Methods of Murder in Maternal Filicide: An Analysis of Weapon Use and Mode of Death

Abstract

Maternal filicide, the murder of a child perpetrated by his or her mother, has been studied in an effort to define the causal factors for such behavior. Less information exists on the type of weapons used by mothers. This paper presents a content analysis of twenty maternal filicide cases collected from various newspapers in an effort to determine the common methods of murder and types of weapons used by the mothers. Findings show that blunt objects are the most frequently used weapon by these offenders. A comparison with previous research of the same faction indicates slightly different weapon use even though demographic results, such as offender age and victim gender, are similar.