Filicide is the deliberate act of a parent killing his or her own son or daughter. The term can also be applied to the parent who has committed such an act. The word filicide derives from the Latin word filius meaning "son".
In some cultures, killing a daughter who has disgraced the family is a common occurrence (see honor killing).
A 1999 US Department of Justice Study concluded that between 1976 and 1997 in the U.S., mothers were responsible for a higher share of children killed during infancy while fathers were more likely to have been responsible for the murders of children age 8 or older. Furthermore, 52% of the children killed by their mothers were male (maternal filicide), while 57% of the children killed by their fathers were male (paternal filicide).
Bradford Bishop bludgeoned his three children, spouse and mother to death in 1976. He was indicted for murders and remains at large.
Debora Green burned two of her three children to death in an arson attack, out of fear she would lose custody of them to her estranged husband Michael Farrar. Sentenced to life imprisonment.
Ivan IV of Russia (Ivan the Terrible) - Killed his son and heir to the throne in a fit of rage.
Peter the Great of Russia - Had his son tortured to death, being present at several of the torture sessions and allegedly participating in some of them.
Ernest I. Jeffries - Killed his infant daughter by slamming her to the floor with his raised arm from a standing position, similar to a football player ‘spiking’ a football. [1]
Jerry Branton Hobbs - Inflicted 30 stab wounds against his daughter Laura Hobbs and her best friend Krystal Tobias. [2]
Thomas Dewald - Drowned his two children, aged 10 and 12, in the lake near his parents' cottage.
Rohini Maharaj (deceased) - Killed her two sons by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage and then committed suicide.
Ronald Clark O'Bryan - Poisoned his son on Halloween 1974 with cyanide-laced candy for $20,000 of life insurance money. Executed in 1984.
John Emil List murdered his three children, mother and his wife on November 9, 1971. He was a fugitive for 18 years. He was apprehended on June 1, 1989 after an episode of "Americas Most Wanted" aired. On May 1, 1990 he was sentenced to 5 life terms in prison.
Christina Riggs - She was sentenced to death by lethal injection for killing her two children Justin and Shelby.
Sharon Amos - A prominent member of the Peoples Temple church in Guyana (who was not present at Jonestown, but rather at Guyana headquarters in Georgetown) slit the throats of her two children and then herself after hearing the news of mass suicide from Jonestown over the ham radio.
Jozsef Barsi - On July 25, 1988 child actress Judith Barsi's father entered her bedroom and shot her in her head. Judith's mother heard the gun shot and came running down the hall where she was met by her father; he then shot his wife. He then drenched the bodies in gasoline and set the house on fire before finally shooting himself in the garage.
Yeongjo, king of Korea (r. 1724-1776), ordered the death of his son, Crown Prince Sado, in 1767. The crown prince had murdered people within the royal palace and was most likely mentally ill. He obeyed his father’s order to climb into a rice chest, where he subsequently suffocated to death.
Selim I, sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1512-1520), had all possible competitors for the sultanate assassinated, including two of his brothers, his nephews, and all of his sons but one, Suleiman I.
Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare - Title character kills his daughter Lavinia. This is an attempt to restore her honor after she was raped, her hands were amputated, and her tongue cut out. Titus previously kills her attackers (then apparently puts pieces of the men's dead bodies into a pie that he serves their mother), marking this play as Shakespeare's most gruesome.
La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) - This Hispanic American folktale tells of a woman, Maria, whose husband is unfaithful. In her rage, she throws their children into the river, where they are drowned.[4]
In the Medea of Euripides, Medea kills her children, in retaliation for being abandoned by their father, Jason.
In the HBO series Oz, white supremacist Schillinger has his son killed by providing him with poisoned narcotics while he is in solitary confinement.
In the video game Castlevania, a witch named Actrise relishes the memory of sacrificing her child to the Devil in return for eternal life.
In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, Cuchulainn unwittingly kills his son Conlaoch when Conlaoch arrives in Ulster and, under a geis from his mother, the warrior queen Aoife, refuses to give his name to the king. Cuchulainn recognizes his son by a golden ring only after he inflicts a mortal wound with his magical spear, the Gae Bolga.
Also consider filial cruelty (cruelty toward one's own child), child cruelty (cruelty toward an unrelated child), and child murder (the murder of a child in general).
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