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.

We have to see him as a whole person if we want to solve the problem, though.

I agree - but too often we are only seeing him as the whole person, here. And too often that "seeing the whole person" plays out as sympathy, stories about how nice the guy was, how "tragic" it all is, without ever really focusing on the fact that he murdered people.

What was the case where it was all treated as a tragedy almost in the vein of a natural disaster, nobody to blame, and the murderer was buried with the woman and kids he'd murdered as though he hadn't put them there in the grave himself?

A gross, narcissistic shithead who wants to destroy his family because he's a violent man.

THIS.

If this man had gone on a killing spree involving victims who weren't his wife and kids nobody would be saying poor man, or we musn't rush to judge

AND THIS.

So how come these ill delusional failed men dont kill their own parents or their best friends?

They dont because they dont think they own and control them. Unlike with their partners and kids.

@ArcheryAnnie you spectacularly missed my point. I don’t know why he did this and neither does anyone - not you nor the people defending this man’s actions and assuming he’s mentally ill. Interesting that you assumed I was on a particular “side” . I’m not. Statistically, it’s unlikely that he has a psychotic illness so severe that he murdered his family but that doesn’t mean I am assuming he is an evil monster. As I said, I don’t know.

Why is everyone saying mentally ill, what is the proof of this.
Maybe it is just another narcissistic abusive man, why are 90% of these crimes perpetrated by men. Surely if it was mental illness there would be an equal amount of women carrying out these crimes.

Nope, Sunny. All I see in you is someone who jumped into a thread to berate women for talking about male violence.

It's absolutely dreadful, I feel desperately sorry for the extended family, it's truly horrendous.

Those who say “poor man” are just as misguided as those who say “evil” man. I agree with lougle that this thread is in poor taste in general given how recently this happened.

I think some assume mental illness because it's impossible to consider a man in full possession of his faculties could murder his children.

But wickedness does exist.

Archery it’s weird that you see that. I don’t know why and I mean that genuinely. I just think it’s horrible to speak about a recent crime scheme as if you know it all. A discussion about the closure of women’s refuges and the way society views DV is so important but we don’t know that this was DV at this point.

I remember Clodagh and her children being murdered by her husband. I think of her often. She died the same week I left my ex for good that’s probably why.

I often think of her too, the talk after those murders was horrendous and I don't know how her family listen to it. And he wasn't mentally ill just afraid he was going to lose his standing in the community because he had caught watching pornography at work and decided that as he owned his family he would take them with him.
I actually find the mentally ill line very offensive, the vast vast majority of people who are mentally ill are a danger to themselves not other people.

we don’t know that this was DV at this point.

A man murders his wife and children. What the fuck else is it, if not domestic violence?

To say that someone must be mentally unwell to commit murder is not to say they bear no responsibility for their actions, or to say that sympathy should lie with them.

Saying that society is partly to blame for driving people to the point they murder, or that lack of funding for mental health services might leave people vulnerable, is not excusing anyone but is actually offering a route to prevent this horrific crime from occurring in the future.

So yes I believe you have to meet any reasonable definition of mental illness to be able to kill your own family. And what are we going to do about the epidemic of mental illness amongst men that is resulting in all this domestic violence?

Maybe we need to look at everything from advertising that perpetuates male control/strength/success as desireable and defining for men? Maybe we need to stop putting boys in T-shirts that say 'here comes trouble' and saying 'boys will be boys' when they start fighting. Maybe we need to encourage them to play with dolls and engage in creative roll play games while young, instead of taking dolls off them and passing them a car instead? Maybe we need to be funding the hell out of mental health provision aimed at obsessive or violent behaviour in men?

I see labelling men as 'evil' as society attempting to exempt itself from blame and hence justifying our failure to take action.

As a mentally ill person I am offended that it is assumed this evil man is being classed as mentally ill. Most mentally ill people are not a risk to other, only themselves. To kill your wife and then get in the car, with your sons, drive them a considerable distance and kill them in what must have been a terrifying way, shows some degree of planning and mental awareness. Actually acutely mentally people tend to get their driving license taken away or can’t cognitively function enough to drive competently.

Fuck that, that man was an evil bastard. RIP his poor wife and kids. I dread to think what they went through.

I just think it’s horrible to speak about a recent crime scheme as if you know it all

I don't know anything about this particular case at all, and I have never claimed to, Sunny. I do know there is a well-established pattern of family annihilators and male violence, and when I see a thread of people responding "oh, poor desperate man, he must have been so unwell" in response to another instance of extreme male violence, I will come and point that out.

And, as Soupy says, if killing your wife and throwing your kids off a cliff isn't "domestic violence", what is?

Sorry I worded that badly, I said we don’t know why he did it. Statistically, it’s far more likely that he did this with evil intent that psychotic intent. I did say that.

morphene sorry, that is bollox. What mental illness did this man have? Bipolar? Schizophrenia? Highly unlikely.

You are describing toxic masculinity not mental illness.

‘We’ are not responsible for this mans actions.

Would posters say this on a child abuse thread? "Oh he might have a mental illness". Yeah. So. Hes also a bastards. Bastards get ill sometimes but its still their bastardness that makes them a bastard.

Child murder is child abuse. Hes an abuser. Not a victim

I also did say that saying “poor man, he’s unwell” is not ok. It’s also offensive to mentally ill people who are not violent because creates associations and actually, a mentally ill person is more likely to be a victim of crime than a perp.

Hi there,

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A mentally ill person does a load of stuff at the same time. They don't kill their wives with a knife, get in a car with their children, drive two hours to a cliff edge, shove their children off the cliff and then jump.

That's the behaviour of an evil man, punishing his wife.

A selfish prick. No doubt it will come to light he was either being dumped and thought if I can’t have my family no one can. He’d lost loads of money and didn’t want to subject his family to it or it was otherwise a dysfunctional family. No one seems to know them or seen them in the area.

Fair enough Sunny. I took against your original post because you called us all "disgusting" for speaking about this at all.