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Original poster

What kind of person jumps off a cliff with two children? **MNHQ warning: upsetting content**

553 replies

Leafyhouse · 06/03/2018 17:08

I've been really shaken by that story about the woman stabbed at home, and the father found at the bottom of the cliff with 2 dead children, 10 and 7.

Their home is about 400 yards away from me. I also have 2 DS's, aged 8 and 10. It's just made me sick to the core. Police and forensic officers all over this lovely house, in a really nice area - and for what? Why would someone do that? Have your own problems, but why take the children?

Just reeling at the moment, am going to hug my kids extra tight tonight. This one's just so very close to home.

OP posts:
Morphene · 08/03/2018 01:44

I don't believe the law should ever be about more than keeping people safe. In this respect our DV laws are woefully inadequate. They don't keep women safe and they don't keep children safe.

I'd prefer a system that said 'ah, you have carried out a violent act against your family or have acted in some other way that suggests you don't believe your family are human beings in their own right rather than your personal possessions. We'll just lock you up for a few years for everyones safety while we see what the hell has gone wrong with your brain. IF and its a big IF, we think the problem's been fixed we might let you back out at some point.'

I'm genuinely not sure if we could build enough jails though.

madein1995 · 08/03/2018 01:53

Just read more of the thread - posters who are saying we'll he was mentally unwell, or they're all victims - those are the kind of attitudes that lead to our societys attitudes towards DV. Desperate not to vilify someone who in all probability, was abusive behind closed doors. Attitudes like this are part of the problem

Slartybartfast · 08/03/2018 06:44

Attitudes like this are part of the problem

I dont think so, considering he killed himself as well - i doubt very much he had much thought going on in his head.

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 08/03/2018 06:56

Also local (ish) and also upset by this

The kids must have been terrified. Their last hours don’t bear imagining . And the wider family

I am not going to comment on murderer now . Maybe he was a a jealous murderer let’s not assume MH

Lizzie48 · 08/03/2018 07:41

It's the attitude 'if I can't have you no one can'. And 'I can't live without you and I won't let you live without me.' I don't think it's MH as such, I think it's NPD. It's toxic. No justification, I hate the way the perpetrator is being seen as a victim, he's not.

LakieLady · 08/03/2018 07:58

Some of these cases my be down to mental illness, but I bet more of them are down to misogyny and control.

Remember the case* of the millionaire whose business was failing,
killed his wife, child(ren?), dogs, horses, burnt his mansion down, and killed himself? I'm sure he destroyed his family the same as he destroyed his possessions, because he felt in some way that they were his, to dispose of as he saw fit.

*I may be conflating two similar cases here, I can't remember the details.

AnimalDaze · 08/03/2018 08:00

but for me, it is the deaths of two innocent children and their final moments in fear that I find harrowing.

And their mother? You don't think she experienced fear as she was being stabbed to death?

As I was saying earlier, the murder of a woman just doesn't seem to count. In fact if it wasn't for the fact he killed his children we wouldn't even be discussing this as we probably wouldn't be aware of it, afterall the murder of women by their partners is so common it's not even worth reporting on most of the time, right?

bastardkitty · 08/03/2018 08:31

Yes, and the poor innocent mother! Seriously, I detest the way people talk about this as if murdering your wife/girlfriend/ex is a legitimate choice in adult relationships and only the children are victims. It's 2018. What is wrong with people?

Ereshkigal · 08/03/2018 08:34

Oscar Pistorius the same. 100% I think she was leaving him, and he wouldn’t accept it.

Agree. Or she did something to make him jealous. My abusive partner terrified me on several occasions when he thought I had talked to another man.

Lizzie48 · 08/03/2018 08:45

I agree, the murder of the poor mother is being minimised. I suspect that he made the decision to kill himself and his DCs just because he didn't want to go to jail, took the coward's way out like a lot of men who abuse women. Angry

OddS0ck · 08/03/2018 08:58

bastardkitty and animaldaze

Yes, 100% this. As if it's quite understandable that he would kill his wife, but the children too, that's too much.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if he told her what he was going to do with the children, he'd have wanted her to suffer.

I doubt he killed himself because he was suffering from mental health. He didn't want to face the consequences of his actions. It's one thing being the big, bullying man in your own home with your wife and little kids. Another altogether when you're locked up as a child killer in a high security prison.

user1494050295 · 08/03/2018 09:03

Near me too OP. Very sad

Elendon · 08/03/2018 09:14

It certainly seems to me to be premeditated and therefore murder.

My sympathy lies with the murdered and not the murderer.

It amazes me that anyone could garner a smidgen of sympathy for the man who does this.

Helmetbymidnight · 08/03/2018 09:35

Hitler, Stalin, etc, all mental illness, that's all.

Poor men.
They must have been desperate.
There must be good reason.
It's a mercy to kill the children.

All positions put forward on this enlightening thread.

