Filicide is the term used for parents who have murdered either their own children or stepchildren. The murder victims do not have to be children but do have to be the child of their killer. The parents who kill their children may have different reasons, to it is to protect, harm or get rid of their child.
According to one U.S. study that was done in 2014 used 32 years of data. They found that at least 500 filicides happen in a single year. At least 50 of the cases of filicide was from the last five years of the study were done to the disabled. And within the last three decades, the act of filicide has decreased and did not increase with the '90s with the population increase.
Filicide on children 6 and under have taken up 72% of the murders and 10% was between 7 and 18 and 18% were with adult children. 1/3 of Infants who were killed were less than a year old. It was found that during times of higher economic stress that there are more cases of filicides (infanticide) involving infants.
A father killing their son is more possible (29.5%) than a mother killing her son (22.1%) In the cases involving daughters a mother will more than likely kill her (19.7%) than a father (18.2%). The rarest cases are with stepmothers killing their stepson (.5%) or stepdaughter (.3%).
Parents were more than likely to use their hands when murdering their children. Some examples are forced drowning, beating and or choking which is the case with 69% of infanticide. As the victim gets older weapons like guns are used which is the case with 72.3% of adult victims. Contact weapons like bats and edged weapons like knives were less likely used. Men were more than likely to use a gun than women. Stepparents are more than likely to use guns (40%) than biological parents (21%).
SOURCES
Brown
Dictionary
Autistic Advocacy
NCBI
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