By Megan Leitch-Dymond
Megan Leitch-Dymond
Homicide is the greatest cause of death for children in the modern world, and parents or step-parents are the most frequent culprits, according to data published in 2021 by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). This crime, which is defined by law as the killing of a child by a parent or step-parent, is known as filicide. Filicide is the general term used to describe the death of a child in these situations. There are two sub-types of filicide that differ by the age of the victim. Neonaticide is the murder of a new-born less than 24 hours old, while infanticide is the killing of a child before their first birthday. Paternal filicide is the crime committed by the father, and maternal filicide is the crime committed by the mother.
The crime of filicide is exceedingly common in society and frequently appears in the news, but little information is provided about it. An excellent example of neonaticide is the present case of Alexee Trevizo. She was brought to the hospital in January 2023 with back pain when doctors were able to confirm that the then-19-years-old was pregnant. Shortly after, she went to the bathroom where she gave birth and smothered the infant to death, and then hid it in the trash. Research has demonstrated that young, unmarried mothers are frequently the perpetrators of neonaticide. When pregnant, women are unable to set goals or explore alternative possibilities, including abortion. Additionally, it has been discovered that neonaticidal women experience persistent denial of their pregnancy due to a pseudo-awareness of their condition. The most common cause of death is asphyxiation, and many mothers have major mental illnesses. They commit the murder because they are ashamed or afraid of having children, or because the child would get in the way of their academic or professional objectives. Rose West killed her 8-year-old step-daughter Charmaine in 1971, and Fred West killed his 16-year-old daughter Heather in 1987, both of which were acts of filicide. it has a long history and many different motivations, and it may be traced back hundreds of years. Because of an unnatural conception, a physical or mental handicap, the parent’s own mental illness, or even through ritual sacrifice, parents have killed their children. When China’s one-child policy was implemented in the 1980’s to reduce population, neonaticide rates skyrocketed if abortion was unsuccessful, and gender was very much a defining factor. Because boys were valued more than girls, new-born infant girls were essentially left to perish in the streets.
As indicated above, a parent may commit filicide for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways. One of the first to become intrigued by this phenomena was Phillip Resnick, who created a five-category classification based on more than 100 reported filicide incidents between 1751 and 1967. He listed the following five most typical reasons:
• Altruistic filicide was discovered to be the driving force when the parent had a sincere belief that their child was in pain, whether from a real or imagined condition, and wanted to make them feel better. There have also been occasions where a parent intended to kill themselves and chose to kill their child instead to save them the suffering that their death would bring.
• Acutely psychotic filicides happen when a parent murders their child while suffering from a severe mental illness.
• Unwanted child filicides occur when a parent decides they no longer desire the child and decides to kill them.
• Last but not least, abuse that is lethal results in filicides of children.
Resnick’s classification was updated by D’Orban, who concentrated on a sample of filicidal mothers. She distinguished between retaliating mothers (who killed their children in retaliation for problems with the father), unwanted children, and mercy killing. She also distinguished between mentally ill mothers – who had been diagnosed with a mental illness –, neonaticides, and battering mothers who killed their child as an impulsive and immediate reaction to misbehaviour.
The case of Andrea Yates is among the most-well known examples of maternal filicide. She has been branded ‘the bathtub killer’ and is best known as ‘the mother who drowned her five children in a bathtub’. But few people are aware of her story outside of the sensational headlines.
Andrea Yates drowned each of her children one at a time on June 20, 2001, in the bathtub of her home in Houston, Texas. She has five kids: Noah (age 7), John (age 5), Paul (age 3), Luke (age 2), and Mary (age 6 months). Andrea had a long history of mental illness before this episode, and each subsequent pregnancy only made her condition worse and exacerbated her feelings of loneliness and anxiety. She made two suicide attempts and was hospitalised twice in 1999 after the birth of Luke. Medical experts cautioned her against having another child out of concern that her symptoms may worsen. She started having auditory and visual hallucinations after giving birth to her fifth and last child in 2000, which warned her that her children were in danger, and she needed to save them. After it was determined that she needed immediate care, she was admitted to a treatment facility, where her condition considerably improved. She was released and put on medication, however approximately three months before the incident she stopped taking the prescribed medication since she was still breastfeeding.
