unstable; later, the detectives (who had just been to the house that day) find everyone dead, save the husband who was only grazed. Elliot is sympathetic, only to learn from the Crime Scene Unit that the only way the husband could've been injured is if he was aiming the gun at himself.

** In 2018, western Australia was plagued with ''three'' familicides in under four months. In May, Peter Miles killed his wife, daughter, and four grandchildren in a murder-suicide. In July, teenager Teancum Petersen-Crofts killed his mother and two siblings. In September, Anthony Harvey killed his wife, three daughters, and their maternal grandmother. Miles committed suicide, while Petersen-Crofts and Harvey were arrested and charged with the killings.

* In December 2009, [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Susan_Powell Susan Powell]] disappeared from her Salt Lake City home. Suspicion immediately fell on her husband Josh thanks to his flimsy alibi, IncriminatingIndifference, and multiple actions that indicated that he knew she wasn't returning--canceling her appointments, giving away her belongings, etc. Unfortunately, there wasn't sufficient evidence to charge him. However, as their two sons got older as time passed, they both made several statements that hinted at their mother's fate--"Mommy was in the trunk", etc. During a court-ordered visitation in February 2012, Powell grabbed the boys, locked the accompanying social worker out of the house, and set off an explosion, killing them all. Police officials have stated that they view his actions as a confession to his wife's murder.

* On August 14, 2018, [[https://www.google.com/amp/s/people.com/crime/shanann-watts-husband-chris-did-not-believe-cheating/amp/ Christopher Watts]] reported his [[ImperiledInPregnancy pregnant wife]] Shannan and their two daughters missing. By the next day, he was under arrest, having confessed to murdering all three, though he later changed his story to claim that '''''she''''' killed the girls and that he then killed her in a rage over her actions.

The murderer, almost always a man, kills his wife and children (and in rare cases, his in-laws or parents) as a means to "protect" the family from discovering the killer's own failures at life (e.g., UnconfessedUnemployment, financial ruin, or the disintegration of the family unit for some other reason). Often has shades of PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery. After killing his entire family, the killer [[MurderSuicide will usually then turn his weapon upon himself]]. If he can't bring himself to kill himself, he will either flee town to escape his crimes, or [[FrameUp blame it on an outside party]].

The trope gained fame mainly through the murderous antics of John List, arguably the TropeCodifier. Having lost his job and become deeply in debt, List's InsaneTrollLogic was that poverty was an affront to God, so it would be better for his family to go straight to heaven than on welfare. List then went into hiding and successfully stayed hidden until ''Series/AmericasMostWanted'' featured him on the show, bringing about his arrest as a result.

* Creator/NicholasRay's ''Film/BiggerThanLife'' made in TheFifties of all decades, provided an OlderThanTheyThink example. The finale [[spoiler:has Ed Avery (Creator/JamesMason) the patriarch, strung out on prescription drugs, decide to murder his son. His wife tries desperately to talk him out of this by reminding him of the guilt with which they would have live with, to which Ed asks her, "You don't expect either of us to live after this do you?". More or less stating that after he kills his son, he will kill her and then himself]].

* This is what kick-starts the curse of the ''Film/{{Juon}}'' series of films, as well as the [[ForeignRemake remake]] series, ''Film/TheGrudge'': In the Japanese series, Takeo Saeki reads his wife Kayako's diary, discovers that she harbours an obsessive crush on her old college friend, Kobayashi, and becomes so [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]], paranoid and [[AxCrazy outright crazy]] that he starts to believe that a) Kayako is having an affair, and b) that he is not the natural father of their son, Toshio (none of which are true). He then [[NeckSnap snaps Kayako's neck]], leaving her paralysed but not quite dead until he slashes her with a utility knife, drowns Toshio, and even slaughters Toshio's beloved cat. Takeo himself is later killed when Kayako, now a ''seriously'' angry spirit, takes her revenge. In the American series, the murders and his motives are very similar, except in this continuity, the object of Kayako's desire is instead a university professor named Peter, and there is no suspicion with regards to Toshio's parentage.

* In the backstory of ''Film/{{Madman}}'', the eponymous villain murdered his sleeping family with an axe. A mob tired to hang him for it, but he survived, and now kills anyone who gets his attention.

* ''Film/{{Haunter}}'': This was and is the Pale Man's favourite way of killing families as a ghost, by [[DemonicPossession possessing the father]] to kill his wife and children, then himself.

* In ''Film/{{Walkabout}}'', the father drives himself and his two children into the desert, where he pulls a gun and attempts to shoot the kids. When they escape, he sets fire to the car and then shoot himself. By destroying the car, he probably believed he was killing them anyway, as they would have been stranded in the desert with no way out.

* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' features the PosthumousCharacter Lews Therin Telamon, TheChosenOne--also known as "Kinslayer," because, after [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity after going insane like all male wizards do]], he killed every friend and family member he could get his hands on. Since he was TheArchmage, this was all of them. ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne.

