Youth kill their parents (a crime known as parricide)
According to forensic and behavioral science, youth kill their parents (a crime known as parricide) for three primary reasons: they are severely abused, they have a serious mental illness, or they exhibit dangerously antisocial behavior. While parricide is an infrequent crime, occurring in only 1–2% of all homicides, it most often happens within a deeply dysfunctional family dynamic.
The severely abused youth
In many adolescent parricide cases, the offender has been a victim of chronic and severe physical, sexual, or psychological abuse. In these situations, the violence is often a desperate last resort.
The “battered child syndrome”: This dynamic can create an environment of learned helplessness, where the child feels trapped and sees no way to escape the abuse except through murder.
Escalating violence: The child typically endures escalating violence and emotional neglect for years, with or without intervention from authorities or family.
Fear for self or others: The breaking point is often a moment of overwhelming fear that they or another family member will be seriously harmed or killed by the abusive parent.
A search for freedom: In these cases, the killing is not an act of malice but an attempt to survive and finally be free from the torment.
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In a smaller percentage of cases, parricide is committed by a youth suffering from a severe mental illness, most often psychosis or schizophrenia. The violence is a result of a break from reality rather than a desire to kill.
Psychotic symptoms: The teen’s actions are influenced by hallucinations, such as hearing voices, or delusions, such as believing their parent is an imposter, the devil, or an alien.
Untreated illness: This type of offender may have a pre-existing diagnosis but often has stopped taking medication or receiving treatment before the crime.
Altruistic motives: A specific, albeit rare, psychotic motive can be “altruistic,” where the child kills the parent to relieve them of perceived or real suffering due to old age or illness.
The dangerously antisocial youth
This profile is the most cold and manipulative, as the murder is not driven by fear or delusion but by a selfish and instrumental desire. These individuals may have a history of serious behavioral issues.
Removing an obstacle: The parent is seen as an obstacle preventing the child from getting what they want, whether it’s money, a lifestyle, or an illicit relationship.
Antisocial personality traits: Offenders in this category often exhibit a long-term pattern of violating others’ rights. This may stem from an underlying conduct disorder or antisocial personality disorder and can involve a lack of empathy.
Premeditated motive: Unlike reactive parricide, which is often a spontaneous explosion, antisocial parricide is typically premeditated and calculated.
Additional risk factors
Beyond the three main offender types, other interconnected risk factors contribute to a heightened risk of parricide.
Family dysfunction: Families with a history of alcohol abuse, substance abuse, or domestic violence have a higher risk.
Firearm access: The presence of readily available firearms in the home is strongly associated with juvenile parricide.
Social isolation: A pattern of social isolation, whether for the offender or the entire family, can lead to a dangerously insular and codependent environment.
Prior aggression: In some cases, a history of aggressive behavior from both the victim and the perpetrator can precede the event.
Why Kids Kill Parents: Child Abuse and Adolescent Homicide
Abstract
Using case studies and an analysis of FBI data, this volume examines the motivations and backgrounds of adolescents who murder their parents, explores types of intervention that are effective in treating both severely abused children and abused youth who kill their parents, and proposes ways in which the media and the educational system can help prevent both child abuse and parricide.
The text is directed to professionals in juvenile justice, criminology, law, mental health, education, and youth advocacy, as well as to others concerned with child and youth development. It concludes that adolescent murderers are almost all terrified victims of severe child abuse, neglect, and dysfunctional parenting who kill out of desperation. A combination of five interconnected social problems create the conditions for parricide. The youth is raised in a family with drug dependence or other dysfunction; the child is severely abused sexually, physically, and/or verbally; violence in the child’s family escalates; the youth becomes increasingly vulnerable to stressors in the home environment; and the child has ready access to a firearm. The two crucial factors are the availability of a gun and a chemically dependent or otherwise dysfunctional family. Most adolescent parricide offenders can be reintegrated into society through treatment, not imprisonment. Tables, chapter notes, appended data analysis, index, and about 300 references (Publisher summary modified)
Why kids kill: How a curiosity about the minds of young murderers drove 43 years of research and education
Heide is often called upon to testify as an expert in court cases. Photo: The Hutchinson News
More than four decades after she first set foot on the University of South Florida campus, Kathleen Heide is preparing to say goodbye. The Distinguished University Professor, who began teaching criminology at USF in 1981, will retire in August. To say she has made significant contributions to the field of criminology during her 43 years at the university would be an understatement. With a 42-page curriculum vitae – and that’s the abbreviated version – Heide is widely regarded as a leading expert on juvenile homicide and children who kill their parents, known as parricide.
