History Main / PaterFamilicide

** ''Series/LawAndOrder'': Subverted in one episode in which the father seems to fit the profile, but actually it's the daughter's druggie boyfriend.

* Senator Bracken [[spoiler: (Beckett's mother's murderer)]] gives this as his political backstory on ''Series/{{Castle}}''. He was bringing an absent classmate some homework and found the entire family dead. The mother had drugged the children and then shot herself because she had lost her job. Bracken claims this inspired him to help build a better society where no one would ever feel that hopeless again. However, we don't know whether this is true or just made up to garner sympathy.

The murderer, [[AllAbusersAreMale almost always male]], kills his wife and children (and possibly his in-laws or parents if they happen to share the same house) to "protect" them from discovering his 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 for nearly 18 years until ''Series/AmericasMostWanted'' featured him on the show, bringing about his arrest as a result.

The family annihilator is a type of murderer that, in recent decades, has gained prominence in the media and pop culture in the world of MurderTropes. Unfortunately, this situation is common enough that psychology has a phrase for it, "family annihilator".

The murderer, [[AllAbusersAreMale 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]].

Current social mores play a big part in how sympathetic the murderer remains to the audience -- while few would suggest that debt is a good reason to kill your family, fantasy situations involving the threat of a FateWorseThanDeath will leave many people arguing that the act was justified, or at least sympathetic. However, the variant where the killer [[DirtyCoward doesn't follow through and end his own life]] is almost always portrayed as unforgivable.

Current social mores play a big part in how sympathetic the murderer remains to the audience -- while few would suggest that debt is a good reason to kill your family, fantasy situations involving the threat of a FateWorseThanDeath will leave many people arguing that the act was justified, or at least sympathetic. However, the variant where the killer [[DirtyCoward doesn't follow through and end his own life]] is almost always portrayed as unforgivable. Unfortunately, this kind of mass murder is common enough that psychology developed the phrase "family annihilator" for it.

While OffingTheOffspring describes premeditated filicide, this trope involves the head of the household unilaterally killing their kids and their spouse. A subtrope of MurderInTheFamily and FamilyExtermination. Compare WhereIWasBornAndRazed. Some RealLife examples get massive attention in national news; these might be part of what gives this trope its resonance. However RealLife examples are not allowed here, and they have [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familicide their own page]] on Website/TheOtherWiki). Examples from Myth/GreekMythology below make this trope OlderThanFeudalism.

* ''Series/FBIMostWanted'': In "[[Recap/FBIMostWantedS03E6 Lovesick]]", the task force hunt down a family annihilator who wishes to continue his own killing spree.

The family annihilator is a type of murderer that, in recent decades, has gained prominence in the media and pop culture in the world of MurderTropes.

Current social mores play a big part in how sympathetic the murderer remains to the audience -- while few would suggest that debt is a good reason to kill your family, fantasy situations involving the threat of a FateWorseThanDeath will leave many people arguing that the act was justified, or at least sympathetic. However, the variant where the killer [[DirtyCoward doesn't follow through and end his own life]] is almost always portrayed as unforgivable.

While OffingTheOffspring describes premeditated filicide, this trope involves the head of the household unilaterally killing their kids and their spouse. A subtrope of MurderInTheFamily and FamilyExtermination. Compare WhereIWasBornAndRazed. The occasional RealLife examples (which are not allowed here and have [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familicide their own page]] on Website/TheOtherWiki) get massive attention in national news; these might be part of what gives this trope its resonance. The examples from Myth/GreekMythology below make this OlderThanFeudalism.

* In ''Series/{{Class|2016}}'', April's father tried to kill himself, her mother and her during a depressive episode when she was a small child by deliberately crashing the family car. All of them survived, but her mother was left paralyzed from the waist down and her father served a jail sentence for attempted murder.

* In ''Series/{{Class|2016}}'', 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 paralyzed from the waist down and her father served a jail sentence for attempted murder.

** 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.]]

* ''Film/{{Downfall}}'':

* "Wave of Mutilation" by Music/ThePixies was inspired by reports of Japanese families doing this (mentioned in the Real Life section below) by driving into the ocean.

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]].

* In the mediocre game ''Spy Fiction'', the villain, Scarface, married a female terrorist and had a son by her. Then he discovered she was a DoubleAgent killed her and shot his son in the head. [[spoiler: [[StartOfDarkness The kid survived to become the other villain]].]]

While OffingTheOffspring describes premeditated filicide, this trope involves the head of the household unilaterally killing their kids and their spouse. A subtrope of MurderInTheFamily and FamilyExtermination. Compare WhereIWasBornAndRazed. The occasional RealLife examples (which are not allowed here and have [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familicide their own page]] on Website/TheOtherWiki) get massive attention in national news -- these might be part of what gives this trope its resonance. The examples from Myth/GreekMythology below make this OlderThanFeudalism.

While OffingTheOffspring describes premeditated filicide, this trope involves the head of the household unilaterally killing their kids and their spouse. A subtrope of MurderInTheFamily and FamilyExtermination. Compare WhereIWasBornAndRazed. The occasional RealLife examples get massive attention in national news -- these might be part of what gives this trope its resonance. The examples from Myth/GreekMythology below make this OlderThanFeudalism.