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 08/03/2018 09:43

I am desperately sorry for the mother and appaled by this

I think people Comment on the Children more as (a) Children are to be protected and (b) the stabbing was probably a faster death than being driven by your maniac father and pushed off a cliff

Sorry to be quite so blunt but please do NOT think anyone is minimising this murder

Happy fucking women’s day Sad

Eltonjohnssyrup · 08/03/2018 09:59

I don't know why someone being driven via an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT type of overwhelming obsession that involves men perpetrating DV would not also be seen as mental illness and treated, not least because they are hurting women and treatment could potentially prevent that.

Morphene, they’re not really the same. OCD and anorexia are compulsion based on irrational thoughts which are not real or true (it I don’t wash my hands 50 times the house will burn down). DV is not a compulsion in the same way. It’s based on rational but unpleasant thought processes based in reality (if I hit my wife she’ll follow my orders). And the reason we don’t really ‘treat’ people who commit DV is even if there is MH problems behind it they are usually extremely difficult or impossible to treat. That’s why DV support focuses on ‘get out’ rather than ‘treat him’.

And besides, the conditions these people have are hugely prevalent. 1-5% of the population are thought to be psychopaths. Depression and anxiety are massively common. And yet only tiny numbers of people with them do this sort of thing and it’s impossible to single them out.

Morphene · 08/03/2018 10:43

elton I'm not sure we understand the pathology of DV well enough to say that it would be untreatable. We have only relatively recently decided it is actually criminal behaviour to be controlling and abusive in this way. We haven't put time or resource into understanding why the behaviour arises or more importantly how to make it stop.

I totally support the idea of getting women (and children) away from these men. But as an active thread on MN is currently proving, when a man perpetrates DV he gets a caution and the woman is advised to leave. And that's it. So now we have a person on the loose in society having learned nothing from perpetrating abuse but that he really does have the power to manipulate his family however he likes, just waiting for the next unsuspecting victim to walk into his life.

Why no re-education? Why no treatment whether for anger or control or obsessive issues? Without that, what hope is there that the pattern of offence will end?

Morphene · 08/03/2018 10:56

For what I hope is the final time, I am not saying that DV is due in any part to people having other comorbid mental health issues. I am saying that believing you own your family and being obsessive about controlling them to the point of committing DV should be recognised as a separate MH condition in its own right.

OCD is indeed a totally separate condition that while it certainly does cause controlling behaviour it would be off the chart rare for it to involve violence.

Depression is a totally separate condition that can again involve controlling behaviour is caused by a completely different set of conditions.

Anorexia is a totally different condition that needs treating differently.

There are many many different mental health conditions that all have different causes, courses and treatments.

I think recognizing that there is something mentally abnormal about a man who can't see his family as real people, who treats them as possessions, who needs desperately to feel in control of them, and who is prepared to be violent to them to maintain that control, is an important step in both forcing ourselves to confront the causes of such abnormaility and in producing effective treatments for it.

I mean either there is something wrong with every single perpetrator of DV, or DV is normal, and I absolutely refuse to accept that DV is normal.

EleanorXx · 08/03/2018 11:17

Somebody incredibly mentally ill. Oh and it’s not just men. There are plenty of cases of women doing the same.

KatherinaMinola · 08/03/2018 11:23

There are cases of women doing this, Eleanor, but I think they do it for different reasons - PND and postnatal psychosis being two (there was a case like that near me).

Family annihilators like this are nearly always (like 99%) men.

KatherinaMinola · 08/03/2018 11:31

OK, I don't know about the US/globally. I mean in the UK.

OddS0ck · 08/03/2018 12:02

Incredibly mentally ill (again)?

Or an abusive, controlling man? It is possible for someone to act in this way and have no mental health issues.

paranoidpammywhammy2 · 08/03/2018 12:22

From my experience - when people kill their families - there has been long-term domestic violence in every case.

The perpetrator has been 'mentally ill' and controlling for many years - it hasn't just come out of the blue. The murders seem triggered by a change in the other parent. The victim starts making steps to escape the abuse, reporting the abuse, consulting lawyers, getting a divorce or moving on to a new partner.

Identifying dangerous ex-partners and helping parents and children be safely rescued and remain safe should be a priority. Sadly my local branch of the family support centre is underfunded and there are never any spare places in the women's refuge.

Eltonjohnssyrup · 08/03/2018 12:27

obsessive about controlling them to the point of committing DV should be recognised as a separate MH condition in its own right.

That’s a terrible idea morphene. It wouldn’t fly for a start, because it wouldn’t fit the necessary criteria for classification as a disorder. But also because labelling DV as a ‘condition’ would remove responsibility and give it a veneer of respectability and an aura of victimhood for the perpetrator.

That would take us backwards to the old ‘crime of passion’ days when much DV was put down to uncontrollable feelings and excuses on those grounds. It’s a really, really bad idea.