Heide has been recognized with six awards for teaching excellence, including USF’s prestigious Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher Award. She was named a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Science for distinguished contributions to the field of criminology, particularly with respect to juvenile homicide and parricide. She was also elected to full membership in the American Psychological Association in recognition of her contributions to the field of psychology. She has authored or co-authored more than 150 publications, including four books, and has held two gubernatorial appointments to the Florida Sentencing Commission, which is responsible for establishing sentencing policies and practices for the court system. Her research has been featured by major news outlets around the world, and she has served as a consultant to the National Institute of Justice, National Institutes of Health and many state agencies. Heide has also served on 20 community boards.
Aside from her lasting mark on the field of criminology, she has also made an impact on the university community. As a dedicated professor, Heide has taught thousands of students, bringing an unmatched energy and real-world experience to her lectures. As she wraps up her final semester at USF, Heide reflected on her monumental career.
Q: The research area you’re most widely known for is juvenile homicide and parricide. How did you become interested in these unusual topics?
Heide: My interest in juvenile homicide offenders goes back to when I was a junior in college. I read a feature article in The New York Times Sunday magazine section that discussed how society had spawned “a new genetic strain of child murderer” who kills casually, gleefully and remorselessly. I thought, “Do kids like this really exist?” That article ignited a spark that has steered my research for the last 40-plus years.
I did not set out to study why kids kill parents. However, when I was interviewing juvenile homicide offenders in prison, I noticed that juveniles who killed parents tended to be different from kids who killed during a crime-related murder such as a “robbery gone wrong.” One of these juvenile parricide offenders called me following my interview with him in prison and said, “Dr. Heide, somebody has to tell the story about kids like me.” Official records corroborated the boy’s story that he had been severely abused by his alcoholic parents for years. He was in the process of running away from home when he killed his parents. The judge in the case showed the boy no mercy and sentenced him to life in prison.
Heide appeared on Larry King Live in 1992 during the widespread media coverage of her first book.
After receiving this boy’s call, I decided to write my first book entitled “Why Kids Kill Parents.” That book filled a void in the literature and was of great public interest. Shortly after its publication, I was a guest on Larry King Live and multiple talk shows. This widespread media coverage resulted in me being contacted by attorneys across the U.S. and, as a result, I had opportunities over the years to evaluate kids in 18 states and Canada. These experiences contributed to my becoming the expert I am today.
Q: How has the longevity of your career led to groundbreaking projects and research?
Heide: The coolest projects in which I have been involved are a direct result of the longevity of my career. I first interviewed a sample of 59 juvenile homicide offenders in prison in the early 1980s. Thirty years later, I did a follow-up study on recidivism. This study was the longest follow-up study ever conducted on juvenile homicide offenders. At that time, 48 of them had been released despite many receiving long sentences. Of these, 88% had been rearrested, 63% for violent crimes. My graduate students and I were able to identify factors associated with success.
Then, 35 years after our first meeting, I set out to interview the original sample subjects. The boys, who ranged from 14 to 17 at the time of their arrest, were now men in their 50s. Of the original 59 subjects, 10 were dead and I was able to locate 44 of the remaining 49. Half of these men agreed to speak with me. Meeting again with these individuals more than three decades later was truly fascinating. It enabled me to see factors that distinguished the men who succeeded post-release from those who did not. This study of juvenile homicide offenders, involving interviews over time, was – and remains – the first of its kind. I enjoyed every minute of this project!
