ARTICLE
HOMICIDE
10.1177/1088767903262446
Messing,
Heeren
STUDIES
/ WOMEN
/ May MUL
2004TIPLE MURDERERS
Another Side of Multiple Murder
Women Killers in the Domestic Context
JILL THERESA MESSING
University of California, Berkeley
JOHN W. HEEREN
California State University, San Bernardino
Although both female and male multiple murderers have been studied, little attention has
been paid to women who commit multiple murder. Using a national database of newspaper accounts from two archives, Lexis-Nexis and ProQuest, this article isolates an
exploratory sample of U.S. women who, between 1993 and 2001, killed two or more victims during a single episode of domestic violence. These 32 cases are, in some respects,
similar to cases of male mass murder but are distinct in other ways. Most significantly,
these murders are well planned and the victims are largely, although not entirely, the
woman’s own children. These cases are examined in terms of the social characteristics of
the offenders as well as their relationship to the victims and the way in which these murders appear to develop. The article concludes that especially with the child killings, there
are certain common predisposing factors and precipitating events that play key roles.
Keywords:
mass murder; family violence; domestic homicide
Although there has been a recent spate of research on women as
murderers (Jensen, 2001; Leonard, 2001; Mann, 1996) and even on
women serial murderers (Hickey, 1997), there have not been significant studies of women who commit multiple murders during
a single event. Most studies of multiple or mass murder are concerned with male perpetrators as they far outnumber women in
this offense. We attempt to redress this neglect by looking at a
sample of cases where women commit multiple murder in the
context of domestic life. Given the rarity of this type of crime, our
approach will be generally qualitative, centering on providing a
contextual account of how these crimes develop in the lives of
women. Necessarily, we will draw some parallels with men who
commit multiple homicide and note the role played by assorted
HOMICIDE STUDIES, Vol. 8 No. 2, May 2004 123-158
DOI: 10.1177/1088767903262446
© 2004 Sage Publications
123
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
variables that have been used in previous quantitative research
on murder.
Even though multiple murder by women occurs so infrequently and has not been the subject of sustained scholarly attention, it does offer several advantages as a research topic. It has
been noted that when women kill, they disproportionately do so
in the context of domestic relations (Jensen, 2001; Peterson, 1999;
Silverman & Kennedy, 1988). Thus, the domestic scene is the
quintessential setting for gaining insight into women’s homicidal
activity. In addition, by limiting our attention to multiple murder,
we eliminate more commonly found expressions of female homicide. For example, even though it has decreased dramatically in
recent years (Fox & Levin, 2001), the most common kind of homicide by a woman continues to be the killing of her intimate partner. As much research shows (Leonard, 2001; Shackelford, 2001;
Websdale, 1999), the typical precursor to these homicides is the
sustained abuse by the woman’s intimate partner, often during a
number of years. Although these situations (and evidence of prior
abuse of the female killer) appear among our cases, limiting our
concern to multiple murders should remove from consideration
the kind of “self-help” (Peterson, 1999) or victim-precipitated
murder where women finally retaliate against their abusive
intimate partner.
There should also be some clarity of focus in the killing of children in that two common types of such homicide—neonaticide
and child abuse gone awry—are not likely to be found in our sample. Neonaticide is usually a crime committed by a very young
mother who often is unmarried and wishes to cover up the fact of
being pregnant by dispensing with her newborn child as soon as
it is born (Lambie, 2001). This kind of offense is very unlikely to
involve a second victim. Similarly for child abuse carried too far:
These episodes are sometimes characterized as accidents (Alder
& Baker, 1997; Lambie, 2001) and are unlikely to entail a second or
subsequent victim. Moreover, some child murders have as their
victims “defective children” (Daly & Wilson, 1988), those born
with some physical or mental disability. The self-help implied in
eliminating this burdensome offspring is also unlikely to involve
a second murder. Finally, there is the frequent speculation in the
research literature about whether some proportion of sudden
infant death syndrome deaths may be the product of homicide by
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
125
abusive mothers. Because these kinds of episodes of child death
are not likely to include two or more victims in a single episode,
focusing on multiple homicides generally dispatches this whole
issue.
PRIOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN
AND MULTIPLE MURDER
Although reference is made to multiple murders committed by
women in various studies (Alder & Baker, 1997; Alder & Polk,
2001; Block & Christakos, 1995; Crimmins, Langley, Brownstein,
& Spunt, 1997; Richards, 2000; Websdale, 1999), it has not been the
central concern of much research. This neglect is largely the result
of the small number of cases of multiple murder by women that
each of these studies has encountered. At the low end is Johnson’s
(1996) finding that none of the 36 cases of women who committed
homicide in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, from 1975 to 1992,
involved multiple murders. At the other extreme is the Victoria,
Australia, sample of maternal filicides from 1978 to 1991 that
shows 7 of 32 cases as multiple murders (Alder & Baker, 1997).
Most of the other studies find more or less 5% of the sample,
depending on whether all murders by females or just filicides
were being examined. We did locate two studies that focus exclusively on cases of women multiple murderers, but they were less
concerned with the murders than with the media representations
of the women (Cleeton, 2001; Heberle, 1999).
As there is no previous research directed at women as multiple
murderers, we take as relevant background studies those that
have looked at male multiple murderers as well as the recent
burst of theory and research on women’s homicide in general.
Although neither body of literature is entirely parallel, it should
be useful to draw comparisons and contrasts with what is known
about single murders by women and multiple murder by men.
Male Multiple or Mass Murder
The quality of research on multiple murders or mass murder is
often uneven. Probably the best sample is the 483 cases used by
Fox and Levin (1998), derived from FBI Supplementary Homicide
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
Reports (SHR) from 1976 to 1995. However, the kind of information provided by the FBI about these offenses and their perpetrators is limited in case details. Hempel, Meloy, and Richards (1999)
provided more of these details in their nonrandom sample of 30
mass murders from 1949 to 1998. They isolated 31 variables that
illuminate the commission of these crimes, but the sampling
problem is a serious weakness. In spite of the limitations in these
and other studies, certain issues emerge repeatedly in discussions
of mass murder. First, there is the social isolation of the perpetrator (Cohen, 1995; Fox & Levin, 1998; Hempel et al., 1999; Kelleher,
1997), who is likely to have experienced a recent loss with respect
to employment or intimate relationships as a kind of triggering
event. In addition, the murderer is likely to have a history of being
rejected and frustrated in life (Fox & Levin, 1998; Kelleher, 1997),
although these troubles are likely to be blamed on others (Fox &
Levin, 1998; Kelleher, 1997; Palermo & Ross, 1999). The mass murderer is likely to be a White male who is somewhat older than killers who claim just one victim (Fox & Levin, 1998; Hempel et al.,
1999; Palermo, 1997). He is seen as familiar with and perhaps
obsessed about firearms usage (Fox & Levin, 1998; Hempel et al.,
1999; Palermo, 1997). Revenge and domination are seen as the
fundamental motives for the multiple slayings (Fox & Levin,
1998; Kelleher, 1997; Palermo, 1997), and the episodes often end
with the killer’s suicide (Stote & Standing, 1995).
