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Study finds parents murder children out of misguided good intentions

Financially stressed parents killing their children out of a distorted 'altruistic' motive is a prevailing characteristic of Hong Kong's murder-suicide cases, a long-awaited study has shown.

The study,  by the University of Hong Kong Centre for Criminology, is the first comprehensive analysis of the 73 murder-suicide cases that took place in the city between 1989 and 2001.

The Social Welfare Department commissioned the study in 2002, when the number of murder-suicides reached a peak of 14 cases. The continued incidence of such domestic tragedies, highlighted by last year's Tin Shui Wai killings, has sparked growing alarm in the community and calls for action.

The researchers suggest the government set up a special 'intensive care unit' team for difficult family cases, conduct fatality reviews and compile a centralised database on all murder-suicides to help determine the risk factors.

The department, which was briefed on the study findings on Friday, is expected to use the study as a basis for devising measures to minimise such family tragedies.

There were 96 murder-suicide cases from 1989 to 2004, resulting in 228 deaths. The study looked at cases up to 2001.

The 73 cases resulted in 174 deaths, including babies as young as four months. The cases made up one-third of all domestic murders and 8 per cent of all murder cases in the 13-year period.

Sexual partners were the most common victims (30 per cent), followed by children under 18 (28 per cent). Strangulation and chopping were the most frequently used killing methods, followed by beating and pushing from height.

The study's main author, Philip Beh Swan-lip, HKU's associate professor in forensic pathology, said most offenders suffered from a 'sense of hopelessness'.

'Many of these offenders have never sought any help ...  Their problems have been there for a long time. The situation is chronic, prolonged, building up to a sense of hopelessness.'

Dr Beh, also a former government forensic pathologist, said Hong Kong had a much higher percentage of 'altruistic' killings - parents who kill their children out of a distorted view that it is for the good of the children - than most studies reported elsewhere.

Romantic or sexual motives - including jealousy and possessive rage, anger over a break-up and revenge for prolonged and repeated infidelity - were the most common (34.2 per cent), followed by disputes (27.4 per cent) and 'altruistic' reasons (19.2 per cent).

'In cases with altruistic reasons ...  [parents] are over-loving. They think: 'If I can't give everything for my child, no one else can do better.' It is a distorted view,' Dr Beh said. 'We don't understand enough about this problem, we need to study more about it.'

The study found no instances of mercy killings between an elderly couple, which is a common type of murder-suicide in western countries such as the US and Britain.

Economic stress was prominent in cases where parents killed children (43.7 per cent) and when whole families were killed (85.7 per cent).

'The prominence of economic distress and the higher number of offenders with low socioeconomic status appears to be a unique characteristic of Hong Kong homicide suicides,' the report said.

More than a third (35.5 per cent) of the families involved was in debt, while only 39 per cent of offenders were employed.



Distorted 'altruism' in family killings