July 8,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the Deaths of former Ridgewood Deputy Mayor and wife are called suicide . Earlier this week
Police brought three Carlstadt children to safety over a backyard fence after their father shot and killed their mother on the front lawn of their home before killing himself.
These two incidents are just two more in a string of area domestic killings this year in Bergen County.
On June 1, a 53-year-old Fair Lawn man shot his elderly parents dead, started a fire and turned the gun on himself .In March, a 44-year-old Bergenfield man shot and killed his 36-year-old wife and then himself .Back in late January, authorities charged a 45-year-old North Arlington man with beating his 47-year-old wife to death with a hammer .
“In a seminar titled Men Who Murder Their Families: What the Research Tells Us, an expert panel discussed a recent spike in news reports of “familicide” cases. Panelists included Jacquelyn C. Campbell of Johns Hopkins University, author David Adams, and Richard Gelles of the University of Pennsylvania. Campbell, Anna D. Wolf Chair and professor at JHU’s School of Nursing, discussed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System. Of the 408 homicidesuicide cases, most perpetrators were men (91 percent) and most used a gun (88 percent).
A 12-city study that Campbell conducted of these cases found that intimatepartner violence had previously occurred in 70 percent of them. Interestingly, only 25 percent of prior domestic violence appeared in the arrest records, according to Campbell. Researchers uncovered much of the prior domestic violence through interviews with family and friends of the homicide victims.
“Prior domestic violence is by far the number-one risk factor in these cases,” Campbell said. She also explained that most people who commit murder-suicide are non-Hispanic white males who kill their mates or former mates. Prior domestic violence is the greatest risk factor in these cases. Access to a gun is a significant risk factor, as are threats with a weapon, a stepchild in the home or estrangement. However, a past criminal history is not a reliable or significant predictor in murder-suicide. In the aftermath of a family murder followed by a suicide, communities, police, researchers and others search for explanations. In difficult financial times, it may be natural to look for economic influences, especially when the killer has recently lost a job or has enormous financial problems.
Campbell found that unemployment was a significant risk factor for murder-suicide but only when combined with a history of domestic violence. In other words, it was not a risk factor in and of itself but was something that tipped the scale following previous abuse. (https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/230412.pdf )”