A problem with many of these common elements of multiple
murder is that they do not appear to be very distinctive. Many of
the features noted above would seem to be characteristic of all
murder and even domestic violence in general. For example, the
motives of control and revenge are widespread in men’s acts of
domestic violence (Hamberger & Lohr, 1997) and murder (Baker,
1999; Polk, 1994). Although it is true that most mass murderers are
male, this is the case generally with all kinds of violence. Even
where women seem to be equal participants in domestic violence
(Straus, 1999), the reality is that women’s violence is much more
likely to be reactive or defensive (Hamberger & Lohr, 1997; Leonard, 2001). Polk (1994) showed men to be greatly overrepresented
among the sample of all 380 murders in Victoria, Australia, from
1985 to 1989. The FBI data used by Fox and Levin (1998) show 87%
of the offenders in single murders to be male; this male proportion
only rose to 94% in mass murders. Hence, being male does not
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
127
seem to be a sharply distinguishing characteristic of mass murderers. Because males seem to be the dominant actors with
respect to violence in general, it does not seem unexpected that
they are even more overrepresented among the most extreme
forms of violence, including mass murder. Nor does age or race
seem to be crucial. According to data presented by Fox and Levin
(1998), the differences between the age groups are minimal and
might be even less significant if the school shootings in Paducah,
Pearl, and Littleton were included in their sample (p. 436). With
respect to race, Fox and Levin (1998) showed that the majority
(63%) of the mass murderers are White (p. 436). Although
underrepresented when compared to their proportion (75.1%) in
the general population (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000), Whites
are overrepresented as mass murderers when compared to their
proportion (46.4%) as perpetrators in single murders (Fox &
Levin, 1998).
Another aspect of mass murderers noted in previous research
was their having experienced a lifetime of frustration and rejection and blaming others for these events. Yet these are common
patterns in other kinds of violence, as Fox and Levin (1998) noted.
Domestic violence, according to Moore (1997), is often the result
of such social conditions as poverty, meager education, and lower
occupational position. Polk (1994) found that 54% of his Victoria
homicide offenders were unemployed, and the vast majority of
offenders were from the bottom of the economic heap. Failures in
family relations are also not uncommon among spousal abusers.
In fact, as studies show, many battering episodes (Ptacek, 1999)
and murders (Websdale, 1999) concern issues of separation and
custody, indicating rejection in intimate relations. Rejection in
childhood is also typical (Dutton, 1999) and seems most apparent
in the kind of brutalization that Athens (1992) regarded as preparing the way for a violent approach to life as an adult. Finally,
blaming others for one’s problems seems to be a consistent element in any kind of violence (Athens, 1997; Polk, 1994; Ptacek,
1999) and makes sense of why revenge is such a central
motivation for violence in general.
If we consider the role of firearms in mass murder, it will be
readily apparent that this is not a factor that is distinctive to this
kind of offense but is a common contributor to single murders and
many other kinds of crime. Zimring and Hawkins (1997) made it
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
clear that the wide availability of guns in the United States is a key
factor in explaining the high rate of lethal violence associated
with assaults, robberies, and even burglaries in this society. They
do note the instrumentality effects of guns in making it easier to
kill multiple victims, but this would suggest only that guns
increase the efficiency of the slaughter rather than causing new
victims to be added to the list of those to be killed. Hence, this ease
or convenience would not appear to be important in family annihilation in the same way it might be important in a robbery where
the perpetrator wants to eliminate all witnesses.
Suicide, as noted, brings to a close a certain proportion of mass
murders. Other episodes end through the willingness of the
offender to engage in a gun battle with police, what has been
called suicide by police. But, this self-destructive end occurs in single murders (Websdale, 1999) as well as in mass murders. It may
be more common in mass murders, as Hempel et al. (1999)
reported that more than half of their sample of perpetrators took
their own lives. This is far higher than the proportion of homicidesuicides found by Websdale (1999) in his study of 230 Florida
domestic homicides. Suicide, however, is likely to be a reflection
of the degree of loss that has occurred in the preceding homicide
(Hempel et al., 1999; Stack, 1997). Thus, one would expect that
where the loss of life through homicide has been greater, as it is in
mass murder, the attendant suicide would be more likely.
What seem, then, to be the most distinctive features of mass
murder are (a) the social isolation of the offender and (b) a significant trigger event involving a loss suffered by the offender. The
isolation is likely to be profound. Hempel et al. (1999) classed 94%
of their mass murderers as “loners.” Being isolated is said to
remove any of the normal sources of social support and
affectional bonds. In addition to this, isolation is likely to diminish
the ability of the murderer to test reality. The triggering event is
usually “a sudden loss or threat of a loss, which from his point of
view, is catastrophic. The loss typically involves an unwanted
separation from loved ones or termination from employment”
(Fox & Levin, 1998, p. 439). Hempel et al. also noted the importance of crises at work and in intimate relations. Together, these
kinds of precipitants accounted for about three fourths of the
cases they studied. These separation crises are likely to add to the
isolation already evident in the lives of these men and may be
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129
particularly difficult for those who define themselves as the
“family breadwinner.”
Women as Murderers
As noted above, the most common arena for women’s homicide is the domestic sphere where they take the lives of intimate
partners and children. Researchers have found the proportion of
women’s within-family murders to vary from 57% (Jensen, 2001)
to 80% (Ogle, Maier-Katkin, & Bernard, 1995). In general, intimate
partners are killed at about double the rate of children. For example, Fox and Zawitz (2001), using SHR data from the FBI, found
424 intimate partners and 201 children (ages 0 to 5, the highest risk
group) as victims of female killers in the United States in 1999.
Particularly in the case of intimate partner homicides, women
offenders are found to be responding to being violently victimized by their male consort both in prior episodes and in the immediate murder scene. This is confirmed by the number of prior
arrests of these male victims for domestic violence, evidence of
battering of the women, and the use of alcohol by the male victim
just prior to the homicide (Jurik & Winn, 1990; Mann, 1996;
Websdale, 1999). A significant proportion of women who murder
is also likely to be under the influence of alcohol (Block &
Christakos, 1995; Jurik & Winn, 1990; Mann, 1996), although some
studies have found less intoximcation among women as compared to men (Smith, Moracco, & Butts, 1998). The method of killing used by women depends on the victim targeted, with most
domestic partners being killed with guns and knives (Mann,
1996) and children more often victimized by beatings, smothering, and strangulation (Fox & Levin, 2001). Women are less likely
to commit suicide after a murder than are men, especially in the
instance of killing intimate partners (Block & Christakos, 1995;
Daly & Wilson, 1988; Silverman & Kennedy, 1988). After the murder of children, suicide by the female killer is more likely, except in
the case of newborns (Daly & Wilson, 1988; Haapasalo & Petaja,
1999). Confirming this general pattern, Daly and Wilson (1988)
claimed that “women who resolve to die and take their loved ones
with them seem never to include their husbands in their ‘rescue
fantasies’” (p. 216).
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
During the past few years, there have been several broad theories offered that attempt to explain why women kill. Although
some of these perspectives are primarily meant to illuminate only
intimate partner murders (Peterson, 1999) or child homicides
(Alder & Polk, 2001; Crimmins et al., 1997), they seem to be in
agreement with regard to the basic social and psychological determinants of these murders. Among the social-structural factors,
there is repeated reference to poverty, gender inequality, racial
discrimination, urban residence, and other expressions of social
disorganization (Crimmins et al., 1997; Jensen, 2001; Mann, 1996;
Ogle et al., 1995; Peterson, 1999; Vollum & Titterington, 2001;
Websdale, 1999). These social factors lead collectively to an environment in which women are stressed and under both physical
and psychological threat. At the same time, women who murder
are seen as being socially isolated, lacking in social support, and
having exhausted other options short of violence (Alder & Polk,
2001; Jensen, 2001; Ogle et al., 1995; Totman, 1978; Websdale,
1999). Women find themselves within a traditional home environment where they are expected to care for their children with limited resources and little spousal assistance, perhaps even while
maintaining paid employment “on the side.” This situation, set
within the ideology and household reality of patriarchy, confines
women to a situation in which they are expected to excel easily in
the potentially challenging roles of wife and mother (Jensen, 2001;
Ogle et al., 1995). Problems in the home, such as an unhappy husband or a less-than-perfect child, are likely to lead to self-blame
and subsequent low self-esteem (Crimmins et al., 1997; Ogle et al.,
1995; Vollum & Titterington, 2001). This broadly oppressive situation is exacerbated by acute episodes of violence, drug use, legal
violations, mental illness, and economic hardship (Crimmins
et al., 1997; Mann, 1996; Peterson, 1999).