Q: What other unique experiences have you had?
Heide: I have been invited to submit articles and book chapters on juvenile homicide and parricide to prestigious research journals and books. I have been invited also to do keynote addresses in the U.S. and abroad, which have led to research consultations and collaborations with researchers and practitioners. For example, I was one of a handful of experts invited by the queen of Spain to give a talk on juvenile homicide at the Queen Sofia Center for the Study of Violence. I was also invited to give the opening keynote address on parricide at a homicide conference sponsored by Griffith University and the Australian government. I was recently invited to give the opening keynote address on my research on juvenile homicide offenders at a psychology and law conference in Taiwan.
Over the years, I have collaborated with distinguished scholars and clinicians on juvenile homicide. For example, I was recently invited by Routledge Publishing, one of the leading global academic presses, to prepare and edit a volume on juvenile homicide. I invited renowned experts across the globe to join me in writing “The Routledge International Handbook of Juvenile Homicide.” The handbook, which has 48 chapters, covers everything about kids who kill “from soup to nuts.” It has been acclaimed as “the definitive work on juvenile homicide.”
Q: You’ve taught thousands of students and many of them have said your courses had an incredible impact because you made the learning experience “real” for them. How were you able to bring the excitement of the field into the classroom?
Heide: It was easy to bring excitement about the field because I felt it! I have always wanted my students to enjoy my classes while learning at the same time. I often started classes by talking about what was in the news. So many topics in criminal justice make the front page of the newspaper or appear on nightly news broadcasts. I would invite discussion and debate about the dynamics that led to current events, what should be done to the perpetrators and what should society do to prevent these types of incidents. When the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection occurred, I took the opportunity to discuss the events and to focus on topics like impeachment and the 14th amendment. I would say to students, “You don’t want to sleep through this. In the next 20 to 40 years, your children and grandchildren will want to know what it was like. You don’t want to tell them that you were not paying attention.”
I have also routinely invited experts in the field to speak to my students. Students love to hear from those who are in the system and benefit greatly from the opportunity to interact with those on the front line, including federal, state and local law enforcement officers, judges, wardens, defense attorneys and prosecutors, convicted drug traffickers, convicted murderers and people involved in the adult entertainment industry. I’ve also invited guests such as the chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, state senators and Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles. Students would line up after class to speak with them and it was not uncommon for these informal meetings to last for 30 to 45 minutes post-lecture.
For years, I taught a large lecture class called Crime and Justice in America that enrolled up to 440 students, depending on the classroom size, and would fill every seat. Before the era of mass shootings, I would have the SWAT team stage an incident in the classroom that would scare the students, despite warnings beforehand, and then they’d storm the classroom to rescue the students, once coming into the classroom from the ceiling!
Additionally, I believe in field trips. Being on location to witness what happens is a completely different experience. I have taken students on countless trips to Florida state prisons, including death row, and local jails. On dozens of occasions, I have accompanied students to juvenile court and taken them to day programs and residential treatment facilities for juveniles. In May, the last course of my USF career, I, along with Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, former USF associate professor of sociology, took 22 students on a five-day civil rights tour to visit sites in Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery. The days were jammed pack and long. All of the students were fully engaged in the experiences; many said that the trip was “life changing.”
Lastly, I create opportunities for students to be the expert. I routinely discuss cases of homicide offenders in which I have been involved in or that are in the news and ask them what they think. Students love thinking about motivational dynamics and can be guided into applying theories by using real life examples of killers.
Q: You’ve been interviewed hundreds of times as an expert on high-profile cases such as the Columbine High School shootings, the massacre at Virginia Tech, the murder of Adam Walsh, and the case against brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents. Why do you think the public is so intrigued by these cases?
