ALL RED FEATHER MATERIALS ARE ALWAYS FREE TO STUDENTS AND TO THOSE WHO TEACH THEM....T R Young

VOLUME 8

 Re-Mapping American Criminology

PARRICIDE: SEXUALITY, SUBJECTIVITY AND SPACE

Phillip Chong Ho Shon
e-mail: pshon1@uic.edu

Department of Criminal Justice (m/c 141)
University of Illinios at Chicago
1007 West Harrison Street
Chicago, IL. 60607

INTRODUCTION

Patricide refers to the killing of one's father while matricide refers to the killing of one's mother. For example, the play Oedipus Rex is about an unintentional patricide and incest. The story of Orestes would be a classic example of matricide. Moreover, the story of Hamlet can not be intelligently discussed without mentioning the parricidal and incestuous themes (Bunker, 1944). This requirement would have to be extended to classic works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky such as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. The psychoanalytic interpretations of the former have explicitly focused on matricidal impulses while the latter has, in actual text and interpretation, focused on patricide (See Kanzer, 1948). Thus, from examining the historic literature on the topic, it is evident that parricide is a problem that has consumed the human intellect and passion for quite some time.

Current theoretical developments reveal a wide array of perspectives with similar methodologies. The first strand, much nostalgic of Oedipus and Orestes, relies on myths, fables, and films for source and interpretation (See Carpetto, 1984; Fingarette, 1963; Friedman & Gassel, 1951; Marill, 1991; Schoenfeld, 1992; Skinner, 1961 ). The psychoanalysts, following the lead of its founder, Freud, continue to rely on this approach, as well as the next one. The second strand uses case reports of patients/offenders who have been admitted to psychiatric institutions as a result of their crimes. This approach uses life histories and interviews to gather data. Some utilize the scientific method by using control groups and statistical tests; however most still rely on individual case reports.

While Freudian psychoanalysis has been a dominant voice in the literature on parricide, the more recent theoretical contributions of prominent psychoanalysts are not prolific. Using studies in religious symbolism, along with a detailed scrutiny of case reports and other relevant situational characteristics of the crime, I will attempt to provide an alternative theory of parricide. By disseminating the situational characteristics of the crime, such as type of weapon used, crime space, mode and manner of death, and emotionality of the event, I will argue that the primary motivation for matricide is a desire for transcendence and metamorphosis.

Scholars who study homicide have linked the rising rates of homicide to many different variables. For example, the risk of being a victim and offender is highly correlated to gender, age, race, ethnicity, population density/flight, socioeconomic status, and neighborhoods (Block, 1976; Block & Block, 1991, 1992 ; Sampson, Raudenbush & Earls 1997 ; Short, 1997). Explanations are sought at the macro level (level of social organization, social structure, culture) and at the micro level (nature and characteristics of the interaction amongst involved parties) (Short, 1997).

However, criminologists such as Darnell Hawkins (1995) have rigidly maintained that, in attempting to account for homicides rates, biological and genetic research methods offer little in the way of truly understanding crime. He takes the social constructionist stance that all factors such as race, crime and criminality are mere social constructs (Hawkins, 1995).

Other researchers of homicide such as Paul Goldstein (1985, 1986 ), have causally related the drug market to increasing rates of homicide. This type of theoretical perspective that ties homicide rates to the drug trafficking/trade and gangs have been buttressed by notable gang researchers (Hagedorn, 1988). This intricate relationship of drugs to homicide and other violent crimes has been given the name "Tripartite Conceptual Framework." Its' author, Goldstein (1985) states that all types of violence related to drugs can be explained and categorized using this framework: psychopharmacological violence, economic compulsive violence, and systemic violence. The drug connection to homicide rate can not be ignored since this constitutes a significant portion of the total homicide rate. According to Goldstein (1985), drug related homicides range from 15-30% of the overall rate and includes cities such as San Diego, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami and Detroit. While Blocks' Chicago data contradicts this finding with a low 6.5%, researchers such as Goldstein and Hagedorn attribute this error to coding. (Personal communication).