Although these perspectives seem promising as first steps
toward understanding women’s homicide, they also appear to be
too general in some respects and thinly supported by evidence in
other areas. Social inequality, patriarchy, stress, and low selfesteem, for example, are pervasive features of women’s lives. Yet
it is difficult to see how the omnipresence of these factors can be
used to logically account for the small number of killings that
occur at the hands of women. In other words, if 100 million American women experience stress and inequality, why do only about
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
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1,000 of them resort to homicide? One theory that recognizes this
problem is Peterson’s (1999), which asks why, if women’s killing
of their abusive intimate partners is simply an expression of
defensive self-help, there are not more such events? Peterson’s
response to this hypothetical is that even though women are
reluctant to call on formal agencies of social control, they are even
more reluctant to be prosecuted and imprisoned under the criminal justice system. Hence, they murder only infrequently. Ogle
et al. (1995) reasoned in the reverse direction, arguing that women
are typically traditional in their outlook, passively conforming to
the social requirement that they be good mothers. How then to
account for this “overcontrolled personality” ever committing
murder? The authors suggested that women seem to erratically
erupt into violence when the stress becomes overwhelming.
Additional difficulties in these general theories are evident when
we consider the choice of victim. Self-defense in the face of a lifethreatening partner may seem reasonable, but it has not been
spelled out fully in any of these theories how this victimprecipitation perspective can account for instances of child
killing.
Perhaps it is premature to expect to develop a general theory of
women’s homicide. In fact, some researchers (Silverman & Kennedy, 1988) have suggested that it may be more productive to use
a middle-range theory strategy of isolating a variety of scenarios
of women’s homicide rather then looking for common patterns
and forces at work in each. Wilczynski (1997), for instance, after
spelling out 10 categories of motives for filicide, suggested that
these 10 could be reduced to 3 broader patterns where common
risk factors are found. Interestingly, these 3 distinct patterns are
very similar to what other studies (Alder & Baker, 1997; Alder &
Polk, 2001; Haapasalo & Petaja, 1999) discern and can be labeled
neonaticide, murder/suicide, and fatal assault. Although some
(Resnick, 1969) have proposed a larger number of patterns of
filicide, they seem to run the risk of overlapping with each other,
making clear classification difficult. In addition to these three patterns of child killing, one other pattern of homicide by women,
that committed against intimate partners, seems to be clearly
delineated. Websdale (1999), for example, noted that in his
Florida sample, “nearly all the male victims [of female intimate
partner murders] precipitated their own demise through the use
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
of proximal and distal acts of violence” (p. 212). For the purposes
of our analysis, the value of these 4 patterns of murder by women
is that they go beyond the issue of causes and motives to indicate
common elements in the victim-offender relationship, in the context of the offense, and in other experiential features of these
crimes. These insights will prove useful in the discussion of
multiple murder in this study.
METHOD
Homicide has been studied by a variety of methods, each of
which has its distinct strengths and weaknesses. The FBI’s SHR
seem to be most widely used for quantitative analysis of the general descriptive details of homicide. Although this data set is
taken to be comprehensive in case finding, two recent studies
(Duwe, 2000; Langford, Isaac, & Kabat, 1998) point to some problems in the thoroughness of the SHR. Moreover, the reports
include largely rudimentary details of police investigations and
give little sense of the dynamics of the homicide event (Petee,
Padgett, & York, 1997). Another common method of data gathering is the interviewing of offenders after they have become part of
a prison or mental hospital population. Although this provides
in-depth information on the contours of the murder event, it tends
to privilege the offender’s perspective. In addition, this method of
case selection can lead to a sampling bias by eliminating those
who have committed suicide or have not been convicted, while
including such diverse offenses as neglect, abuse, and even conspiracy to compose a general category of homicide (Mann, 1996).
To this issue of unrepresentative sampling can be added the problem of exculpatory accounts being solicited, especially when the
information or data are gathered prior to the trial. Where whole
city and state populations have been used, questions can be raised
about how representative they are of the national population
(Mann, 1996).
In light of these difficulties, the newspaper databases LexisNexis and ProQuest were searched to gather as much information
as possible about domestic multiple murder committed by
women. These databases can be found in most libraries and
together allow for a comprehensive review of the nation’s
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
133
newspapers. The Lexis-Nexis database covers 141 local, regional,
and national newspapers and ProQuest provides full-text access
to 237 major U.S. newspapers. Eliminating redundancies, there
are 298 separate newspapers contained within these databases.
The District of Columbia and 47 of the states have 1 or more newspapers in these online catalogs; there are between 1 and 24 newspapers per state. Therefore, most of the major and midsize cities
within the United States are represented, as are some small towns.
In addition to the newspaper representation, news wires are
included in these online sources.
We were interested in women who had, by themselves, killed
two or more victims during a single incident within the context of
a domestic relationship. Langford et al. (1998) made the case for
including, within the sphere of intimate partner homicide, all
murders that stem from adult intimate relationships even when
the intimate partner was not among the murder victims. Following the same reasoning, we extended the definition of domestic
homicide to incorporate intimate partner and child murders, as
well as any other deaths that developed out of the domestic context. That is, included were those women who killed in response
to difficulties with a romantic partner, difficulties with related
children in their care, or those who targeted their domestic partner or children in response to some stressor. Although most victims are family members, the women may have ultimately
claimed the lives of strangers or unrelated persons as well.
Although two victims is a lower limit than that typically used in
research on men’s multiple or mass murder, it represents a pragmatic balancing of the heightened seriousness of the offense and
of our ability to find an adequate sample for analysis. As previously mentioned, the inclusion of cases in which there are multiple victims effectively rules out the possibility of an unintended
death. However, with a higher victim threshold, the number of
cases would have been dramatically decreased and this would
have limited our ability to discern plausible patterns. Although
murder by women is rare compared to that by men, this rarity
becomes dramatically amplified as the number of victims per episode increases. For example, women commit approximately 13%
of murders involving a single victim, but where there are two or
more victims, the women’s share is cut by more than half,
composing only about 6% of such crimes (Fox & Levin, 1998).
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Within the Lexis-Nexis and ProQuest databases, the search
terms murder and domestic were entered to cast the widest possible
net for locating potential cases. These search terms were chosen
after trying several alternative terms (such as homicide and family)
that appeared to generate fewer stories. The resulting abstracts of
newspaper articles were then carefully perused for women perpetrators fitting the criteria established. Once a case was identified, further searching was performed using the perpetrator’s
name. As many cases went to trial and spanned several years, this
method was useful in gaining as much detail as possible. It
seemed important to begin the search in the present to include the
most up-to-date cases; the databases were then searched in
reverse chronological order until a sufficient sample size had been
reached. The resulting database includes cases from across the
United States occurring between 1993 and 2001. Based on our
perusal of all relevant articles returned, we created homiciderelated categories and entered the information into an SPSS data
file. Throughout this procedure, articles were printed off of the
newspaper databases, collected in files, and summarized in cover
sheets.
