Parricide refers to the deliberate killing of one's own father and mother, spouse, children, and/or close relative. However, the term is sometimes used more generally to refer to the intentional killing of a near relative. It is an umbrella term that can be used to refer to acts of matricide and patricide.
Henry Lee Lucas, also known as The Confession Killer, was an American convicted murderer. Lucas was convicted of murdering his mother in 1960 and two others in 1983. He rose to infamy as a claimed serial killer while incarcerated for these crimes when he falsely confessed to approximately six hundred other murders to Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials. Many unsolved cases were closed based on the confessions and the murders officially attributed to Lucas. Lucas was convicted of murdering eleven people and condemned to death for a single case with a then-unidentified victim, later identified as Debra Jackson.
Jane Longhurst was a British special-needs teacher and musician who was murdered by Graham Coutts on 14 March 2003. Longhurst's partly decomposed body was found burning in woodland in West Sussex on 19 April. Coutts, who was dating Longhurst's best friend, was a guitarist and part-time salesperson living in Brighton.
Richard Francis Cottingham is an American serial killer who was convicted in New York of six murders committed between 1972 and 1980 and convicted in New Jersey of twelve murders committed between 1967 and 1978. He was nicknamed by media as the Torso Killer and the Times Square Ripper, since some of the murders he was convicted of included mutilation.
Azumi Muto was a Japanese pin-up model and aspiring actress for an agency in Tokyo, Japan. She was murdered by her 21-year-old brother Yuki Muto on December 30, 2006. Her death aroused the tabloids' notice for the circumstances surrounding the crime.
Tara Lynn Grant was a married American woman, mother of two children from Macomb County, Michigan, and a successful consultant at Washington Group International. She became nationally known as the victim of murder by her husband, Stephen Grant, in February 2007.
Quanell X is an activist and leader of the New Black Panther Nation in Houston, Texas.
Three members of the Richardson family were murdered in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada in April 2006. The murders were planned and committed by the family's 12-year-old daughter Jasmine Richardson and her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke, now going by the name Jackson May. Richardson and Steinke were each convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. Richardson, who had turned 13 before being convicted, is thought to be the youngest person in Canada ever convicted of multiple first-degree murder counts. Her 10-year sentence was completed on May 6, 2016.
Jennifer Lee Daugherty was an American woman who was torture-murdered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania as an act of revenge in February 2010. Daugherty, who was mentally disabled, was tortured and murdered before being wrapped in Christmas decorations, put inside a garbage can, and dumped in the parking lot of Greensburg-Salem Middle School.
Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets is an American true crime television series on the Investigation Discovery Network. The program is different from other true-crime series because the murders are portrayed from the omniscient point-of-view of the victim using "fictionalized dialogue". While the all-seeing narrator knows who was responsible, the series allows viewers to piece together who is the culprit based on clues from investigators, family and friends as each story unfolds. Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets has been compared to the 2009 film The Lovely Bones in which a 13-year-old girl is murdered and views from heaven as her family copes with the tragedy. The program is known as I Was Murdered in the United Kingdom, and at the beginning of the third season, which began airing in 2013, the show adopted that title.
Regina and Margaret DeFrancisco were two teenage girls who made national headlines for the high-profile murder of Oscar Velazquez, Regina's boyfriend, in Chicago in June 2000. The two women allegedly lured Velazquez to their home in the Pilsen neighborhood, where he was shot to death and his body was wrapped in a tarp and set on fire. Following the murder, the two teenagers gained national notoriety when they became fugitives from justice, and they were apprehended separately in 2002 after their story was broadcast on Unsolved Mysteries and America's Most Wanted. They were each convicted of first-degree murder in 2004.
The murder of Jennifer Cave occurred in the West Campus area of Austin, Texas. On August 18, 2005, Cave's body was discovered. In 2009, Chuck Lindell of the Austin American-Statesman called it the "most infamous West Campus crime".
The murder of Jenjira Ployangunsri was a sensational crime that took place in Thailand in 1998. Jenjira, a 23-year-old medical student, was killed on 26 January, and her body subsequently dismembered, by her boyfriend Serm Sakhonrat, also a medical student. The case received intense media coverage as the investigation proceeded over the following weeks until Serm was arrested and parts of Jenjira's body were identified. It saw the beginning of the use of DNA forensics in criminal investigation in Thailand and brought public attention to the work of forensic pathologist Porntip Rojanasunan.
Rebecca Marie Watts was a British student from Bristol who was murdered in 2015 at the age of 16. In November 2015, her step-brother, Nathan Matthews, was found guilty of her murder and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 33 years. His girlfriend, Shauna Hoare, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years in prison, although Hoare had insisted to police that she had nothing to do with the killing, or dismembering Watts' body and hiding the parts. Both Matthews and Hoare were also convicted of conspiracy to kidnap, preventing the lawful burial of a body, perverting the course of justice and possession of two stun guns.
On June 6, 2006, a teenage boy named Gabriel Granillo was stabbed to death at Ervan Chew Park, in the Neartown district in Houston, Texas. His killer, Ashley Paige Benton, underwent a criminal murder trial which resulted in a hung jury. Benton's lawyers and the assistant Harris County district attorney agreed to give Benton probation in exchange for Benton pleading guilty to aggravated assault. Her probation was ended early in 2009, and her criminal charge was to be dismissed as part of terms of successfully completing her probation.
The barbecue murders, also known as the BBQ murders, refers to a 1975 double murder in Marin County, California, United States. Business consultant James "Jim" Olive and his wife Naomi were murdered in their home by their 16-year-old adopted daughter Marlene and her 20-year-old boyfriend Charles "Chuck" Riley, who then attempted to dispose of the bodies by burning them in a barbecue pit at a nearby campground. Riley was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and received a sentence of death, which was later changed to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Marlene, tried as a juvenile, received a sentence of three to six years in a California Youth Authority juvenile facility, from which she was released at age 21 having served a little over four years.
Joseph Roy Metheny was an American serial killer and rapist from the Baltimore, Maryland area. While he claimed to have killed 13 people, sufficient evidence was only found to convict him of two murders. Research later confirmed 3 more victims, through matching his confessions to evidence.
On November 26, 2016, 61-year-old Joel Guy Sr. and 55-year-old Lisa Guy were murdered and dismembered by their son, 28-year-old Joel Michael Guy Jr., in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Guy Jr. stabbed his father at least 42 times, his mother at least 31 times. He was convicted of both murders in October 2020 and received a sentence of life imprisonment.
Larry M. Ralston is an American serial killer and rapist who kidnapped and killed between four and five girls and young women in Ohio from 1975 to 1977. Originally sentenced to die in the electric chair, Ralston's sentence was later commuted to four life sentences with a chance of parole, although all of his applications have been denied.
Gregory B. McKnight is an American serial killer who was convicted killing two people whose bodies he hid on his property in Vinton County, Ohio, between May and November 2000. This followed his release from prison after killing a man in Columbus in 1992 when McKnight was only a teenager. McKnight was sentenced to death in 2002 and is currently awaiting execution.