Richard and Carolyn Block (1992), in attempting to provide an explanation for homicide rates, emphasize the value of seeing the total situation of both the offender and the victim's perspectives. Before elaborating on the Blocks' general account of homicides, their classification of general violence--homicide syndrome--is relevant to discussion and additional commentary is warranted. There are four major syndromes of homicide: 1) expressive 2) instrumental 3) rape 4) street gang related. In an expressive homicide, the primary goal is to cause bodily injury and harm someone. It's sole purpose is malicious and willful intent to hurt the other person. In instrumental homicides, such malicious intent is absent and the main purpose of violence is property/financial gain. Rape homicides are murders that transpire in the commission of a sex crime. The last category of homicide is classified accordingly if the offender's motives are gang-related.

The strength of Blocks' model is attributable to the fact that their model does not view homicide as a unidimensional event. Rather, it is conceptualized as a crime with a "constellation of related characteristics" along with its "sibling offense." By sibling offense, Blocks (1991) refer to those crimes in which the fatal outcome did not occur. This presents a unique understanding of the homicidal situation since this brings chance factors into the explanation: the likely result of someone being an offender versus a victim is not delimited to the restrictive situational and linguistic boundaries. If the totality of the situation can be described and understood, who the offender and victim are will become amorphous. Thus in expressive homicides, which account for close to 60% of the homicides in Chicago from 1965-1995, which begin as "trivial" altercations and proceed along the continuum of confrontation, "the loser of the confrontation is the person who dies; the 'winner' becomes the offender" (Block & Block, 1992). As it can be seen, the whole notion of offender and victim refuse definitional clarity and become pliable constructs.

The overarching theme that can be gleaned from the homicide studies cited above is the broad social forces, as well as the micro forces which shape and influence homicide rates. Thus, in heeding Blocks' advice to examine homicide in its totality, one would be following sound advice. But since the topic of this paper is parricide, one must inevitably ask: do the same factors that influence the general homicide rate exert a similar effect on the parricide rate? Are any of the factors such as SES, race, gender, ethnicity, and age related to parricide? Does parricide rate indeed change at all?

Parricides are not frequently occurring events. Even in the context of overall homicides, it constitutes a small percentage. For example, in Daly and Wilson's (1982a) examination of Detroit Police homicide records occurring in 1972, out of the 690 non-accidental homicides, 11 cases were parricide cases. In a study of homicide cases between 1953-1974 in the West of Scotland, Gilles (1976) came across a total of 14 instances of parricide out of a total of 307 victims. In Gudjonsson and Petursson's (1982) investigation of homicides in Iceland for the period of 1900-1979, there are 2 cases of matricides out of a total of 45 homicide cases. In a frequently cited article on matricide, Green (1981) in his examination of Broadmoor patients, finds that between 1968 and 1978, parricides account for 2-4% of all homicides in England. Another frequently cited source, Sadoff (1971), in a 30 year study of 122 homicide offenders admitted to the Ontario Hospital, finds that out only 12 had committed matricide. Millaud, Auclair and Meunier's (1996) analysis of Canada's homicide cases reveal that parricides represent approximately 6% of all homicides. In Europe, parricides account for 2-5% of general homicides, in the U.S., parricides account for about 300 homicides or 2%, and in California alone approximately 1%

(Weisman & Sharma, 1997). Weisman and Sharma make the explicit claim that parricide rates are negatively correlated with the general rate of violent crime and availability of handguns. Thus, the steady rates demonstrated by parricides and its stable proportionality in relation to general homicide indicate that there are other dynamics at work; hence, a separate line of inquiry is justified and warranted. (There is a general consensus in the literature on parricide that its occurrence is not correlated with general levels of violence in society. However, Marleau and Webanck's (1997) analysis of Canadian data from 1962-1985 indicates a positive correlation between parricide rates and general violence rates. Again, this is appears to be the only exception.)

Although Blocks' analysis of Chicago Homicide data does not specify parricide cases per se, using the expressive homicide syndrome, he states that "familial killings do not increase as rapidly as homicides in general" (Block, 1976). After examining the data for 25 years, up to 1989, the Blocks again seem to be reiterating their previous position: intrafamilial expressive homicides accounted for only 4% of homicides in general (Block & Block, 1991). Harlan's (1950) study of 500 homicide cases in Jefferson County Alabama demonstrates that close to 10% of homicides are "Type I" categories or killing of a family member. In the 3 examples he uses to illustrate the nature of family killings, he uses the case of patricide and fratricide. Since family killings are not restricted to parricides in Harlan's study, instances of parricide would have to be lower than 10%. Both Block and Harlan's non-specified data on filial killings can be seen in light of the discussed material on parricide rates. Since the literature on parricide rates across countries remain consistently low, and since Block and Harlan's data include parricide in their encompassing family violence rate, if it was the case that parricide cases could be isolated, it would not be far fetched to make the assumption that their parricide rates would resemble the ones reported by Weisman and Sharma (1997) and Millaud et al (1996). More so when parricide cases are futher divided into patricides and matricides.

