While I have not found any other incidents that fit this description (desperately ill, spouse would rather die with him), I expect to find more.
Ogden, Ia. (1939)
04/17/1939: The father “had been in poor health.” The suicide note left by the wife said, “I
love Ray and I don’t intend to live without him. We plan to find peace together.” Then they shot their three children and
committed suicide.
Category: family
Suicide: yes
Cause: other
Weapon: rifle[1]
[1] "Five Die In Suicide Pact," [Bristol, Tenn.] Bristol New Bulletin, Apr. 17, 1939, 4.
Right now I have the following causes:
ADULTERYBULLYING
CULT
CULT?
DIVORCE
DRUG DEALING
FINANCIAL (all out of money, do not want to raise family in poverty, sometimes without apparent factual basis)
GANG
GREED (I want father's estate and I am impatient)
INDIAN (both as victims and victimizers, outside of organized warfare)
INTOX
JEALOUSY
LABOR STRIFE
LYNCH
mental illness
mental illness?
OTHER
POLITICS
QUARREL
RACISM
RAPE
RELIGION
RESISTING ARREST
REVENGE
REVENGE?
ROBBERY
SLAVERY
STALKER
TERRORISM
UNKNOWN
WITNESSES ELIMINATED
EXTORTION
PRISON BREAK
I am about to go back and add GRIEF as a cause: lots of spouses committing suicide and murdering family after death of a spouse. I feel that I probably need a cause to describe any further incidents that generally fit the model at the top. Can you come up with a word more descriptive than TRAGEDY?
It really doesn't matter, you can be as detailed as you can, add "Grief" and "fear of life without the loved one who is dying", and something will come in that still won't fit your categories. I learned that in cost reporting in Hughes Aircraft Company in the eighties.
ReplyDeleteIt's still pretty grim, and as Brad William Henke said at the end of Ted Mendenhall's "Cojones", a short film from 2002,
"It's other. It's F****** other.
I don't think even today's theraputic state would have prevented this.