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

[Leafyhouse]

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.

Horrible news.

The one consolation for want of a better word of the murder of Leanne McKie was that her husband didn't kill their children also. Although their lives have still been destroyed.

That is horrific.

Family annihilators are not always mentally ill. People should stop perpetuating that myth and treating them as victims.

No, you look at the bigger picture.

whats that then?

i am now well and do not have them thoughts and cringe when i think about it

Spring, I'm pleased to read that you're well. You've nothing to cringe about; you were unwell, and it did horrific things to you; but you're well now and I bet you give your son the most wonderful life.

And Charlotte Bevan didn't go and butcher her partner to death first.

He gets absolutely zero sympathy from me. I hope he rots in hell.

a small subset of men who think they own their families and are so obsessed by them that they can't permit them to carry on living if life isn't exactly how the killer dictates it should be.

Right... that doesn't sound like a mentally well person to me.

The guy in Spalding who killed his wife, daughter and then himself was apparantly just a nasty controlling bastard according to his adult sons. He’d found out his wife was wanting a divorce and wouldn’t have it.

I agree Shamoo. Had he killed only his wife people would not be saying poor man, he is mentally ill.

control and anger issues
Are these not problems too?

yy AnyFucker

It suits people to think that these are 'one-off' events where a man has gone 'mad'/tragic/unavoidable etc etc.

This is the extreme end of Male Violence Against Women & Girls (MVAWG).

We need to take domestic violence much more seriously.

The media feeds into this narrative by actively looking to publicise comments such as 'oh he was a nice normal chap' etc.

These article from Everyday Victim Blaming are very illuminating on the subject of family annihilators:

"Family Annihalators - Demonstrating the complexities of relationships"

"Analysis of appalling media coverage"

"Murder is NOT a domestic incident"

Also a BBC article giving a voice to the sons of the Spalding man who shot his wife and daughter.

You cannot get any more violent than killing.

I’m in the domestic violence/ family wipeout camp here - two women per week are killed by male partners or ex-partners, there are no comparable stats for women perpetrators and male victims. Men who kill their partner and take their children with them too is a known domestic violence risk - there may be mental health issues there but it’s still ultimately abusive.

That poor woman and her kids.

How many other people were thinking to themselves, "I bet it was another abusive controlling dickhead man" as they clicked on this thread?

I'm sick of mental health being wheeled out as an explanation whenever someone does something horrible. Some people are violent and hateful. That does not mean they are mentally ill.

The vast majority of those who suffer from mental health problems are no threat to anyone but themselves and live invisible lives.

a small subset of men who think they own their families and are so obsessed by them that they can't permit them to carry on living if life isn't exactly how the killer dictates it should be.

Right... that doesn't sound like a mentally well person to me.

Well I guess you could then argue that every murderer is mentally unwell.

Because to most, normal people killing someone doesn’t seem very sane.

Maybe we should let all the murderers out of prison, including the serial killers and give them counselling and meds.

Not all women who do it are mentally ill either. Every case has to be investigated on an individual basis.

It's baffling how many women are so desperate to defend and excuse family annihilators.

Have your own problems, but why take the children?

You mean why take your wife and children?

If he'd just killed his wife would he be unwell, or a murderous piece of shit?

He annihilated his family. All of my sympathy is saved for the three people he killed.

I remember the man who murdered his family a couple of summers ago in Ireland - there was a lot of sympathy for him and his purported MH issues but then it later transpired that he had been terrorising his family behind closed doors for years and the murders were a culmination of this.

Her name was Clodagh. She and her children were subject to the most disgusting disrespect as a direct result of people's sympathy for their murderer. Because he was a 'good man' and a 'pillar of the community'. He ''use have been unwell' because they 'never would have imagined'. No. He was an abuser and a murderer and that is it.

Was he mad bad or sad? Who knows? It does absolutely depend on the case in question. Both men and women do it. Men tend to be more of a ticking time bomb because they are least likely to seek help with mental illness, to talk through issues with relationships etc. Women’s risks include undiagnosed post natal depression and post natal psychosis. Some people (not just men) are truly awful people who do it in cold blood.

I'd possibly feel sympathy towards him if he hadn't murdered a woman and young children in a sickening way. As it is I only have pity and sorrow for them. RIP to the woman and her children.

No, you look at the bigger picture.

whats that then?

Briefly, when women kill their children and themselves, they do so usually when in a state of very poor mental health, and they do so because at the time they believe that they are acting in the best interests of their child(ren).

Men who do this, often also kill the children's mother as well as the children, and they do this as a form of control, as a punishment, to show that these particular human beings belong to them, and are theirs to do with as they wish.

There is a very clear gender difference here.

That poor family.
What a bastard.