Parricide appears to be evenly distributed across ethnic and racial lines (Weisman & Sharma, 1997). While some groups account for more of the cases (e.g., whites), if their total population is taken into consideration, the significance disappears. Similarly, subjects who murder their mothers are also found to be unemployed at the time of the crime (Campion, Cravens, Rothlc, Weinstein, Covan, & Alpert, 1985). However, since these subjects suffer from mental disorders (Millaud et al., 1996), it is highly unlikely that they would be employed. Again, the introduction of a third variable renders the connection insignificant.

One of the general key predictor variables in homicide, as well as violent crimes, is gender. Parricide is no exception. Whether it be the murder of one's father or mother, the gender of the offender is uniformly distributed: it is almost always likely to be male (Green, 1981). Usually, they are young, poor, live in depressed areas of the city, and are likely to be members of the minority (Short, 1997; Block, 1976 ; Harlan, 1950; Hawkins, 1995; West, 1968). Most of the clinical cases that have conducted a group study in which the sample was greater than 10 were either all men or nearly all men (Campion et al., 1985; Mohr & McNight, 1971; Sadoff, 1971; Weisman & Sharma, 1997) ; when the sample in the case reports were less than 10 (Maas, Prakash, Hollender & Regan, 1984; Scherl & Mack,1966), even amongst the mentally ill (Millaud et al., 1997). There is dearth of literature on the nature of parricides involving the daughter. Even case reports are lacking.

There is also an uncanny distribution of age in the men who kill. When males kill their fathers, it is most likely in their adolescence and when males kill their mothers, it is likely to occur in their adult years, as well as in adolescent years. When the matricide occurs in the later stage of the male's life, he is more likely to be seen as mentally ill (Dutton & Yamini,1995; Millaud et al., 1997). Since the crimes transpire either in the offender's adolescence or adult years and this age distribution is consistent throughout the literature, the mean of the offenders' age is of little value in understanding the who, why, where and what of the crime. Knowing the specific age of the offender at the time of the parricidal act is more likely to be of greater informational value.

One of the noteworthy feature of parricides (more so for matricides than patricides) is the method in which the act is executed. Although firearms are not unused, it does not attain a level of significance as do other methods. For example, in Green's (1981) study, only 12% of matricides were committed with firearms. In Millaud et al.'s (1996) study of mentally ill parricidal subjects, only one subject used a firearm. Similarly, in Weisman and Sharma's (1997) forensic analysis of parricide and attempted parricides, firearms accounted for 24% of successful parricides and 16% of attempted parricides.

Excluding case reports which use narratives as a principal means of analysis, variables in parricide which are systematically tabulated, as exemplified by Green (1981), Millaud et al. (1996), and Weisman and Sharma (1997 ), all point to the knife as the weapon of choice and stabbing as the means of inflicting death. In Green's (1981) study of matricide by sons, stabbing and battering accounted for 62% of the cases, in Millaud et al.'s (1996) study of parricide, both mother and father were killed equally with a knife. Knives accounted for 58% of the cases. If blunt objects and manner of death in which no weapons were used (i.e. with hands and feet, manual strangulation) are encompassed in the calculation, 90% of the parricides are committed with weapons other than a firearm. In Weisman and Sharma's (1997) study, stabbing and beating accounted for 66% of parricide cases and 68% of attempted parricide cases.

What is the significance of knives and other edged and bladed instruments? Instruments used in parricide and manner of death are pertinent because they reveal the psychodynamic motive of the offender. The parricidal crime scene has been characterized as being "overkill" (Weisman & Sharma, 1997). In other words, the killing is continued even after the victim is dead. "Overkill" of victims is a signifying feature of lust killers (Douglas &Olshaker, 1995). I have argued elsewhere (Shon, forthcoming) that knives are significant to lust killers for its role in "creating an opening in the universe," or transcendence; and stabbing as an "attempt to pass through the narrow gate." Consider the following case of matricide committed by a 23 year old homosexual man:

He returned home in this state and urged his mother to disrobe and watch him masturbate to prove he could 'reach orgasm for a woman.' When she resisted he killed her, believing she was the Devil. He fractured her skull to "release evil" and attempted to remove her heart by slashing her left breast. The autopsy revealed that her vagina had been mutilated by repeated insertion of scissors. One finger was bitten off, and brain and breast tissues may have been cannibalized. (Campion et al., 1985, case #5 ).