Multiple murder, especially when committed by a female, is
not a common event and it is, therefore, reasonable to assume that
these newspaper databases will have some mention of this type of
incident, even for the geographic areas not specifically covered by
the database. In fact, newspaper coverage was often quite
detailed for these extraordinary events. Although mass murders
that occur in public places do attract much greater media coverage (Petee et al., 1997), these domestic homicides are also the focus
of considerable media attention. In addition to interviews with
the police and other experts on crime and mental illness, reporters
frequently spoke to neighbors, acquaintances, and survivors. This
allowed for a more elaborate depiction of the events leading up to
and surrounding the killings themselves. Through their information gathering and story composition, reporters seemed to maintain an objective stance, often appearing to be unconcerned for
whether the details reflected poorly on any of the participants,
including the victims. From a journalist’s viewpoint, the coverage
was aimed at providing a balanced and thorough account meant
to satisfy the inevitable question among readers of why this event
occurred.
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135
Nevertheless, much like other sources of data, questions can be
raised about this method of data collection. For example, at times
we found details were missing that would have been useful for
teasing out patterns across cases (see Richards, 2000). As with any
secondary data source, there is the possibility that the data or
aspects of the data are inaccurately reported. A reporter may have
misstated facts or arrived at misleading conclusions, which we
subsequently took as factual and analyzed for the purposes of this
research. Often, however, multiple stories or multiple news
sources included the same details, increasing the probability of
their accuracy. Moreover, it is possible that although this type of
murder was committed, newspapers elected not to provide coverage of this event, perhaps due to its being “crowded out” by the
simultaneous occurrence of “larger” news stories. Perhaps in
some cities, these multiple murder stories were not seen as sufficiently newsworthy to warrant coverage. Nor can it be claimed
that the geographic coverage of the Lexis-Nexis and ProQuest
databases is exhaustive. In addition, the relatively short (9-year)
time span covered by this research is a limiting factor. It is difficult
to know whether the causes and contours of women’s domestic
murder have changed in recent years; during a longer time span,
the patterns may have differed.
Although the aforementioned problems lead us to be cautious
in the interpretation of findings, it should be noted that we did not
select a sample from the newspaper database but included every
instance found that met our criteria. Thus, we do feel this is an
adequate portrait of women’s domestic multiple homicide as it is
played out currently within the United States. Each method of
data gathering has its inherent difficulties, but searching newspaper databases allowed for a balancing of detailed case information, representative sampling, and a diversity of perspectives on
the events.
RESULTS
Our newspaper search produced 32 cases of women who,
between 1993 and 2001 in the United States, had committed multiple murder in the context of domestic relations. Because we
searched a 9-year period, these multiple murders are certainly
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
TABLE 1
Number of Victims by Victim-Offender Relationship
Number of Deaths by Relationship
Case Type By VictimOffender Relationship
Filicide (20)
Familicide (6)
Other combinations
Ex-intimate partner
and other (2)
Own child and other (1)
Miscellaneous (3)
Own
Children (n)
Intimate
Partner
Other
Relative
Nonrelative
Number
Injured
57
12
—
6
—
—
—
—
5
1
—
1
—
1
—
—
—
1
2
3
—
7
3
3
—
quite rare, with just more than 3 events per year. To provide some
sense of the incidence of these cases, we can note that during our
newspaper search, we were also gathering information about
men who committed multiple murder within the domestic
sphere. However, we used three deaths as the criteria for the
men’s killings, rather than the two established for women. For the
1993-2001 period searched in U.S. newspapers, we found 141
cases of “domestic” multiple murders by men and only 16 cases of
women who committed three or more murders in this same context. Thus, of the total number of cases where three victims were
murdered, women perpetrators represent about 10% (16/157) of
these episodes. Although this is higher than the 6% found by Fox
and Levin (1998), it is likely the result of the exclusive focus on
domestic situations, where women’s murders are more
frequently found.
Description and Contributing Factors
Table 1 shows the distribution of these cases by type and the
number and kinds of victims associated with each category. The
largest category was the killing of children, filicides, that included
20 cases, with 57 child deaths and 5 injuries. Most of the women
(14) killed all of their (biological) children, but some children were
spared the maternal attack and some survived it. As with murder
in general, the injuries could just as well have been deaths, except
for such contingencies as poor shooting, rapid emergency care,
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
137
and so on. Familicides accounted for another 6 cases, encompassing 6 intimate partner deaths, 12 child killings, and 1 injury.
Among the 6 couples, 3 were married and living together, 1 was
separated, and 2 were in cohabiting relationships. Beyond these
familicides, it seems appropriate to add that 2 former intimate
partners were also attacked in these multiple murder cases. In
both cases, the ex-spouse had established a new romantic relationship, and the woman offender attacked the new couple. The
deaths included 1 of the ex-spouses, both of the new intimate
partners, and a friend; the injured included the other ex-spouse
and 2 additional people. The last 4 cases are more complicated,
with 1 involving a mother who killed her own child and her (the
mother’s) younger brother who was 11 years old. Fire was used as
the means of killing in this case and led to the injury of 3 others,
including some of the mother’s other children. Also among the
miscellaneous category, there was 1 case of a grandmother
involved in a custody dispute with her son-in-law, who killed her
2 grandchildren. In addition, there was an older mother who was
trying to show support for her son in his dissolving romantic relationship. She located the apartment house where her son’s former
lover lived with a new man and set it on fire. The only victims in
this case were the 5 strangers in the apartment building who were
unintended deaths in the mother’s plan of revenge. The final case
was a wife who killed her husband’s girlfriend and the child of
that extramarital affair. The case was distinctive in that she did not
target her husband.
Half of our sample killed only the 2 people that represented our
lower limit for inclusion, and the highest death toll for any one
event was 6. Taking all cases together, the average number killed
in these offenses is almost 3 (2.8), and 10 lives are claimed each
year in these multicides by women. The number wounded
ranged from 0 to 3, with the vast majority of cases (78%) having no
wounded. With so few collateral injuries, the women were highly
efficient or controlled killers. This is contrary to male murder
sprees that often include nonfatal injuries (Dietz, 1986; Hempel
et al., 1999). Of the 7 women that left people wounded, 4 used fire
as their weapon and 3 used guns. One of these women, Patricia
Reager, was intent on murdering her family and herself when the
gun that she was using jammed. She called 911 when the gun
stopped firing, having already murdered her husband and one
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
daughter and leaving another daughter alive with a bullet wound
to the head. In statements to police, she said that the shooting was
a “botched job.” She had established plans, but they were upset
by an unexpected contingency.
More typically though, the murders were carried out as
planned. Both the paucity of injuries and the infrequency with
which strangers were killed seem to reflect that planning. Hempel
et al. (1999) suggested that these patterns are typical of
nonpsychotic (male) mass murderers. Another way to understand the efficiency of our women murderers, however, is as an
extension of their roles as wives and mothers. Although their
notion of “caring” is highly misaligned, the forethought and
preparation that goes into the actual homicide shows that even as
they are committing life-ending acts of murder, the women are
still, in their own minds, caring for their families (Alder & Polk,
2001; Daly & Wilson, 1988). These murders, therefore, seem to be
calculated and are very rarely committed on the spur of the
moment. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional view of male
mass murderers as violent, out-of-control madmen (Palermo,
1997). Although thought to be common among male perpetrators,
this lack of control is uncharacteristic of the women in our sample.
An apt instance is Andrea Yates, who calmly and systematically
drowned her five children in the bathtub. She then laid them side
by side in the bedroom, under a sheet, before calling her husband
and the police. Similarly, there is Sandi Nieves, who convinced
her four daughters to have a sleepover in the kitchen, turned on
the gas oven, and started the fire that killed them all.
