History Main / PaterFamilicide

* In ''FallingDown'', it's heavily implied that Foster intends to do this to his wife and daughter, even though he refuses to admit it when Prendergast draws this conclusion when they finally meet face to face. Drawing a gun on his family while tearfully saying that he's sorry says it all.

* In ''Film/{{Downfall}}'', a German general commits suicide in his apartment during dinner with his wife and three children--by detonating a grenade and killing his family along with him. Also an example of PaterFamilicide.

* In ''{{Torchwood}}'' series ''Children of Earth'', [[spoiler: a civil servant is told that his two daughters must be sacrificed to the invading aliens 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]].]]

* Dateline once had an episode about a family where this happened. The father and most of the children were found dead in the house after a police stand-off. The father of the children ran the family as a small cult and believed he was the Second Coming of Jesus. The survivors were interviewed and said that their father actually told them to kill all small children and then themselves if the police ever found them.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''WarbotInAccounting'', the titular character [[NiceJobBreakingItHero becomes responsible for one of these]] when trying to help out a co-worker who needs a report to file, making one itself. Unfortunately, Warbot being... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin A warbot]] without human appendages, the report is not in presentable form and the co-worker is fired. [[DownerEnding The story ends with Warbot reading on the newspaper about the man committing the murder-suicide of his family in grief.]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* In Fanfic/BartTheGeneral, it is implied that [[spoiler:[[strike:Homer]] Omarn, depressed from being forced out of his house and his wife cheating on him]] is contemplating this in Part 4 ("I don't have enough shells for all of us"), but apparently changes his mind when he sees [[spoiler:Marge, who takes him back]].
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* In ''Film/{{The Others}}'', one of the film's major twists: [[spoiler:the family was DeadToBeginWith; the mother had killed her children in a fit of madness before committing suicide]]

While OffingTheOffspring describes premeditated filicide, this trope involves the head of the household unilaterally killing their kids and their spouse. 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 [[ClassicalMythology Greek mythology]] below make this OlderThanDirt.

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 discovering the killer's own failures at life (e.g., [[UnconfessedUnemployment the loss of his job]], financial ruin, or the disintegration of the family unit for some other reason.) After killing his entire family, the killer will then turn his weapon upon himself, or (if he can't bring himself to kill himself) flee town to escape his crimes.

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 opted to murder his family rather than go on welfare and admit to his family that he was a failure, under the crackhead logic that it was better to murder his family and send them straight to heaven than to let them be poor (as List believed that poverty was an affront to God). List then went into hiding and successfully stayed hidden until ''[[AmericasMostWanted America's Most Wanted]]'' featured him on the show, bringing about his arrest as a result.

* ''[[DeathOnDemand Death on Demand]]'' has [[DeliberatelyMonochrome a black and white]] opening which depicts the then-living killer butchering his wife, mother in-law and two daughters during [[{{Ptitleksd3bfc6}} Thanksgiving]] dinner.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXCC7_Nu7o8 Frankie Teardrop]].

* In ''PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', it's eventually revealed that [[spoiler:Kyouko Sakura's]] father killed the rest of her family and then himself [[spoiler:after he realized that the increased number of followers at his church was not due to people actually believing him, but because of Kyouko's powers as a Puella Magi (born from her wish to get him more followers) making them listen]].

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 discovering the killer's own failures at life (e.g., the loss of his job, financial ruin, or the disintegration of the family unit for some other reason.) After killing his entire family, the killer will then turn his weapon upon himself, or (if he can't bring himself to kill himself) flee town to escape his crimes.

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 Fate Worse Than Death will leave many people arguing that the act was justified.

* Back in the early 20th century, Marty Bergen, a well-regarded catcher in Major League Baseball, murdered his entire family with an ax.

* In ''WarbotInAccounting'', the titular character [[NiceJobBreakingItHero becomes responsible for one of these]] when trying to help out a co-worker who needs a report to file, making one itself. Unfortunately, Warbot being... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin A warbot]] without human appendages, the report is [[{{Understatement}} not in presentable form]] and the co-worker is fired. [[DownerEnding The story ends with Warbot reading on the newspaper about the man committing the murder-suicide of his family in grief.]]

* The Celts used to do this if they lost a battle. The father would escape from the battlefield, come home, murder his wife and children before killing himself to prevent his family from being captured by the enemy.

* In a variant, Tristan ApBlanc of {{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]].

* In a variant, Tristan ApBlanc of {{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 this caused her death or not depends on [[TimeyWimeyBall the outcome of an adventure]].

* [[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. The world may never know for sure if he did do 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.

* Jack in StephenKing's ''The Shining'' is driven to do this and fails, unlike his predecessor who previously stayed in the cursed hotel.

* ''[[WorldOfDarkness Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines]]'' 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 been from someone she was cheating on him with. It's pure NightmareFuel.

* In {{Maus}}, the protagonist is the only one of his siblings who survived the war, by coicidence - the others, being taken care of by their aunt, were made to eat poison with her in order to [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled avoid a crueler fate at the hands of Nazis]].

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

* In the sequel to the flash game Exmortis [[spoiler: You find the bodies of three children, a woman, and their father/husband. A six shooter revolver lays next to him with but one bullet remaining, and the blood splatter suggests he took his life. Oh, he also spells it out in a journal you find.]]

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

* This is what kick-starts the curse of the ''[=~Ju-on~=]'' series of films, as well as the [[ForeignRemake remake]] series, ''TheGrudge'': In the Japanese series, Takeo Saeki reads his wife Kayako's diary, discovers that she harbours a 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, Kayako instead has a crush on a university professor named Peter, and there is no suspicion with regards to Toshio's parentage.