Objective This study was designed to investigate murder-suicide cases and double-suicides agreed on by both parties, by means of judicial autopsies performed at the Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Keio University, to elucidate the characteristics of both double・suicide types. and to compare domestic cases with foreign cases.
Methods Autopsy records of 7,276 corpses, on which judicial autopsies had been performed at the Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine. Keio University during the period from September l945 to December 2003, were investigated and cases oI murder・suicide and double・suicide, i.e. agreed upon by both parties, were extracted. Offender-victim relationships, motives for double-suicides, and methods of homicide were analyzed in individual cases. All cases were compared with foreign cases in terms of these points in the literature.
Results There were 259 murder-suicides and 39 double-suicides. as deIined above. The largest number, 110 a of the 259 cases, were parent-child suicides, In contrast, the largest numbers of foreign murder-suicides were those due to a failure in the relationship of a couple. Although Ihe number of double-suicides agreed on by both parties between male and female lovers has been believed to be large in Japan, the number was actually small, only 22. This tendency was recognized in the foreign cases as well. In the majority of parent-child murder-suicides, the motive was maternal depression, which correlated with child rearing. In double-suicide cases involving elderly couples, health problems and questions regarding their livelihood were important motives. In the larsest number of suicides, in which one person kills the other and them him/herself based on a pact. the method of killing the partner was strangulation, in contrast to cases abroad in which firearms were used in the majority of cases. In many of the double-suicides the methods were nonviolent, i.e., carbon monoxide poisoning, hypnotic poisoning, etc.
Conclusion It was considered important for prevention of murder-suicides to prevent isolation and despair of mothers and[he elderly. The present study revealed the limitations, which are attributable cultural differences, of a comparison of domestic with foreign cases. It was considered necessary for future studies of double-suicides to devise flexible definitions of double-suicides.
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