Domestic Estrangement and Familicide 1

This chapter discusses the case of domestic estrangement and familicide. Richard reported that his wife and her two daughters were missing from their middle-class home. Reports on the disappearance trickled down in the media, and what started as a tale of a sorrowful husband ended in a story that included marital estrangement, an extramarital affair, and the brutal killing of his wife and daughters at the hands of their husband and father. The chapter presents how the author studied the police files and the previous mental health reports to gain an initial impression of Richard's and others' statements to the police about his life and his offence. It summarizes the account Richard gave of the events, along with observations his parents made in the days after the supposed disappearance of Karen and the children. The chapter concludes that integration of empirical evidence with the findings from forensic psychological assessment increases our understanding of the perpetrator and his offence.