The Cedar Grove community in Shreveport, Louisiana was shocked beyond belief after a 31-year-old former soldier killed eight children on April 19. Seven of them were his own.
Suspect Shamar Elkins shot and killed 10 people, including seven of his own children, ranging in age from one to 14 years old. He also shot his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, and Christina Snow, the mother of his three children. Two other people were also shot but managed to escape from the spot.
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The incident, believed to be one of the country’s deadliest in more than two years, involved three homes. A suspect was also killed after a chase with police. After the incident, his family revealed that the warning signs were everywhere.
The US arrests at least 500 people for murder each year
The deadliest domestic massacre left many wondering how a parent could kill their own child. According to a CNN report, nearly 500 people are arrested each year for filicide, the legal term for parents killing their children. This suggests that the very idea of filicide is so unreasonable because many people assume that anyone who commits this crime was driven by mental illness or had a history of violence. But research shows that this is not always the case.
Susan Hatters-Friedman, a forensic and reproductive psychiatrist at Case Western Reserve University, told CNN that society has “deeply entrenched views on motherhood (and) fatherhood … that’s a really hard thing for people to think about and hear about.”
She added: “It’s so far from people’s minds that it can even happen that it helps us categorize it, understand it and think about prevention.”
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Study on parents who kill
Citing a 2014 analysis that included 32 years of violent arrest data, the report said the majority of victims between 1976 and 2007 were between the ages of one and six.
It also found that the majority of perpetrators and victims are white, with black perpetrators and victims making up the second most common group. A staggering 90% of the victims were the biological children of the perpetrators. While research shows that mothers and fathers kill children at a similar rate.
Traits of parents who kill
According to Hatters-Friedman’s research, fathers who kill their children are more likely to have a history of violence, substance abuse and mental illness. Research has shown that fathers are more likely to kill their spouse and die by suicide after killing their children. This is known as “family extermination”.
Some studies have revealed that mothers who commit filicides are often “younger” than their male counterparts. Mothers often struggle with “multiple stressors,” including mental health issues, limited resources, isolation and substance abuse, according to Hatters-Friedman’s research.
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Why parents kill: The motive for murder
Dr. Phillip Resnick, a leading forensic psychiatrist at Case Western Reserve University, published a landmark study in 1969 in which he proposed five classifications of motives that lead to filicide.
Here is a list of five motives of parents who kill their children:
1. The most common is considered fatal maltreatment, typically involving abuse or neglect.
2. Another motive is the “unwanted child” motive. In this case, the parents see the child as an obstacle to something else they want, such as a relationship, money, or lifestyle change. This category also includes “neonaticide”, which refers to the killing of a newborn within the first 24 hours of life, most often by the mother. According to Hatters-Friedman, such cases often involve “hidden pregnancies,” where the mother is still in denial that she is pregnant and usually does not seek prenatal care.
3. Partner or spousal revenge is the third motive. Although such cases are usually less common, they do occur during divorce or in child custody cases.
4. Another motive is related to the mental health of the parents: altruistic filicide. In such a case, the parent believes that they are killing the child out of love, apparently to free them from suffering, real or imagined.
5. According to Resnick, the last motif is “acutely psychotic”. This is when a parent kills their child during a state of psychosis or hallucination.
In Elkins’ case, his family has now come forward to say he suffered from mental health issues and was admitted to a local VA hospital for treatment. However, earlier this year he tried to kill himself, according to the woman who raised him and was not his biological mother. Shreveport is still looking for answers.