One other interesting pattern that emerges from an overview of
our sample has to do with the choice of victims. As noted earlier,
when women in general commit murder, about half of their victims are intimate partners. Child victims are killed at perhaps half
of this intimate partner rate, making them less frequent targets of
women’s homicide. These proportions are sharply reversed with
our sample of women multiple murderers. Of our cases, 63% are
filicides, with the murderer’s own children, then, representing
78% of the total number of deaths. Only 8% of victims were intimate partner deaths. However, these killings are notable in that
they occurred in the course of 6 familicides. Other researchers
(Daly & Wilson, 1988; Steffensmeier & Allen, 1996; Websdale,
1999) have remarked on the extreme rarity of these events, but in
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
139
our study this annihilation of one’s whole family did represent
19% of our cases. Although the reasons for these killings will be
discussed below, it can be added here that 5 of these 6 cases, following the common male pattern, ended with the suicide of the
murderer.
Table 2 provides an overview of the details of the murders and
some characteristics of their perpetrators. With respect to age,
most of the women were in the middle child-rearing years, with
only 1 woman younger than 20 and 1 older than 50. The mean age
for the sample was 34.4 years. Although race and ethnicity were
known for only 30 cases, half of these women were non-Hispanic
White and 23.3% were Hispanic. Asians and Blacks each made up
13.3% of the sample. These patterns are interesting in the way that
they contrast to the rates for these racial and ethnic groups when
women kill just their domestic partner or single children. Several
studies (Block & Christakos, 1995; Johnson, 1996; Mann, 1996)
report, for example, that African American women murder their
intimate partners at considerably higher rates than that of other
women. In our study, they cannot even be seen as significantly
overrepresented among these multiple murder offenders. Similarly, non-Hispanic Whites would appear to be somewhat
underrepresented when considering their proportions in the population. On the other hand, when we consider the proportions of
Asians (3.5%) and Hispanics (12.5%) in the general population
(U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000), these two groups are
overrepresented in our sample. This is contrary to earlier research
(Riedel & Best, 1998) that finds both Asian and Hispanic (Latina)
women commit few intimate partner murders when compared to
those committed by men in these same ethnic groups. As explanation with respect to Latinas, Riedel and Best (1998) interpreted
this as showing that due to extended family networks and continuing immigration, tradition and patriarchy have ongoing importance in Latina/Latino culture. It seems that similar arguments
could apply to traditional intimate partner relations in Asian cultures. Although this traditionalist interpretation of the sex ratio of
killing is interesting, we will indicate below how traditionalism
plays a different role in women’s multiple murder.
The weapon used to commit the crime varied widely across
cases. However, guns were used most often, with almost 50% of
the murders carried out by this means. Some earlier research
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
TABLE 2
Offender and Offense Characteristics (All Cases)
Variable
Offender age at time of the murders
Under 20
20 to 29
30 to 39
40 to 49
50 and older
Race and ethnicity
Black
White
Hispanic
Asian
Primary homicide method
Gun
Knife
Strangulation/smothering
Drowning
Fire
Combination
Offender abuse during childhood
Physical
Sexual
Physical and sexual
Spousal abuse
By the offender’s partner
By the offender
Combination
Reported as none
Substance use
Yes
No
Seasonal differences
Fall
Winter
Spring
Summer
Regional differences
West
Midwest
South
Northeast
Precipitating event
Role loss
Breakup
Affair/another woman
Custody dispute
Lost autonomy
Frequency
Percentage
1
9
13
8
1
3.1
28.1
40.6
25.1
3.1
4
15
7
4
13.3
50.0
23.3
13.3
15
4
4
2
6
1
46.9
12.5
12.5
6.3
18.8
3.1
1
3
1
3.1
9.4
3.1
3
1
5
14
13.1
4.3
21.7
60.9
6
9
40.0
60.0
11
7
8
6
34.3
21.8
25.0
18.8
13
5
9
5
40.6
15.6
28.1
15.6
22
6
7
5
4
68.8
27.3
31.8
22.7
18.2
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
141
TABLE 2 (continued)
Variable
Psychological disturbance
Depression/suicidal intent
Deluded thinking
Outcome
Suicide
Attempted suicide
Trial judgment
Death
Prison
Insanity
Frequency
Percentage
10
4
6
31.2
40.0
60.0
11
8
35.5
8
9
3
25.8
29.0
9.7
(Block & Christakos, 1995; Riedel & Best, 1998) on women’s methods of murder finds guns to be a less common choice than other
means, especially when the victim was a child (Chew, McCleary,
Lew, & Wang, 1999; Silverman & Kennedy, 1988). A central reason
that guns are rarely used in these cases is the defenselessness of
young children; firearms are simply not needed to kill them, as
Fox and Levin (2001) noted. In addition, the wide use of guns by
our sample participants is somewhat surprising in light of the
numbers of suicides and suicide attempts (59%) among our
offenders. When women choose to take their own lives, they are
much less likely than their male counterparts to use guns (Killias,
vanKesteren, & Rindlisbacher, 2001). So, in spite of the high proportion of child killing and suicide, the efficiency of guns in multiple murder (Fox & Levin, 1998) seemed to be the overriding consideration. As one instance, we cite 19-year-old Miguelina
Estevez who shot each of her 2-year-old triplets in the head, killing them, before shooting herself. Yamileth Greene also shot and
killed her two young children while they were sleeping and then
shot and killed herself.
Precipitants
Although it would be too much to expect news reporters to
delve deeply into the upbringing of the offenders in their crime
stories, it was interesting that little childhood abuse was reported
as having been experienced by our female killers. There were only
5 cases where such physical and/or sexual abuse was noted in the
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news reports. One of the reasons for the paucity of such information may be the large number of cases that ended in suicide or a
determination of mental illness. Issues such as past abuse experienced by offenders are most likely to emerge as part of a defense
strategy when a case goes to trial, so suicides and judgments of
mental illness short circuit that possibility. Another obvious reason is, as noted, the inability or lack of concern of the reporter to
gain access to such information, especially when the main focus of
news stories is likely to be on the immediate crime scene, the victims, and the aftermath of these killings (Websdale & Alvarez,
1998). Apart from being abused as children, we also did not find
much evidence of spousal abuse in the offenders’ intimate relationships prior to the murders. Only 9 cases included such documented family violence, with another 14 cases reported as having
none. Although this is certainly another element a news reporter
might omit for reasons similar to those noted above regarding
abuse of the offender during her childhood, attempts were clearly
made to document this family violence. For instance, with 1
mother who killed her three children, the newspaper reported
that “police had no record of previous calls from that address or
reports involving the family. No records of criminal charges could
be found in San Mateo or San Francisco counties” (Zamorra &
Hatfield, 1998, p. A1) In no way can this inquiry be seen as
exhaustive or definitive, but the lack of such evidence in these
cases may represent a difference between our cases and single
murders.
Similar cautions need to be exercised with respect to substance
use just prior to the killings. Information on more than half the
cases is missing, but that which is available suggests that such
drug or alcohol consumption was a possible contributing factor in
only 6 cases. For example, Socorro Caro, described as a devoted
stay-at-home mother, volunteer, and churchgoer, knew that her
marriage was “on the rocks” and had begun drinking heavily and
taking prescription drugs to combat her growing feelings of
depression. Alcohol and drugs have been shown to be important
factors in a substantial proportion of single murders committed
by women (Block & Christakos, 1995; Mann, 1996), so the relative
unimportance in the present cases once again underlines the
observation that these murders, in large part, were committed
with considerable forethought.
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
143
When we look at seasonal and regional variations, the patterns
do not appear to suggest any extraordinary skewing of cases.
Most of the murders occurred in the fall, with October being the
month with the highest number of episodes. Regionally, the West
and, to a lesser extent, the South were the locations of most of
these crimes. California, in particular, stood out as being the state
with the largest contingent of women multiple murderers.