This example of matricide could be used as a text book illustration of sexual homicide. Almost all the elements of lust murder are present. The only difference is that the victim is the subject's own mother, which renders the crime into a different classification. However, such vilification of the victimized parent(s) are not uncommon if we examine another variable that is a recurring characteristic in parricides.

One of the most commonly found factors associated with parricide is family history of mental illness and history of violence (Millaud et al, 1996). The violence can be verbal, physical, psychological or sexual; nevertheless, its occurrence preceding parricide is a highly significant variable that can not be overlooked. The pervasive nature of such abuses are well documented in case reports ( Campion et. al., 1985; Maas et al., 1984; Raizen, 1960; Sadoff, 1971; Scherl & Mack, 1966; Tanay, 1976). Thus, in prototypical cases of matricide, the mother is depicted as being a sexual seductress, the devil, a witch--a monster; or a domineering, overbearing, and tyrannical mother. In patricides, the father is usually an abusive parent--either toward the subject or his mother--victim's wife. This fact is supported by Corder, Ball, Haizlip, Rollins and Beaumont's (1976) study comparing adolescent parricides with other adolescent murders. The significance of the results warrants further elaboration.

The researchers chose 10 subjects who had been charged with a) parricide b) murdering a close relative or acquaintance c) murdering a stranger. One of the surprise findings was related to poor impulse control. Previous work had conceptualized subjects of parricide as individuals lacking in self control (e.g., Sadoff, 1971). However, when parricide subjects were measured against other similarly situated subjects, it was those who had murdered strangers or close relatives who scored high on the poor impulse control measure. Put differently, subjects who killed their parent(s) had better control of their impulses!

Another unexpected finding was that many subjects had parents who were abusive and maladjusted: 7 out of the 10 subjects reported having been abused by the parent(s); 7 out of 10 subjects had parents who abused alcohol or suffered from mental illness; 5 out of the 10 subjects of parricide had fathers who were abusive towards the subject's mother; 6 out of 10 subjects reported a home marked by social disorganization such as parental marital conflict and neglect; 6 out of 10 subjects reported being overly attached to mother.

From the results, it can be clearly seen that there is a significant failure on the part of the parents to live up to the normative standards of parental competence. However, this does not do justice. Competence can be achieved despite failing to meet up to the expectations. But the results show a general pattern of calculated and routinized violation of certain social values by the parents In other words, not only do they fail to live up to it, they actively violate the socially defined roles and expectations (see Talcott Parsons' sociologicalization of psychoanalysis as it relates to his theory of roles and symbols as discussed in Bocock, 1979). In a way, the diabolical characterizations attributed to such parents would not be inappropriate. One could say that it is almost necessary to vilify them in order to prevent others from doing similar acts.

Another brief commentary is necessary in regards to Corder et al's (1976) findings. Thus far we have stated that the crime scene is signified by the presence of "overkill," and use of edged instruments. If the subject's goal was to kill, a firearm would have been a more effective and certain method of parricide. And the fact that the parricide subjects scored low on impulse measure indicates that the crime was not impulsively committed. We seem to be at an impasse: the measurement instrument purported to measure levels of impulse control asserts that subjects of parricide do not suffer from a lack of poor impulse control; in other words, they don't just "go berserkers." On the other hand, the use of edged instruments as the prevalent method of parricide conveys an impetuous, impulsive, and passionate element, something beyond mere reason and rationality--consciousness. It is at this impasse that psychiatric and medical models can not offer anything more informative. We turn to psychoanalytic--unconscious--theory of parricide to arrive at a new level of understanding.

Freud's theory of patricide has an indelible aura of primal urges and desires: everyone is guilty of the original crime. In fact, for Freud, patricide can not be discussed without discussing the nature of the law and political theory in general. It is universal and time eternal. The beginning of Freud's narrative centers on the concept of the Primal Horde and the Primal Father (See Freud, 1914). First, it should be clearly understood that by 'primal' it is used in reference to "a basic element in the unconscious," not the psychoanalytic concept (Bocock, 1979).

