Bringing this forward again as we try to make sense of the nonsensical:
“Obviously it is very difficult for the rest of us to even comprehend how someone can get himself to a state of mind where the children become expendable," Dr Gregory said.
"But sometimes the children in these cases have almost become pawns in a game - the children have become a way of getting back at his wife, a way of punishing her - or they have become belongings of his that he feels he can't leave behind.
"You've often got men who are holding down jobs, they're men who have got a lot invested in their world and particularly, often, in the family on which they then turn the violence."
The trigger to kill is often the failure of the relationship with the mother, or a dispute over the children if the marriage has already ended.
"He will then want to retrieve his control," Dr Gregory said.
"It is a desperate way to do it, and it is perverse, because in retrieving the control he is also losing his own life, but this man has got himself into such a state of mind that says 'if I can't have them, then no one can'.“
What creates a 'family annihilator'?
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“The profile of a family annihilator is a middle-aged man, a good provider who would appear to neighbours to be a dedicated husband and a devoted father,' Levin said. 'He quite often tends to be quite isolated. He is often profoundly dedicated to his family, but has few friends of his own or a support system out with the family. He will have suffered some prolonged frustration and feelings of inadequacy, but then suffers some catastrophic loss. It is usually financial or the loss of a relationship. He doesn't hate his children, but he often hates his wife and blames her for his miserable life. He feels an overwhelming sense of his own powerlessness. He wants to execute revenge and the motive is almost always to "get even".'“
Focus: Fathers who kill their children
