Maternal Filicide - Patterns Motive and Diagnosis

Abstract: When a child is murdered, the most frequent perpetrator is the child’s parent and if the age of the victim is below 12 months the offender is more likely to be the child’s mother. The overall purpose and aim for the current study is to, in terms of motive and mental illness, describe the occurrence of different kind of psychiatric and/or personality disorders, to map and identify the offender profile of women who are prosecuted for committing fatal violence against their children. The data and material for this was gathered from The National Board of Forensic Medicine where the offenders have gone through a forensic psychiatric examination between the years 2000 and 2014. The cases of 28 female offenders prosecuted for fatal violence against their children were included and underwent thorough examinations and assessments. The findings depict, among other things, how diagnoses of depressive disorders were overrepresented, and especially if the victim was older. The altruistic motive was overrepresented in older victims but in younger victims it was more common with a motive characterized by delusional thoughts or the victim being unwanted. Future research needs to focus on risk factors for this specific offender group and aim its preventive contributions within maternal care and childcare centers.