Primal Horde can be thought of as a fiction, a Hobbsean "state of nature." And in this apparent fictional state, there is a jealous and violent father who keeps all the women (wives, daughters) for himself and drives away his sons and primal hordes or small groups, from his concubinage/harem. Carpetto (1984) writes that his harem represents the father's most important possession: procreative powers. This is the primary motivation that propels the horde to have murderous wishes: the primal father sets up prohibitions and forbids incestuous sexual activity. Eventually and inevitably, the ones who are forbidden from the father's lot (brothers, sons) banded together and "slew him," and "devoured their father and put an end to the patriarchal horde" (Freud, 1914).

Carpetto (1984) writes that after the patricide, the primal horde "fell into a period of rampant promiscuity." In other words, since there is no ruler, it falls into a state of social disorganization, chaos. Moreover, the direct consequence of patricide is that because of the social chaos, the horde realizes the need for another father. This can be stated as the seduction of the illusion of freedom gratified by patricide: subjects who kill their father kill to enjoy his harem, a sexual liberation of sorts, free from prohibitions and threats of castration, only to come to see the need for a ruler in absolute power and order. Put slightly different, it is the murder of a signifier, only to discover the need for signification and the signifier; hence the substitution of the original signifer with another (representative) signifier.

There is an emergence of a political/legal order as a result of the original crime. The relationship to the primal father is marked by a severe contradiction: the father is loved and hated at the same time. He is hated for setting up the prohibitions and loved because he represents the only means of true freedom available: through the introduction of prohibitions, in other words, law. It is an emotional ambivalence that characterizes the nature of the sacred. For Freud, the function of such prohibitions (law) is to guard against parricide and incest (Schoenfeld, 1993); in other words, to keep the peace.

For Freud (1914), not only is the horror of incest and patricide at the root of a political theory, but it is the origin of religion. The taboo against incest and patricide, along with the guilt from the original crime, necessitates the ritualistic sacrifice of a totem, a symbolic representation of the primal father, in animal form, which, in every culture, can not be killed . And through ritualistic sacrifices and through symbolic murder rather than real ones, the society's taboo on parricide and incest is maintained.

This is the original context out of which Freud's theory of patricide evolved. The themes are unmistakably clear: it is sexual. It is from this starting point that Freud builds onto his Oedipal Conflict. Freud's interpretation of the story of Oedipus Rex has been etched into the intellectual and popular history of our time. Perhaps Freud understood the conflictual nature of desire and demand, the ego and the superego, the individual and the society. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he had it right. If Freud's hypothesis is correct, the crime scene, as well as the situational characteristics of the patricide crime scene should reflect this. The following scenario would have been a candidate match for Freud's Oedipal explanation:

Oskar's dream of possessing Maria comes to a crashing conclusion when he discovers that his father is having coitus with her....he [Oskar] ferociously climbs on the father's back while the latter is having intercourse with Maria (Marill, 1991).

Some background information is necessary. The preceding example is a scene from The Tin Drum; the main character (hero) is Oskar. Oskar is a sixteen year old boy, trapped in the body of a three year old, after having thrown himself down a flight of stairs (effectively stunting his growth), repulsed at the perversion of the adult world. After his mother passes away, his father hires a maid, Maria. She too is a teenager and takes a liking to Oskar, takes care of him, and becomes his girl-friend, a quasi-sister and another maternal figure (Marill, 1991). The cited passage is the discovery that Maria is having sex with his father too.

It is a textbook illustration of male sexual jealousy and Oedipal conflict. Oskar's behavior would support Freud's theory of patricide and Daly and Wilson's (1982b, 1988) theory of male violence (see also Daly, Wilson, and Weghorst, 1982a) . But another impasse arises when prototypical scenarios of patricides are examined in detail. Consider the following:

On Sunday afternoon, January and, the victim (male, age 46) was killed in his home by a single shotgun blast at close range. The killer (male, 15) was the victim's son, and the circumstance was familiar to the investigating police.

The victim, employed as a sandblaster, had a criminal record that included two convictions for assault. The home was a scene of recurring violence, in which the victim had assaulted his wife and sons, had shot at his wife in the past. On the fatal Sunday, the victim was drunk, berating his wife as a "bitch" and a "whore," and beating her, when their son acted to terminate the long history of abuse (Daly & Wilson, 1988, pg 98, Detroit, 1972, case #6).