Although a few studies of single murders have looked into the
precipitating event that contributes to the occurrence of murder,
this concern is a staple in understanding multiple or mass murders (Fox & Levin, 1998; Hempel et al., 1999). Our categories of
precipitating events (see Table 2) may seem to be very similar to
one another, even overlapping. However, what was sought in
each of these episodes was the immediate event that seemed to
ignite the killing rampage. In general, we found two broad types
of triggering events, with several discrete subcategories in each.
The first and most common category of events (almost 70% of
cases) involved changes in the domestic situation of the offender.
These changes represent a loss of fundamental roles for the
women in our sample. Primary here were cases in which the status of wife was stripped from the women, and they were no longer able to define the self in relation to an intimate partner. Six of
these cases involved the breakup of a relationship, most often
through divorce. Maria Montalvo’s situation is illustrative. Her
husband had decided to leave her and had, as a result, gone to
stay at his parents’ home. She followed him there, parked in their
driveway, and ignited her car with gasoline. Although she apparently intended to kill herself, only her two toddlers perished in
the flames. Another 7 cases were similar in that the woman was
responding to the loss of her intimate partner, but this loss was
symbolized by the discovery of the partner’s affair or new relationship. For example, Marilyn Lemak saw her husband with his
new girlfriend and realized that she and their three children were
no longer the most important things in his life. Wishing to relieve
him of the responsibility of caring for them, she killed her three
children before attempting suicide. Five of the cases entailed the
loss of the maternal role, with custody problems being the trigger
for the fatal violence. Terri Esterak had already lost custody of her
three daughters and was at the end of a month-long visitation
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
period. The day before she was to return the girls to their father,
she fatally shot all three and then herself.
Finally, there were the 4 cases that we label lost autonomy. Here
the problem was more a matter of child care responsibilities interfering with other life prospects, such as a new romantic relationship or a desire for independence. It seems that legitimately giving up child-rearing responsibilities was potentially too
stigmatizing for these women, so they tried to resolve their personal crises by killing the children. These women are different
from the others but similar to neonaticide cases, in that suicide
was not considered. Indeed, 2 of these women attempted to blame
the deaths on others so that they could be free from the responsibility of children and of crime at the same time. Another feature of
these murders that seems to set them apart from many of the others in our sample is the lack of resignation about their situation.
For here what is evident is that the offender seems to have a plan
for reclaiming her future. Typical of this subcategory is Susan
Smith, who drowned her two boys and initially attempted to
claim that a stranger committed the crime. Her motivation
appears to have been in beginning a new romantic relationship by
eliminating the responsibilities of motherhood.
What seems most remarkable about these cases is that the crucial events in triggering the murders revolved around the
woman’s position in the family. Whether losing one’s intimate
partner or children, or the prospect of having another romantic
relationship, these women’s lives heavily revolve around family
and domestic relationships. There were no precipitating events
such as loss of job or financial setback that were crucial factors.
Where any such considerations came into play in these cases, it
was only secondary to the loss of a relationship to a male breadwinner. In studies that have investigated male multiple murderers (Fox & Levin, 1998; Hempel et al., 1999), financial and occupational losses are commonly found to be key precipitating events,
even when the killer strikes out exclusively at his family. It seems
clear, then, that a fundamental source of identity for men is lost or
damaged through setbacks that occur outside of the home. However, for women who commit multiple murder, the sphere of loss
is not unexpectedly located among kin or intimate relations. Nevertheless, the losses suffered by women seem to entail just as devastating a blow to social position and identity as those
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
145
experienced by men. Lisa Peng’s case shows the degree to which
one’s life may become unraveled. At 44 years old, she was the
wife of a wealthy businessman and the mother of his grown children. On discovering that a child had been born to her husband’s
25-year-old mistress, Lisa Peng murdered the younger woman
and her 5-month-old child. Replaced as an intimate partner, her
children were grown and she had even lost the ability to claim
that she was the only mother of her husband’s children. The role
loss left no part of her life unscathed.
The other main category of precipitants has less to do with relational difficulties than with disturbances at the level of the individual. Once again, however, we note the overlap between triggering events, as these more psychological problems are not
without a context in the interpersonal relations of the offenders.
The one difference in these last 10 cases is that the psychological
aspects come to outweigh the interpersonal in terms of initiating
the violence. Our two subcategories of psychological disturbances correspond to the common psychiatric distinction
between thought and mood disorders. In the first subcategory,
there were 4 cases of depression or suicidal intent that led to multiple homicide. In Christina Riggs’s case, she had contemplated
taking her own life on several occasions but was constrained by
thoughts of her two children’s fates. Ultimately, she realized that
she could take her children’s lives as well. Her suicide note said of
the children, “I did not want them to be a burden on mom or anyone else or to be separated” (Frye, 2000, p. A1). The other subcategory suggests distortions of thinking on the part of the killer. Most
often this involved the delusion that the murder was in the best
interest of the child. A case in point is that of Patricia Reager. During the O. J. Simpson spousal murder trial, Reager thought that
Simpson’s attorney, Johnny Cochran, was going to send people to
her house to torture and kill the family. She believed that the only
way she could save them from this fate was to kill them herself.
These psychological disturbances in thinking seem quite consistent with what recent research (Link, Monahan, Stueve, & Cullen,
1999) describes as a configuration of symptoms of mental illness
that typically lead the offender to strike out against persons perceived as harmful. In other words, although the delusions are
internal events or precipitants, they are real in the violent
consequences they produce in the murderer.
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
Outcomes
With respect to outcomes of these cases, more than one third
(35.5%) of the women took their own lives after their murder
spree. Another 25% attempted suicide but failed and were
brought to trial. Of these attempted suicides and the other cases
brought to trial, only 3 (9.7%) were determined to be mentally ill
and were sent to mental health facilities in lieu of prison. About
one fourth of the women (25.8%) were given the death penalty for
their killings, and 29% were found guilty and given prison sentences, most commonly life terms. Some of those judged sufficiently sane to be put on trial seemed to have obvious symptoms
of psychiatric disturbance. For example, Andrea Yates, with the
birth of her fifth child, was suffering again from recurring
postpartum depression that apparently had psychotic elements.
Her defense asserted that she believed her children were not
developing normally, that she thought she was possessed by the
devil, and that her children would be better off dead than having
her as a mother. These delusional thoughts do seem to have some
explanatory power in her murdering all her children. In another
instance, Cheryl Burns set fire to the mobile home that she shared
with her children and several other relatives; she had been previously diagnosed as bipolar and was suffering from auditory hallucinations. Both of these women were put on trial and given
lengthy sentences. These decisions are a marked contrast with the
decisions made in European criminal justice systems in similar
circumstances (Haapasalo & Petaja, 1999).
Child Killings
If we consider the number of victims alone, the greatest harm
inflicted through these multiple murders is in the children whose
lives are lost. To take a closer look at these losses, we would like to
narrow our focus to the filicide and familicide cases in which this
occurred. These 26 cases entailed the deaths of 69 children who
were the offspring of the offenders. In Figure 1, we show the ages
of the children who died in these episodes. The most remarkable
aspect of this representation is how it completely reverses the age
trends shown in other studies of the victimization of children
through homicide (Chew et al., 1999). Generally, according to the
Bureau of Justice Statistics (2002), the homicide victimization rate
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
147
12
10
Frequency
8
6
4
2
16 Years
15 Years
14 Years
13 Years
12 Years
11 Years
10 Years
9 Years
8 Years
7 Years
6 Years
5 Years
4 Years
3 Years
2 Years
1 Year
Infancy
0
Age of Child at Time of Murder
Figure 1: Age of Murdered Children in Filicide and Familicide Cases
for neonates is relatively high at about 5 per 100,000, but that rate
begins to drop dramatically once infants get past the first few
days and weeks of life. The rate of victimization approaches its
trough by age 5 or 6 and continues near this low rate until the
child moves into adolescence, when it becomes more common to
be killed outside the domestic context. This victimization rate
from age 5 to 15 is so low that it is not matched again until a person
reaches old age. These trends do not correspond to those found
within our sample. Because of the selection criteria that at least
two deaths occur in our cases, neonaticides were unlikely. As Figure 1 shows, the highest rate of victimization is at age 2, and the
rate remains relatively high until age 9. Surprisingly, there continue to be deaths up to the age of 16 at the hands of these mothers.
