Murder-Suicide: Can it be prevented?

It’s happened again; this time in Amish country. All across America the too frequent headlines are pretty much the same: innocent children killed by gunfire from a murderer who saves at least one bullet for himself, or provokes the police to shoot him.

Does anyone see a pattern?

We who study self-destruction for a living know that homicide is often followed by suicide. The fact that innocents are killed before a final act of self-destruction only adds to the public’s sense of anger, confusion and helplessness. Any hope to understand the motivation for these “senseless murders” dies with the suicide victim, and we are left wondering, why?

Yet we know a few things about murder-suicide. We know that no homicide or suicide is without purpose or meaning. We know that murder-suicide, while rare, always makes sense to the perpetrator and therefore can be explained with a thorough historical examination of the facts. A brief review of the basics may be helpful.

First, when suicide follows murder it is important to understand that only the utterly hopeless kill themselves. A murder-suicide perpetrator’s last day on earth does not begin with the question, “And after I kill these people, how will I escape?” An escape is never planned because the decision to die has already been made.

To carry out a murder-suicide the perpetrator must answer several questions before launching the lethal agenda. These include why, who, with what, where and when? The motive (unendurable psychological pain and perceived injustice by others), means (firearm), and opportunity (where and when to find the victims), are at once understandable and knowable.

Second, the vast majority of suicidal people are suffering from serious untreated psychiatric illnesses, illnesses that can be reasonably detected, diagnosed, and successfully treated. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (www.nimh.org), more than 90% of those who die by suicide (whether homicidal or not) are suffering from a mental illness. If America had a viable mental health treatment system, as many as 16,000 thousands lives per year could be saved from untreated mood and substance abuse disorders alone. Perhaps hundreds of murder victims might be saved as well.

Third, media portrayals of these murder-suicides are not helpful, and often create a contagion effect, i.e., additional murder-suicides that would not have occurred had the first one not been irresponsibly reported by the press. The use of colorful but scientifically incorrect phrases as a “crazed gunman” or “disgruntled employee who “goes postal” do nothing to enlighten the public’s understanding of the underlying mental conditions and disordered thinking of those who kill others and then themselves, but may inspire similar acts in other suicide-receptive, vulnerable mentally ill persons.

Fourth, the decision to die by suicide is typically made well before any shooting begins. Since you cannot arrest, humiliate or punish a dead man, these homicidal acts are not indiscriminate, impulsive or random, but planned and premeditated. In most cases these deadly acts are preceded by observable suicide warning signs that a tragedy is about to unfold.

Suicide warning signs (statements of a desire to die, threats to end one’s life, giving away prized possessions, etc.) are common, observable, detectable, and can be responded to before the shooting begins. If taken seriously and boldly confronted with helpful assistance by fiends, colleagues, loved ones, and others, at least some murder-suicides are preventable.

Fifth, and sadly, there is no mystery in Amish country. There was no mystery last week in Colorado, and there will be no mystery next week or next month or the next time a “school shooting” takes place: we will soon learn the shooter was suicidal.

The facts are in, the causes familiar. If we are little comforted by what we will learn about the shooter, we should remember that the families of the victims (and I mean all who died) will suffer for their rest of their lives.

The only salient question is: Are these tragedies preventable?

According to the experts, the answer is yes. To quote our former Surgeon General, Dr. David Satcher, “Suicide is our most preventable form of death.”

To prevent murder-suicide in our communities we must first raise our collective awareness and develop a sense of shared responsibility for these events. School shootings won’t be stopped by schools, but by communities acting together to improve the mental health and well being of its members. In this area of American life, no community is immune. If a school shooting happens in Pennsylvania or Colorado or Kansas, it doesn’t happen there, it happens here, to you and to me, and to us as a people, and as a nation.

We must all work together to enhance our collective knowledge and competence to prevent suicide and homicide by learning to identify and assist suicidal people in our lives and communities before they act. We have the knowledge and we have the tools. The question is: Do we have the will?

Paul Quinnett, Ph.D. is President and CEO of the QPR Institute, Inc.