The details of the crime support Corder et al.'s (1976) findings: the father was abusive toward his wife, abused alcohol and the home is the site of social disorganization. However, there is nothing in the details that would lead one to believe that the crime was even remotely sexual. There are two solutions to this conundrum: 1) These types of patricides could be labeled as being non-sexual in nature. But this would undermine Freud's theory of patricide. If Freud's theory is to be supported, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the son's behavior was motivated by sexual jealousy. But again, there is nothing in the situational characteristics of the crime that would provide justification for this assumption, unless 2) the beating itself is somehow be equated with sexual overtones.

This is precisely the psychoanalytic interpretation that Bunker (1944) formulates in his analysis of matricides in myth and legends. He literally equates violence with sex. Thus when Hamlet's ghost father commands him to avenge his death but "never thrust sword through mother's heart," what Bunker's interpretation asserts is that the son, Hamlet, should not engage in sexual relations with the his mother. Again, if the initial premise ‘violence is equivalent to sex’ is accepted, this conclusion would be a valid inference. However, intuitively, the father's abusive actions towards his wife and abuse of alcohol, as indicated by the numerous examples of such prototypical case reports lead one to look away from Freud's theory of patricide in adolescent cases. I will now examine if Bunker's (1944) claims can be supported by the contemporary case reports and by critically disseminating the historical and linguistic charactertistcs of matricide.

Matricides have an uncanny sexual character. Present in both prototypical scenarios of matricide--adolescent and adult--is an element of sexuality. In the first case where adolescent offenders murder their mothers, the mothers are depicted as making unwanted sexual advances toward the offender; and the murder is often justified along such lines (see Corder et al., 1976; Dutton & Yamini, 1995; Russell, 1984; Scherl & Mack, 1966; Tanay, 1975). But this is not unique to contemporary cases. In myths and legends, mothers have been conceptualized as "dim and terrible figures...who herself devoured her lovers and her children" (Skinner, 1961). In religious drama, "The Mother of the Gods" were accompanied by her son or lover. Moreover, the mother figure is one who is fertile, powerful, and capable of giving life--but also taking it back (Skinner, 1961).

From a psychoanalytic perspective, the mother is a primary source of satisfaction and frustration for the subject (infant). Likewise, the infant is, for the mother, conceptualized as the "missing object" in her life, in other words the phallus (Lee, 1990). The infant's desire (incestuous) to possess the mother leads to a symbolic murder of the father. This case would be exemplified by the story of Oedipus Rex who not only murders his father and but also marries his mother. In Oedipus' case, there is no symbolic action; he acts on his incestuous desires.

The mother's desire to fill her lack leads her to mistakenly view the infant-subject as the phallus: the subject is not able to separate from the maternal bond and lead an autonomous existence. The case of Orestes would illustrate this. When Klytemenstra discovers that her son will avenge his father's murder (for her infidelity and murder) by killing her, she activates the sexual symbolisms of her maternal/sexual magic: "My own child, see this breast: here often your head lay, in sleep, while your soft mouth sucked from me the good milk that gave you life and strength" (in Fingarette,1963).

In both literary and mythical examples, whether the desire originates in the infant or the mother, it intersects at the crossroads of sexuality. (It should be recalled that Freudian theory of patricide also situates sexuality in the psychic background.) As far as psychoanalysis is concerned, the goal of therapy is to successfully "establish a new relation between the subject and the world" by overcoming fixations and repressions (Lee, 1990). Taking into consideration the mythical and sexual character and origin of matricides, why is the word 'bond' used to communicate the infant-mother relationship? Is there a significance in the etymology of the word that is worthy of further investigation?

In studies of religious symbolism a "magical" weapon possessed by the "Terrible Sovereign" is the knot--the ability to bind and tie (Eliade, 1952). Having this ability to tie and bind with a rope or through a knot has been a distinctive trait of "magical powers" throughout most of the cultures in which some form of religion is practiced. When a subject is "bound," it is used to indicate a servile situation, as a "slave or prisoner before his master" (Eliade, 1952). Hence, the connotations of the word 'bind' convey the notion of a man's situation that is in "bondage, shackling, and attachment." And as Eliade (1952) writes, the "various views have certain points in common; and in all of them the end and aim of man is to free himself from 'bonds'."

