Abstract

This study aimed to identify the current status and suicide-related characteristics of homicide-suicides in Korea. Homicide-suicide has not been accurately studied due to the lack of official statistics, despite the seriousness of violence in the incidents, the degree of shock around it, high interest in the media, and the possibility of its spread. The data for this study were based on ‘The Korean National Investigations of Suicide Victims Through Police Records from 2013 to 2017’ which were performed by the Korea Foundation For Suicide Prevention, an affiliate of the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare. According to Marzuk, Tardiff and Hirsch(1992), homicide-suicide can be classified into four types-spousal homicide-suicide, filicide-suicide, familicide-suicide, and extrafamilial homicide-suicides. According to the analysis, 0.44% of the total number of suicide deaths in Korea over the past five years corresponds to homicide-suicides, and the average suicide rate per 100,000 people was 0.11. The spousal homicide-suicide perpetrators included a higher proportion of men and individuals with higher age; the primary cause being relationship problems. The filicide-suicide perpetrators included a higher proportion of women, lower age, having mental health problems such as depression and sleep problems, and writing reasons for suicide in their suicide notes as compared to other types of homicide-suicides. The Familicide-suicide perpetrators included a higher proportion of economic problems. Finally, we discussed the implications, limitations, and directions for future research.