Heide: As noted by Dr. Alexander Lowen, a physician and psychotherapist, what repels also attracts. I think many mentally healthy people are fascinated by murderers because they wonder what could motivate someone to do something that they themselves find abhorrent, such as torturing and killing another person. For example, when parricide cases are in the news, “ordinary people,” many of them parents themselves, wonder what could cause a son or daughter – whether a child or adult – to kill the very people who gave them life. Then there are the follow-up questions that ordinary people are often reluctant to say out loud: “Could my child kill me?” “Could I kill my parents?” “Could I kill another human being?”
Q: What is the biggest lesson you hope those in the field will take from your work?
Heide has published several widely acclaimed books on juvenile homicide and parricide and co-authored a book on animal cruelty. She also edited a handbook on juvenile homicide.
Heide: There are three takeaways from my work. First, murders don’t just happen. They are the result of a constellation of factors, including individual, family, peers and life circumstances. Most juvenile homicide offenders have had many adverse childhood events that put them at risk for behaving maladaptively. Second, murders and violence by juveniles can be reduced by increasing developmental assets or protective factors. Ordinary people can make a difference in the lives of at-risk kids by taking time to acknowledge and assist them. Kindness goes a long way, particularly with respect to young people whose lives are filled with child maltreatment, poverty and myriad forms of trauma. Third, juveniles who act out are not the equivalent of adults who behave badly. With rare exceptions, they have the capacity to change. If given time to mature and provided with appropriate treatment and interventions, some juvenile homicide offenders, perhaps, many, may be able to be safely released into society in the future.
Q: You were the first female to be tenured in your department. How has the faculty and/or the department changed over time?
Heide: The Department of Criminology has changed a lot in terms of gender over the years. Today, more than half of the department’s faculty across USF’s three campuses are women. This change is clearly a reflection of more opportunities being given to qualified women. However, it is also a reflection of the larger percentage of females pursuing graduate education, including in criminology and criminal justice, compared to 40 years ago when I was a graduate student.
Department of Criminology faculty and staff in 1992. Heide is third from the left.
Q: As someone who spent the last 43 years as a faculty member at USF, you’ve been a witness to the university’s exceptional growth. What has it been like to watch USF succeed in tandem with your own success?
Heide: It has been thrilling! In 1981, when I was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice (now Criminology), USF was a regional university. Most students came from Florida, particularly the Tampa Bay area. Today, students hail from almost every state in the U.S. and nearly 150 countries. Moreover, USF has risen in stature. I have had a front row seat watching USF be recognized as one of Florida’s three preeminent state research universities and become a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. USF is now recognized as one of the highest ranked public universities and one of the best universities in the world, and I am so happy that I have been able to contribute to USF’s awesome status. I have become the scholar I am today because of the support provided to me and the opportunities given to me at USF. It is with gratitude and pride in my university that I retire.
Q: What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Heide: That is a tough question to answer. I am proud that my work on juvenile homicide and parricide has made significant contributions to the field and that I am widely regarded as one of the leading experts internationally in these areas. I am also very proud of the students whom I have mentored and whom I have inspired to make a difference in the field and in the lives of others.
Q: What advice or words of wisdom would you give to students interested in pursuing a career in criminology?
Heide: Follow your passion, do your best, treat others with respect and kindness, and be honest and ethical in how you operate.
Heide has been granted Emeritus status at USF, effective upon her retirement, which is given to individuals whose careers within the university have been exemplary and thus merit recognition and remembrance.
Heide’s retirement marks the end of an era, but her legacy will continue to live on, not only through her groundbreaking work, but also through the lives she has impacted through her teaching. To honor Heide’s more than 40 years of service at USF, the Department of Criminology established the Professor Kathleen M. Heide Criminology Scholarship to empower students who are passionate about unraveling the complexities of crime, justice and society.
And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
