In the News: Domestic related Mass Murder-Suicides in Small Town USA

• In Event: Family and Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Interest in the study of mass murder has significantly increased over the past few years. Sociological and criminological inquiry has begun to look into various factors associated with, and leading up to, these tragic incidents. Adding to the growing body of literature, this research focuses on publicized incidents of mass murder whose reports appeared on news media websites throughout the United States. These reports were gathered by the Brady Campaign in a publicly available report; “Mass Shootings in the United States Since 2005”. A dataset was generated from this report comprised of mass shootings which qualified as mass murder in accordance with the FBI’s definition of three or more deaths in a single event. Analysis displayed correlations between incidents of mass murder associated with domestic situations, i.e. between family members, that resulted in the offender ending their own life. Initial findings from this research indicate that these mass murder-suicide incidents occurred at higher frequencies in cities with populations of less than 30,000 residents, with stronger correlations when there were four or more slain victims (excluding the offender). The results of this research are discussed and additional directions for future related research are presented.

Authors

• Mindy Weller, University of Central Florida

• Matthew Landon, University of Central Florida

• Lin Huff-Corzine, University of Central Florida