Informed with the etymological and religious symbolism of the word 'bond' we can critically examine why the mother-infant relation is referred to as a "maternal bond." The genealogical investigation of the word reveals a lexicon not associated with the commonly understood--and accepted--meaning of the word. Instead of signifying a positive meaning of love and affection, as we might expect, the origin reveals a tyrannical relationship, a form of vassalage between a subject and a master. In other words, the word--as implied by the etymological root--points to the mother as nothing short of the "Terrible Sovereign." Consider the following statement made by the examining psychiatrist (Tanay, 1975) regarding a 15 year old offender:

He maintained that no matter what his future would be it never could be as bad as it was around mother. I pointed out to him the seriousness of what had happened. He replied, "At least the old shrew is dead." He described his mother...as highly critical, unpredictable, a person who would punish for minor transgressions. The impression was created that the house was dominated by one big giant--the mother--and a few dwarfs living in her shadow...He consistently maintained that he had done a good deed, that he had improved the situation of his family, in fact, had improved the world by killing this terrible person who was his mother" (Tanay, 1975, case #1).

The self justified vocabulary of motive resounds a familiar chord along the Katzean (1988) theory of sacrificial violence: the mother is killed to impart sacred notions of the universal good--freedom, liberation, and autonomy. The mother functions as a representation, the primal symbolism of what is wicked. Thus, annihilating what is evil becomes a righteous slaughter (Katz, 1988) and when the killers claim that their actions would be understood by others, they can do so since in their minds the crime is righteously inspired. The slaughter is a manifestation of respect and honor for the eternal institution of the universal good: dedifferentiation, desire, and personal metamorphosis. The desire for individuation, emancipation, metamorphosis, and development and emergence of the self is also found in contemporary psychoanalysis (Levy, 1995).In other words, matricide is an act of severance from the tyrannical vassalage to the master.

I have thus far mentioned the prevalent modes and instruments of death found in parricides, more particularly matricides. Elsewhere, I have argued how the aforementioned factors reveal the motive of the offender in lust homicides (Shon, 1998a, forthcoming). In lust homicides certain type of lust killers (disorganized asocial) have a tendency to return to the crime scene, or what I referred to as "sacred space," in addition to the primary crime space where the murderous act originated. The discussion of space is relevant to matricides for these reasons. First, space is not neutral. Certain spaces (places) take on emotional significance to the individual who experiences epiphenomenal (moral) events: that space embodies the associated emotionality of the event within the individual. As Eliade (1957) writes "There are privileged places, qualitatively different from all others...these are the holy places of his private universe, as if it were in such spots that he has received that revelation of a reality other than in which he participates in ordinary life." Second, crime space reveals insightful information about the nature of the offense. This is so because the place where the murder takes place, the body disposed, all take on emotional (moral) significance to the killer. Thus, having an understanding of how space functions in the moral logic of the offender is one of the ways in which the meaning of the crime can be made sensible.

Although Campion et. al., (1985) come to the conclusion that data do not support the contention that typical matricides occur in the mother's bedroom, followed by "relief of intrapsychic conflict," there are other studies which suggest that the mother's bedroom is a crime space that can not be ignored or due to chance (see Russell, 1984 ; Scherl and Mack, 1966). Even the case reports in Campion et al.'s study contain the mother's bedroom as the primary crime scene. Consider the examples:

The matricide occurred when his mother began to scratch Mr. A during an argument. he beat her and strangled her to death with extreme violence in her bedroom (Campion et al., 1985, case #1).

After the family failed to help his mother hospitalize him, she locked Mr. B in the apartment with her. They scuffled, and he beat her and strangled her to death in her bedroom (Campion, et al., 1985, case #2).

Although the cited examples do not exemplify the edged instrument criteria commonly found in matricides, there is presence of "overkill." But the thread of similarity lies in the place of the crime transpiration. Bedroom is intimate and private space. Furthermore, the bedroom is also the space where sexual acts are practiced. The shared imagery evoked by the word is unmistakably sexual in connotation. The bedroom can then be seen as sexual space.