The generally lowered prospects for suffering homicide after one
emerges from infancy are not seen among these victims.
Studies of child homicide (Alder & Polk, 2001; Richards, 2000;
Wilczynski, 1997) may lead one to think that child abuse is a significant factor in these deaths. However, the evidence offered by
the news accounts we found does not provide much support for
this notion. As Table 3 shows, only 4 cases were reported as having documentation of previous child abuse. Many more than half
of the 26 cases reported that no prior child abuse had occurred.
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
TABLE 3
Offender and Offense Characteristics in Cases of Filicide and Familicide
Variable
Child abuse
Physical, by the father
Physical, by the mother
Physical, by both parents
Neglect
Reported as none
Family and work roles
Married
Stay at home
Working
Separated
Stay at home
Working
Divorced
Stay at home
Working
a
Number of children
Two
Three
Four or more
Frequency
Percentage
1
0
0
3
17
3.8
0.0
0.0
14.3
81.9
7
5
2
10
5
5
5
3
2
7
11
7
71.4
28.6
50.0
50.0
60.0
40.0
28.0 (64.1)b
b
44.0 (25.2)
b
28.0 (10.7)
a. Excluding those mothers who gave birth to only one child, both in the sample (n = 25)
and in the general population.
b. Percentages in parentheses from U.S. Bureau of the Census (2000).
Although it is necessary to stress, once again, that reporters may
not provide sufficiently deep investigation to uncover instances
of such abuse, it does seem that because our sample is composed
of multiple murderers, it is not likely to include cases of murder
where child abuse simply got out of control.
A more promising avenue for understanding these cases is in
the relationship between the mothers and their children in these
domestic situations. One difference we see within this relationship in our sample is how early the women in our sample generally had children. Although the mean age of these mothers’ first
birth is 23.5, this does not adequately show the degree of difference between our mothers and mothers within the general population. As is apparent from Figure 2, the general population gives
birth at a much later age than did these women who murdered
their children and families (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000).
Although only 9.5% of the general female population has given
birth by the time that they have reached the age of 20, more than
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
149
40
Sample
General Population
38%
35
30
26.9%
20.7%
24.1%
20
13.8%
15
16.1%
19.4%
Percent
25
0%
3.4%
5
1.1%
8%
9.5%
10
0
Under 20
20 to 24
25 to 29
30 to 34
35 to 39
40 and Over
Figure 2: Mother’s Age at the Time of Her First Child’s Birth
SOURCE: General population figures from U.S. Bureau of the Census (2000).
one quarter of our sample of 26 women were mothers before this
age, thus representing almost 3 times the percentage of teenage
mothers in the general population. Between the ages of 20 and 24,
26.9% of the general population gave birth for the first time
whereas 34.6% of our sample did so. Differences are negligible for
the next higher age groups, but it is notable that 9.1% of the general population of mothers has their first birth after age 35
whereas only 3.4% of our sample did so.
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HOMICIDE STUDIES / May 2004
In addition to the age at first birth, we can note the number of
children that each of these women had. Although our sample is
skewed because it required at least two deaths for the inclusion of
a case, it still appears that these mothers had more children than is
typical in the general population. Obviously, our filicidal mothers
included none who had just one child, and only 1 of our 6
familicides involved a single child and the significant other as victims. If we limit our comparison to U.S. families with two or more
children, this makes our child-killing cases parallel and allows us
to see any contrasts. Among the general population with two or
more children, 64% had just two children, a far higher proportion
than the 28% of our sample in this same category. About one
fourth of the U.S. population has three children, compared to 44%
in our sample. Four or more children are found among only 11%
of the U.S. population, but this family size was found among 28%
of our cases. This comparison suggests that this larger size is a distinctive element of our families. Illustrative of these trends of
early births and larger numbers of children is Khoua Her, a
mother of six by the age of 24, who had her first child at age 13.
Miguelina Estevez had triplets at the age of 17, whereas Megan
Hogg had her first child at 18 and two more before the age of 23. It
is undeniable that these kinds of child care demands are certainly
fulfilled regularly by many women without any resulting murder
or even child abuse. In our sample, however, we are interested in
how these elements may interact with others in bringing about a
potentially violent outcome for the children of the offenders.
One other element in the lives of these women is their status as
stay-at-home mothers. In conjunction with the early births and
larger number of offspring, this has to be considered as contributing significantly to their life pattern. As Table 3 shows, most of the
women in our sample on whom we have such information were
stay-at-home mothers. Overall, this was so for 14 of the 22 women
(64%); this included 50% (7 of 14) of those in the sample who were
separated or divorced. The latter proportion is fairly surprising
as, in these cases, the spouse’s income might not be as helpful or
dependable in meeting household expenses. We see this domestic
status as playing several roles with respect to the lives of the
women in our sample. First, although the proportions are not
greatly different from the general population, having the status of
stay-at-home mother is a further indicator of traditionalism
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
151
among the women in question. Looking at the larger picture, we
see that these women had children earlier, had a larger number of
children than average, and stayed at home with their offspring.
When this domestic status was disrupted, these women felt
keenly this loss of status and rather than trying to recreate their
lives and homes, chose to end their anguish through violence. A
parallel, then, can be drawn to mass murders by males where the
forced severing of ties to work and/or family are typically the
triggering force behind their spree.
Being a stay-at-home mother is also likely to result in social isolation from adult relationships. Although this social isolation is
the product of different forces in the lives of each of these women,
it does appear to be a pervasive presence. A typical pattern is that
of an immigrant woman who marries young, has children, and
although living in the United States, fulfills the traditional domestic roles expected in the country of her birth. When the family
equilibrium is disturbed, the physical distance from her native
culture and her family may assure that the traditional social supports are not present to help the woman through the crisis. An
instance of this type of isolation is Nirmala Devi Katta, who left
her family home in India to come to the United States to get married. When she discovered that her husband had, and continued
to have, numerous affairs with other women, she had only his
family in the United States to which she might turn. Although she
begged her parents to let her return to India, they would not allow
it, as it would be a disgrace to the family. With no meaningful
social support and a disastrous family life that she could not
escape, she eventually resolved her crisis by killing her husband
and children.
Overall, it was possible to identify isolating factors in more
than three fourths of the cases in our sample. Child care responsibilities, restriction to domestic duties, and status as an immigrant
all seemed to be significant details that pointed to the isolation of
these women multiple murderers from adult relationships. Even
mild states of mental illness that set one apart from others in terms
of feelings and perceptions also operated in ways that tended to
separate the women from those around them. Andrea Yates’s
unstable mental state was discounted by those apparently closest
to her, separating her emotionally from even her husband. In
other instances, it was a configuration of elements distinctive to
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the woman’s situation that served to cut her off from sources of
support. For some of the single working mothers, feelings of isolation seemed to be more the product of their attempts to balance
work and family obligations. One such woman, Dellfrances
Bennett, was described as “always hurried” to meet child care
and work responsibilities and never able to have time for friends
or acquaintances of her own. Another woman, Tina Marie
Cornelius, had so few intimate relations that her disappearance
was recognized only when her children’s bodies were discovered
in a creek bed and the police feared that she had been a victim of
violence as well. In fact, she had fled her home in the wake of the
filicide. The lack of social support in the lives of these women,
regardless of the form taken, is a double-edged sword; it both creates feelings of disjuncture from reality and, at the same time,
separates them from those who may be able to recognize their
plight and offer assistance.
