A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. A biological father is the male genetic contributor to the creation of the infant, through sexual intercourse or sperm donation. A biological father may have legal obligations to a child not raised by him, such as an obligation of monetary support. An adoptive father is a man who has become the child's parent through the legal process of adoption. A putative father is a man whose biological relationship to a child is alleged but has not been established. A stepfather is a non-biological male parent married to a child's preexisting parent and may form a family unit but generally does not have the legal rights and responsibilities of a parent in relation to the child.
A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestational surrogacy.
Frederick Walter Stephen West was an English serial killer, who committed at least twelve murders between 1967 and 1987 in Gloucestershire, the majority with his second wife, Rose West.
Filicide is the deliberate act of a parent killing their own child. The word filicide is derived from the Latin words filius and filia and the suffix -cide, from the word caedere meaning 'to kill'. The word can refer to both the crime and perpetrator of the crime.
Patricide is the act of killing one's own father. The word patricide derives from the Latin word pater (father) and the suffix -cida. Patricide is a sub-form of parricide, which is defined as an act of killing a close relative. In many cultures and religions, patricide was considered one of the worst sins. For example, according to Marcus Tullius Cicero, in the Roman Republic it was the only crime for which the civilian could be sentenced to death.
Jürgen Bartsch was a West German serial killer who murdered four boys aged between 8 and 13 and attempted to kill a fifteen-year-old boy. The case of this sexual offender was the first in German jurisdiction history to include psycho-social factors of the defendant, who came from a violent early surrounding, to set down the sentence.
Matricide is the act of killing one's own mother.
Uxoricide is the killing of one's own wife. It can refer to the act itself or the person who carries it out. It can also be used in the context of the killing of one's own girlfriend. Conversely, the killing of a husband or boyfriend is called mariticide.
Sororicide is the act of murdering one's own sister.
Mariticide literally means the killing of one's own husband. It can refer to the act itself or the person who carries it out. It can also be used in the context of the killing of one's own boyfriend. In current common law terminology, it is used as a gender-neutral term for killing one's own spouse or significant other of either sex. Conversely, the killing of a wife or girlfriend is called uxoricide.
Idella Kathleen Hagen was a former medical doctor who gained notoriety for being accused of murder by asphyxia of her parents, Idella Hagen, aged 92, and James Hagen, aged 86, with a plastic bag and a pillow as they slept in their home in Chatham Township, New Jersey, in August 2000. A month earlier, she had returned to her parents' house from her home in the Virgin Islands because of their age and deteriorating health. Hagen, a woman of considerable means, had previously cut short a medical career in urology in 1987 to move to the Virgin Islands to operate an inn with her second husband.
The Tochigi patricide case, or Aizawa patricide case, is a landmark father–daughter incest and patricide case in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. The trial of the incident is also known as its common case name Aizawa v. Japan. In the incident, a victimized daughter, Chiyo Aizawa who had been sexually abused by her father for about 15 years, eventually killed him on October 5, 1968. She was accused and convicted of murdering her father, but her sentence was suspended.
A familicide is a type of murder or murder-suicide in which an individual kills multiple close family members in quick succession, most often children, spouses, siblings, or parents. In half the cases, the killer lastly kills themselves in a murder-suicide. If only the parents are killed, the case may also be referred to as a parricide. Where all members of a family are killed, the crime may be referred to as family annihilation.
Avunculicide is the act of killing an uncle. The word can also refer to someone who commits such an act. The term is derived from the Latin words avunculus meaning "maternal uncle" and caedere meaning "to cut down" or "to kill". Edmunds suggests that in mythology avunculicide is a substitute for parricide. The killing of a nephew is a nepoticide.
Poena cullei under Roman law was a type of death penalty imposed on a subject who had been found guilty of patricide. The punishment consisted of being sewn up in a leather sack, with an assortment of live animals including a dog, snake, monkey, and a chicken or rooster, and then being thrown into water.
Paul Mones is an American lawyer and author. Mones specializes in representing victims of child sexual abuse against institutions like the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church. He has also defended children accused of killing a parent. He is the author of the books When a Child Kills: Abused Children Who Kill Their Parents and Stalking Justice: The Dramatic True Story of the Detective Who First Used DNA Testing to Catch a Serial Killer.
Known as the Chin Swee Road child death case, the charred skeletal remains of a 30-month-old girl, whose given name was Umaisyah, were first discovered hidden and sealed inside one of the metal cooking pots from a flat in Chin Swee Road on 10 September 2019. After they uncovered the identity of Umaisyah's remains, the police found that her parents, who used to reside in the flat, were likely responsible for killing the girl five years before in March 2014. The cause of Umaisyah's death was due to her father slapping her on the face twice or thrice with great force, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury that led to a brain seizure, causing Umaisyah to die and her parents, who did not seek medical help for her, burnt the body to avoid detection of their daughter's murder and abuse and the father's drug use.
On 11 August 2017, at an unspecified location in Singapore, a five-year-old Singaporean girl, whose first name was Ayeesha, died in her flat after being severely starved and abused by her birth father. Before her death, Ayeesha and her younger brother were both confined naked inside the toilet of her father's flat for ten months, and they were both being ill-treated for about two years before the death of Ayeesha; Ayeesha's brother survived the abuse in spite of the extensive trauma and injuries he endured. Ayeesha's father was arrested and charged with murder, and also faced 25 counts of abusing Ayeesha and her brother.
From March to November 2020, an 11-year-old Singaporean girl, whose name was withheld due to a gag order, was physically abused by her stepfather Mohamad Fazli Selamat and mother Roslinda Jamil inside their Jurong flat. The girl died on 10 November 2020, four days after Fazli used an exercise bar to batter her multiple times on the head, and Roslinda reportedly did not intervene. Fazli, an auxiliary police officer, and Roslinda were both arrested and charged with murder after the girl's death came to light. Eventually, the charges of murder against the couple were downgraded to manslaughter and multiple other counts of child abuse; Roslinda became the first person to be charged with allowing the death of her daughter in the same household, pursuant to a new law aimed to curb child abuse since 2020. After pleading guilty to their respective charges, the couple were sentenced in February 2024 to jail terms ranging from seven years to nearly 16 years, with Fazli additionally given 12 strokes of the cane for the manslaughter of his stepdaughter.
