Decoding Filicide: What drives parents to kill their children

After a Louisiana mass shooting where a father killed seven of his eight children, forensic psychiatrists explain filicide through Phillip Resnick’s five motives—fatal maltreatment, unwanted/neonaticide, spousal revenge, altruistic filicide, and acutely psychotic—emphasizing that motives are varied and often tied to mental health, stress, and relationships; the article notes that nearly 500 filicide arrests occur in the U.S. annually and that mothers and fathers kill at similar rates, with cases like Andrea Yates illustrating insanity defenses.