After her hospital stay, when her friends and family described her, they observed a ‘caged animal’ and said she dissociated frequently and spoke of Satan’s presence. They refused to report her behaviour to the relevant professionals because they were concerned of the stigma. Yates was later found to have post-partum psychosis, a very serious variation of post-partum depression. In fact, filicide or injury to the infant is one of the many dangerous side effects, making it the most dangerous form of post-partum illness. It is a serious mental condition, about which not enough is known, and because the symptoms can change over time, it is very difficult to diagnose in a woman. Hallucinations is another symptom: Yates mentioned hearing voices telling her that her children had been marked by Satan and were destined for hell when she was explaining why she killed them. Killing them was the only way to save them. She was accused of murder in the first degree but pleaded not guilty due to insanity. She was found guilty and convicted in 2001 and given a life sentence with a minimum of 40 years in jail. Her conviction was overturned in 2006 when a psychiatrist for the prosecution in the original trial admitted he gave false testimony, and she was found to be mentally ill at the time of her children’s deaths. She was subsequently admitted to a state mental facility.
It is clear that Yates did not fully comprehend the seriousness of her actions and sincerely thought she was protecting her children from a much worse fate at the time. In addition, any time a woman enters the criminal justice system in defiance of social norms for her gender, she is perceived as an outlier. How did she so drastically deviate from what is considered to be ‘normal’ feminine behaviour? When it comes to a mother and her children, this perception is multiplied tenfold because a mother is viewed as someone who demonstrates strength rather than strain when raising a child.
Although paternal filicide is fundamentally the same crime, it has certain unique characteristics. Chris Watts is frequently connect to this crime. In killing his two daughter Bella and Celeste, he did commit paternal filicide; however, because he also killed his wife Shannan, he also committed familicide and became known as a family annihilator.
Now, a history of abuse is frequently present when it comes to paternal filicide, and retaliatory filicide is one of the most frequently cited causes of action. According to one definition of retaliatory filicide, it occurs when an adult decides to inflict their wrath towards their partner’s child. In other words, the perpetrator decides to inflict their fury on their children rather than their partner. Paternal filicide has sadly received relatively little research, most likely due to the stereotypes associated with male rage, as it is frequently discovered to be motivated by anger.
In 2006, Tyrone Spellman beat his 17-month-old daughter to death after she accidentally unplugged his XBOX console while he was playing it. As with many cases of paternal filicide, the parent has an uncontrollable outburst and unintentionally murders the child. There are also situations where the father is motivated by problems with the mother of the child. Fathers have killed the children to indirectly harm the mother, regardless of whether she is actively considering leaving the relationship or whether there are already problems between them. To ‘get back’ at their other after she left him in 2022, David da Silva Lemos killed his four children by stabbing them to death. In 2000, Cameron Brown threw his four-year-old daughter Lauren off a cliff in an act of revenge against the mother as they were going through a custody dispute at the time.
Since little study has been done on paternal filicide, it is difficult to say how many of those who commit the crime experience mental health problems that would motivate them to commit the crime. One particularly interesting aspect is that fathers who commit filicide are more likely to commit suicide following the act, although this has been noted in cases of maternal filicide also. Filicide is a very complicated and multifaceted crime with numerous contributing variables. These parents are frequently portrayed in the worst possible light by the media, and it is likely that this is justified given that they engaged in the worst possible behaviour for a parent.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written. On its central case it is more careful than most, and the correction is only to the dates. Andrea Yates was convicted in March 2002, not 2001, and sentenced to life; the conviction was overturned in January 2005 after a prosecution psychiatrist's testimony was found to be false, and at the retrial in July 2006 she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state hospital, where she remains. The article states the overturning, which is more than most accounts do. This archive carries her at five deaths in the multiple tier rather than as a serial killer, because the five children were killed in one event. Filicide as a category sits outside what this roster is built to count, and the piece is published here as an argument about that gap rather than as a case file.