* ''Literature/TheExecutioner'' series is kicked off by Mack Bolan's father going insane and murdering his wife, daughter, younger son (the SoleSurvivor, besides Mack who's serving in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar), then shooting himself. He was being squeezed by Mafia loan sharks, and snapped after discovering his daughter had turned to prostitution to cover the debt. Mack Bolan decides that a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against TheMafia is a more appropriate response.

* One of Series/{{Dexter}}'s victims was a cop who murdered her husband and daughter, because she found them to be a burden.

*** Subverted in a episode in which a man has apparently been cheating on his wife online, only for his family to be killed after this is discovered, with the father apparently committing suicide after killing the others. Turns out he was framed on both counts; the whole thing was an elaborate ploy to kill the father and cover up the murder.

* ''Series/{{CSI}}'' has an aversion in "Blood Drops," where the murder looks like the father killed everyone save for the youngest daughter (who was hiding) and the eldest daughter (who was out with her boyfriend). [[spoiler: It turns out the eldest daughter and her boyfriend killed them all, as [[ParentalIncest her father had been raping her for years]], no one would speak out against him, and he was moving on to the youngest girl -- who was actually the eldest's ''own daughter by him''.]]

* A ''Series/ColdCase'' case was thought to be this, but was reopened when the sole survivor, the daughter, began to regain her memory and realized that it ''wasn't'' her father who shot everyone.
* In ''Series/Class2016'', April's father tried to kill himself, her mother, and her when she was a small child by deliberately crashing the family car. All of them survived, but her mother was left paralysed from the waist down and her father served a jail sentence for attempted murder.

* In the 4th season finale of ''Series/{{ER}}'', the bickering doctors must put aside their differences to save the wife and children of a depressed man who finally snapped and shot them all. He tearfully admits that the only reason he isn't dead himself is because, "There weren't any bullets left". The episode ends with all three still being tended to, so it's not clear who, if any survived.

** Another example from Finnish music is ''Murheellisten laulujen maa'' ("Land of sorrowful songs", a play on the country's nickname of "Land of a thousand lakes"), which tells of a man who doesn't want to be like his fathers before him, refusing to drink alcohol and beat his family. However, [[RealityEnsues he is unable to get a job to support his family]], which eventually leads him to hit the bottle after all, and the song ends with him [[AnAxeToGrind murdering his family on their snowy yard with an axe.]] The last verse then [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] on [[SelfDeprecatingHumor how many popular Finnish songs are based on depressing subject matters like this]] (and before you ask, yes, ''Murheellisten laulujen maa'' is indeed rather popular in Finland).

* ''[[http://www.fredvanlente.com/cthulhutract/pages/ Why We're Here]]'' is a Lovecraftian parody of the infamous ''ComicBook/ChickTracts''. In it, a good family man talks to Old Man Whateley who converts him to the Truth of the ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos''. The good family man promptly chops up his family with an axe to spare them from the horror of the Elder Gods.

* ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' had a quest in which the main character had to help exorcise a haunted hotel. The ghosts are from a family that was killed by the father in the 1940s when he became convinced a gift his wife received from her mother must have really been from someone with whom she was cheating on him. It's pure NightmareFuel.

* ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry''. Hey, my successors are unworthy and I'm about to die. What is my choice of action? Gee, let's try [[KillEmAll slaughtering them all]] for a magic ritual to revive my [[SealedEvilInACan dead witch lover]]. Good plan, Kinzo. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when it is revealed that Kinzo was actually dead before any of the games started (and that only an UnreliableNarrator made him appear to be alive), and that he therefore never killed his family. [[DoubleSubversion Double subverted]] as it turns out the killer is Sayo Yasuda who is Kinzo's grandchild and planned to kill the whole family. [[ZigZaggingTrope And then]] it turns out the killer in the real world is Kyrie, another family member.]]
* In ''VisualNovel/SayaNoUta'' Yousuke Suzumi kills his family after [[spoiler:Saya operates with his brain, resulting that he can see the world like the protagonist does and that makes him insane.]] He believes that he kills two [[spoiler:{{Eldritch Abomination}}s.]]

* Joked about in at least one episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', in a cut away involving a couple in debt.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_DeFeo,_Jr The [=DeFeo=] Murders]]: On Wednesday, November 13th, 1974, around 3AM, 23-year-old Ronald [=DeFeo=] Jr. shot and killed both his parents, his two younger brothers and two younger sisters at their home in Amityville, New York. Reasons varied between "self defense" as he thought his family was plotting to kill him for some reason to [[DemonicPossession being possessed]] by a paranormal entity. The murders were popularized by the film ''Film/TheAmityvilleHorror1979'' which depicts the horrific and ''supposedly true'' story of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lutz the Lutz Family]] who moved into the [=DeFeo=] home a year after the killings and experienced traumatic supernatural activity that, to this day, they feel is not worth mentioning.

