Quadruple hanging: a rare scenario in filicide-suicide

Abstract

Background: Dyadic deaths comprise of deaths occurring when two or more persons die together or one after another in the same incident either with or without a pact. The incidence of dyadic deaths varies from community to community. The international rate of homicide-suicide dyadic deaths ranges from 0.05 to 0.55 per 100,000. A variant of homicide-suicide known as filicide-suicide involves the killing of children by a parent. Terms ‘maternal filicide’ or ‘paternal filicide’ are used when the perpetrators are the mother or the father of the victim respectively. In all alleged and suspected cases of filicide-suicide, the information collected during the police investigations, crime scene investigations and autopsy findings should be corroborated carefully to avoid missing valuable information that can reveal unknown perpetrators related to the incident. Case presentation: We report a rare case of the filicide-suicide, where the perpetrators were parents who killed their children by hanging before hanging themselves at their residence. Conclusions: The information collected during the police investigation, crime scene investigation and autopsy findings should be corroborated carefully to avoid missing valuable information that can reveal an unknown perpetrator related to the incident. In such cases, the forensic pathologist plays a critical role in the assessment and determination of the various risk factors associated with such incidences to the medical and legal community.