This article describes homicide-suicide among those aged 65 years and older in the United States using archival data from 1968 to 1975. Comparisons were made between 184 homicide-suicides and 400 randomly selected victims of all other types of homicide. The findings indicate that homicide-suicides occurred predominantly in the family unit, especially involving female spouses, and among White victims and offenders. Handguns and other firearms were the weapon of choice in homicide-suicides.
BarracloughB.HarrisE. C. (2002). Suicide preceded by murder: The epidemiology of homicide-suicide in England and Wales 1988–92, Psychological Medicine, 32, 577-584.
2.
BermanA. L. (1996). Dyadic death: A typology. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 26, 342-350.
3.
BermanA. L. (1979). Dyadic death: Murder-suicide. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 9, 15-23.
4.
BlockC. R. (1987). Homicide in Chicago: Aggregate and time series perspectives on victim, offender and circumstance. Chicago, IL: Center for Urban Policy, Loyola University of Chicago.
5.
BourgetD.GagnéP.WhitehurstL. (2010). Domestic homicide and homicide-suicide: The older offender. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, 38, 305-311.
6.
BridgesF. S.LesterD. (2011). Homicide-suicide in the United States, 1968-1975. Forensic Science International, 206, 185-189.
7.
BridgesF. S.TankersleyW. B. (2010). Mean ages of homicide victims and victims of homicide-suicide. Psychological Reports, 106, 163-169.
8.
BrockK. (2002). American Roulette: The untold story of murder-suicide in the United States. Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center.
9.
Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Program. (2010). State of metropolitan America: On the front lines of demographic transition. Washington, DC: Author.
10.
BrownM.BarracloughB. (1999). Partners in life and death: The suicide pact in England and Wales, 1988-1992. Psychological Medicine, 29, 1299-1306.
11.
CohenD.LlorenteM.EisdorferC. (1998). Homicide-suicide in older persons. American Journal of Psychiatry, 55, 390-396.
12.
CohenD. (1995). Homicide-suicide in the aged: a growing public health problem. Journal of Mental Health and Aging, 1, 83-85.
13.
CohenD. (2000). Homicide-suicide in older persons. Psychiatry Times, 17, 49-52.
14.
DawsonM. (2005). Intimate femicide followed by suicide: Examining the role of premeditation. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 35, 76-90.
15.
FreyW. H. (2007). Mapping the growth of older America: Seniors and boomers in the early 21st century. The Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Program, Washington, DC.
16.
HiroehU.ApplebyL.MortensenP. B.DunnG. (2001) Death by homicide, suicide, and other unnatural causes in people with mental illness: A population-based study. The Lancet, 358(9299), 2110-2112. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(01)07216-6
17.
KposowaA. J. (2000). Marital status and suicide in The National Longitudinal Mortality Study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 54, 254-261.
18.
LiemM. (2010) Homicide followed by suicide: A review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 15, 153-161.
19.
LiemM.PostulartM.NieuwbeertaP. (2009) Homicide-suicide in the Netherlands: An epidemiology. Homicide Studies, 13, 99-123.
20.
LoganJ.HillH. A.BlackM. L.CrosbyA. E.KarchD. L.BarnesJ. D.LubellK. M. (2008). Characteristics of perpetrators in homicide-followed-by-suicide incidents: National violent death reporting system—17 US states, 2003-2005. American Journal of Epidemiology, 168(6), 1-9.
21.
LundL. E.SmorodinskyS. (2001). Violent death among intimate partners: A comparison of homicide and homicide followed by suicide in California. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 31, 451-9.
22.
MalphursJ. E.CohenD. (2002). A newspaper surveillance study of homicide-suicide in the United States. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 23, 142-148.
23.
MalphursJ. E.CohenD. (2005). A statewide case-control study of spousal homicide-suicide in older persons. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 13, 211-217.
24.
MalphursJ. E.EisdorferC.CohenD. (2001). A comparison of antecedents of homicide-suicide and suicide in older married men. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 9, 49-57.
25.
MarzukP.TardiffK.HirschC. S. (1992). The epidemiology of murder-suicide. Journal of the American Medical Association, 267, 3179-3183.
26.
MilroyC. M. (1995) The epidemiology of homicide-suicide (dyadic death). Forensic Science International, 71, 117-122.
27.
MilroyC. M. (1995b). Reasons for homicide and suicide in episodes of dyadic death in Yorkshire andHumberside. Medicine, Science, and the Law, 35, 213-217
28.
National Research Council. (2003). Elder mistreatment: Abuse, neglect, and exploitation in an aging America. In BonnieR. J.WallaceRobert B. (Eds.). Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.
29.
NewmanK. S.FoxC.HardingD. J.MehtaJ.RothW. (2004). Rampage: The social roots of school shootings. New York, NY: Basic Books.
30.
PavezaG. J.CohenD.EisdorferC.FreelsS.SemlaT.AshfordJ. W.LevyP. (1992). Severe family violence and Alzheimer’s disease: prevalence and risk factors. The Gerontologist, 32, 493-497.
31.
RiedelM. (2010). Homicide-Suicides in the United States: A review of the literature. Sociology Compass, 4, 430-441.
32.
RiedelM.ZahnM. (1994). Trends in American homicide, 1968-1978: Victim-level supplementary homicide reports (Compiled by the Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency, and Corrections, Southern Illinois Univer). Carbondale. ICPSR ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor]. doi:10.3886/ICPSR08676 [Computer file]
33.
RiedelM. (2008). Homicide arrest clearances: A review of the literature. Sociology Compass, 2, 1145-1164.
34.
ShieldsL. B. E.HunsakerD. M.HunsakerJ. C. (2004). Abuse and neglect: A ten-year review of mortality and morbidity in our elders in a large metropolitan area. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 49, 122-127.
35.
StackS. (1997). Homicide followed by suicide: An analysis of Chicago data. Criminology, 35, 435-453.
36.
WestD. J. (1965). Murder followed by suicide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