* John List murdered his entire family rather than admit to them that he lost his job and that the family was in dire financial trouble. He went into hiding and adopted an alias and remarried and would have gotten away with his crime if not for America's Most Wanted doing a special on him. In a real-life example of a CruelTwistEnding, when the abandoned List home burned down the year after the murders, investigators found an antique stained glass ceiling that was worth more than enough money to solve the family's financial problems, at least in the short term, making the deaths especially pointless.
* Another real life version was the tragedy surrounding professional wrestler Wrestling/ChrisBenoit, who murdered his wife and son then hanged himself using his weights machine. Exactly why it happened is not known, but a history of steroid use and some pretty significant brain injuries were likely involved, since the autopsy showed that "Benoit's brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient." Another reason would be the death of his best friend Wrestling/EddieGuerrero, which was reportedly something he was never fully able to move on from.
* The father of Creator/JudithBarsi, young star of many a Creator/DonBluth film, killed Judith and her mother, burned their house down, and shot himself. ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' and ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'', in which she voiced Ducky and Anne-Marie, respectively, were actually released posthumously.

* The Korean general Ge Baek did this because he was going out into battle and knew he would lose. He killed his whole family before he left [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled to prevent the enemy from capturing them]]. In fact in Tae Kwon Do there is a pattern dedicated to him because of this.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Bishop Bradford Bishop]] is believed to have murdered his wife, mother, and three sons after not getting a promotion at work. His story was profiled on the show ''Series/UnsolvedMysteries''. The world may never know for sure if he did it, because he disappeared in 1976 long before the bodies were discovered and there hasn't been a sighting of him since 1994. If he is still alive, he'd be well into his seventies by now.

* In 2001, Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal went berserk at a palace party, killing nine other royals (including his parents, the King and Queen, and two siblings) and wounding five more. He shot himself in the head, but survived three days in a coma, during which Nepal's constitution mandated that he be declared King, regardless of his invocation of this trope.

* In early 2007, Thai businessman Boonchai Surawuthipong was in debt, and worried that the mafia would abduct his children. [[http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/02/07/headlines/headlines_30026198.php So he shot his wife, his three children, and himself.]]

* [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._MacDonald Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald]] was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and their two daughters in 1970. Police grew suspicious of his story that the murders were committed by drug-crazed home invaders when they noticed how minor his injuries were compared to the bludgeoning his wife and daughters received. It's believed his motive was simply no longer wanting the responsibility of marriage and fatherhood. [=MacDonald=] maintains his innocence to this day. He claims there were four assailants but even though they were supposed to be as high as a kite they did the following:
** left no traces (be it hair, skin, prints or clothing fibers)[[note]]Jeffrey [=MacDonald=]'s pajama fibers and blood were found everywhere, except where they were supposed to be found, like the living room for the fibers and the hallway for the blood[[/note]], write the word 'PIG' with something like latex gloves[[note]] the police found ripped-off fingertips of such a glove, covered in blood and Jeffrey [=MacDonald=]'s blood in front of the cabinet with the same type of gloves [[/note]] stab the wife with one knife, but leave next to the body an other knife [[note]]J. [=MacDonald=] claimed to have pulled the second knife out of his wife's body but the wounds didn't match that knife, but the one found outside did[[/note]], either stab the wife while she was wearing her husband's pajama top, undress her, then put it on the husband or stab the wife, then stab the husband dozens of times, only wounding him once seriously[[note]] a neat, clean incision[[/note]], and twice superficially [[note]] More likely, [=MacDonald=] was lying about who was wearing the top when and trying to make it look like he was attacked more often, and the ones mentioned are by far not the only discrepancies regarding that top![[/note]], found an ice-pick in the house without making a mess or leave evidence to stab an already-dead woman with[[note]] after Dr. [=MacDonald=] put his pajama top on her???[[/note]] and also sawed a piece of wood from a mattress slat of one of the beds to club everyone with. If you believe J.R. [=MacDonald=], these are at the same time the most random and the most thorough murder-hippies of all time. Helena Stoeckley was most likely just manipulated into giving a confession, being a handy scapegoat because she was known as a drugs user.[[note]] In what might be the most horrific example ''ever'' of HarsherInHindsight, the above-mentioned Creator/JudithBarsi played one of the murdered [=MacDonald=] children in the MadeForTVMovie based on the incident. [[/note]]

* [[http://murderpedia.org/female.E/e/eubanks-susan.htm Susan Eubanks]] shot all four of her sons (Brandon, 14, Austin, 7, Brigham, 6, Matthew, 4) in the head as revenge for her two husbands and boyfriend leaving her. She was sentenced to death on October 13, 1999 and is now on death row.

** In 1970, Elmer Crawford murdered his entire family, placed their bodies in a car and pushed it over a cliff to MakeItLookLikeAnAccident. He remains a wanted fugitive today, and is probably a KarmaHoudini.