DISCUSSION
To an extent, these women multiple murderers seem to resemble the portraits that have been produced of male mass murderers. Most prominent as contributing factors are the social isolation
we found among our sample participants and the crucial role
played by certain precipitating events. Insofar as these women
have come to center their lives in the domestic sphere, their acts of
violence are appropriately seen as expressions of their desperation at losing this domestic status. Rather than wait out the crisis
and their likely adjustment to a newfound social reality, they
resort to violent means to resolve their personal troubles. Beyond
the isolation and the triggering events, one other element that
seems similar is in the realm of beliefs or ideology. In male mass
murder, one often sees clear indications of the patriarchal ideology that men “own” their families and have absolute control over
them. When faced with losing that control, the patriarchal
response is to use violence, even to the extreme degree of mass
murder, to reestablish the dominant male position. In this sense,
men often feel that they are entitled to kill their families. In our
cases of women who commit multiple murder, a parallel kind of
belief seems to be operating. In many instances, these women
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
153
believed that they had some unassailable proprietary right to
their children’s lives. Unlike male patriarchy, this typically did
not extend to the entire family, but the women often believed
unquestioningly that, as mothers, they owned their children (see
Daly & Wilson, 1988).
Among our cases, this mentality was evidenced by Denise
Pierce who, in a suicide note written to her husband, proclaimed,
“I just can’t live without you and I couldn’t leave my kids behind”
(Cannizaro & Turni, 1996, p. A1). Another of our murderers,
Khoua Her, expressed a similar idea when she said that although
committing suicide, she needed to protect her children and thus
could not “leave them behind.” This notion finds some legitimation in various cultural stories and traditions of which Medea is
the most familiar. This Greek tragedy tells of Medea murdering
the sons she had with Jason to avenge his marital abandonment.
One psychiatrist (Wertham, 1949) has taken the interpretation
further and seen Medea’s murders as committed in the name of
women’s rights. A parallel story is found in the Mexican myth of
La Llorona. This folktale is about a spurned wife who, angry and
vengeful toward her unfaithful husband, kills her two children
and then wanders the earth crying while searching for them. In an
Asian context, we also found reference to a Japanese pattern of
parent-child suicide, oyako shinju, that seems to provide some
degree of cultural rationale for filicide and/or familicide (Iga,
1996). In this Japanese cultural model, a mother is seen as having a
duty to her children that entails “taking care” of them even
through murdering them, if her life’s burdens become too unbearable. The emotional identification between mother and child is
thought to be so strong that a suicidal mother who left her
children behind would be seen as worthy of condemnation.
This leads us to the issue of what burden may be so unbearable
that it can be dealt with only through murder and possibly suicide. Several studies (for example, Alder & Polk, 2001) make reference to the fact that murderers do not see themselves as having
any option other than fatal violence. Yet from the point of view of
an observer, it is not clear that these mothers have considered or
exercised all options short of taking another’s life. Totman (1978),
for one, described her sample of “murderesses” as having
“exhausted all other alternative courses of action either actually
or in fantasy and find[ing] them not viable” (p. 94). Much, then,
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has to do with the perceptions held by those who ultimately resort
to murder. Many women who have been divorced or found their
husbands involved in a new romantic relationship have turned
their backs on the crisis and begun anew in rebuilding their lives.
This may not be a simple or painless process, but lives go on. Similarly, many women who no longer could provide for children or
found them to be a burden have given them up for adoption. It
appears that the main reason why the women in our sample did
not pursue these other options is to be found in what might be
called a matriarchal corollary to patriarchal ideology, the idea of
mothers owning their children. This corollary seems to be a key
ingredient in directing action away from life-preserving options
and toward the disastrous outcomes our research uncovered.
If we understand the offender’s perceptions as a critical explanatory element, this allows us to tie together the cases that seem to
be more the product of mental illness or psychiatric problems and
those that stem from more common domestic role losses. The triggering events that seem central for some women had their foundation in psychological states or idiosyncratic perspectives held
by the offender alone. These psychological elements were not
readily shared or were quite likely to be disbelieved by others
when they were divulged. As aforementioned, Andrea Yates was
able to talk to others about her deep depression, but she was
apparently unable to convince her husband or professional counselors how serious her desperation was. Or when Patricia Reager
felt that she was in imminent danger of being attacked by Johnny
Cochran’s thugs, these fears were not likely to be taken seriously
by her confidants. As with the relationship or role loss cases, the
effect that these distorted perceptions had on the women’s actions
was to make it seem that murder was the only viable option. In
short, the perceptions of the offenders are crucial in triggering
their homicidal attacks. It seems important to begin with this
inner perspective in the understanding of these particular murder
cases.
What does the research presented here offer as insight with
regard to some of the major perspectives on murder by women? A
common perspective on women’s homicide is that their murders,
particularly those committed against intimate partners, are an
expression of self-help. In brief, the argument (Peterson, 1999) is
that offenders try to resolve their life problems through their own
Messing, Heeren / WOMEN MULTIPLE MURDERERS
155
efforts as a result of having found no assistance through formal or
legal channels. In a large proportion of the cases looked at here,
especially the child murders, it appears that the offenders did not
necessarily find that formal avenues of justice were inaccessible.
Instead, they often wanted to achieve goals that had little to do
with justice and thus could not be brought about by any formal
system. For example, the revenge or resignation evident in these
killings does not appear to be an attempt to rectify some injustice
as much as it is following through on a particular emotional path
(Katz, 1988). In other words, like most instances of domestic violence, it is much more an expressive than an instrumental murder
(Alder & Baker, 1997). The concept of self-help as a source of criminal activity appears to carry a much more rational or instrumental connotation. Nor can it be said that from the point of view of
the mother who murders her child, this child is seen as a deserving victim; there is little or no sense of any kind of victim
precipitation.
Another perspective is that which contrasts the distinct attributional styles of men and women and sees women’s lower murder
rate as the product of a tendency to blame themselves for frustrations and stresses of everyday life. Hence, women are more likely
to commit suicide rather than homicide, whereas men are more
likely to blame others and therefore, commit more homicide
(Vollum & Titterington, 2001). A major difficulty the present
research presents for this theory is in the frequent occurrence in
our sample of homicide followed by suicide or attempted suicide.
These cases would seem to confound the expectation that one
chooses one or the other direction for expressing lethal violence.
Moreover, we do not get much sense in most of the child killings
in our sample that the victim is actually being blamed for stresses
in the mother’s life.
Our examination of these cases of multiple murder has turned
up features among these women that are both similar to and different from those that have been found among male mass murderers. The similarities are seen in the common contributing factors, the occurrence of several cases of familicide, and in the
association of the multiple homicides with the suicide of the
offender. Yet these similarities have to be qualified by noting the
extreme rarity of these murders by women. Although rare, these
murders are, nevertheless, typical of women as compared to, for
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example, workplace murders by women or school shootings by
adolescent females. What seems distinctive, as well, among these
women murderers is that they were responding to traditional
concerns about the loss of their position in the family. Killing multiple victims, especially their own children, demonstrates the continuing prevalence of the kind of patriarchal ideology that does
not give equal weight to the right to life of all those who have been
born. In the present instance, the most common presumptive hierarchy that allows for these killings to occur is that between mother
and child.
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Jill Theresa Messing is a doctoral student in the School of Social Welfare at the
University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include family violence,
child welfare, and foster care.
John W. Heeren received his Ph.D. at Duke University and has taught for many
years at California State University, San Bernardino. His current research interests are in multiple murder and religion in the mass media.