Pervious research on matricides are marked by the offenders' desire to liberate themselves from the "weak, small, ineffectual, hopeless, and doubtful sexual identity and resist the intrusive and domineering women" (Campion et al., 1985). This conclusion is supported by 1) Wertham's theory of "catathymic crisis" in which the offender's sexual desire is "superimposed" on the unconscious hatred toward the mother in order to safeguard the offender's personality (Dutton & Yamini, 1995; Scherl & Mack, 1966) 2) Russell's (1984)finding that matricidal offenders "strive for identity and self expression, against regressive forces" 3) as a final effort against "psychic disintegration" (Tanay, 1976); 4) termination of "sexually provocative and seductive relationships with the mother" (Corder et. al,1976).

The sexual nature of matricide finds a spatial embodiment in the bedroom. Consistent with the postmodern criminological focus on the non-material and "sensuous and emotional" aspects of crime (Milovanovic, forthcoming), the bedroom as sexual space in which boundaries and edges are demarcated, forbidden to cross, and crossed illustrate the non-material gain of the crime. The gain in matricide is liberation, freedom, and autonomy; in other words, rightful and authentic existence as subjects in themselves. The magical and tyrannical "bond" the subjects have to "cut off" is sexual; and this character is exemplified in the space in which the crime occurs.

The typifications found in parricide cases illustrate the pliable nature of offender classification and the amorphous nature of crime with its "constellation of related characteristics," hence, the Blocks' emphasis on the total situation of both the offender and victim. If the two categories (offender, victim) are applied to parricide, we can see how the whole notion of offender/victim distinction refuse linguistic clarity. The primary goal in expressive homicides is to cause physical harm, with a malicious and wilful intent whereas in instrumental homicides, the goal is material gain (Block & Block, 1992). In patricides, the offender reacts to a history of physical abuse; in matricides the subjects react to psychological and sexual vassalage--their servile situation--and seek to establish their own subjectivities. Put otherwise, there is no prior malicious and willful intent to do harm; the action is a reaction to a prior violation; and the sought gain is not material but righteously moral.

In this paper, I have examined parricide in the broader context of homicide. Previous research revealed that traditional social structural variables and general violence rates do not affect the parricide rate. Studies of parricide indicated commonalities that warranted a separate line of inquiry. For example, the weapon used and the manner of death, along with the pervasive pattern of abuse suffered by the offenders in cases of parricide (more so for matricides than patricides) pointed to the need for a theory to integrate the diverging strands of common crime scene patterns.

The characteristics of matricide revealed a sexual nature. By drawing on a genealogical investigation of the etymological root of the word commonly used in conjunction with the mother-infant relationship, informed by studies in religious symbolism, I have argued that the desire of the matricidal offender is to sever himself from the tyrannical sexual bond of the mother. This argument was supported by contemporary psychiatric examination reports.

I have also provided the argument that the place where matricides occur is consistent with the sexual nature of the crime. Since some matricides persistently transpired in the mother's bedroom, drawing on the recent theoretical developments in postmodern criminology, I conceptualized the mother's bedroom as sexual space and argued for its moral and emotional significance to the offender.

Block, C., & Block, R. 1991. "Beginning with Wolfgang: an agenda for homicide research,"

Journal of Crime and Justice. XIV (2): 31-70.

Block, R. 1976. "Homicide in Chicago: a nine year study (1965-1973)," Journal of

Criminal Law & Criminology. 66: 496-510.

Block, R., & Block, C. R. 1992. "Homicide syndromes and vulnerability: violence in Chicago community areas over 25 years," Studies on Crime and Crime Prevention. 1(1):61-87.

Bocock, R. J. 1979. "The symbolism of the father--a Freudian sociological analysis,"

British Journal of Sociology. 30: 206-217.

Bunker, H. 1944. "Mother murder in myth and legend," Psychoanalytic Quarterly.

13:198-207.

Campion, J., Cravens, J. M., Rothlc, A., Weinstein, H. C., Covan, F., & Alpert, M.

1985. "A study of 15 matricidal men," American Journal of Psychiatry.

142: 312-317.

Carpetto, G. 1984. "Machiavelli's Prince: stylistic ambivalence and the primal father,"

American Imago. 41: 309-322.

Corder, B. F., Ball, B. C. Haizlip, T. M., Rollins, R., & Beaumont, R. 1976.

"Adolescent parricide: a comparison with other adolescent murder,"

American Journal of Psychiatry. 133: 957-961.

Daly, M. & Wilson, M. 1988. Homicide. NY: Aldine De Gruyter.

--------------------------. 1982b. "Homicide and Kinship," American Anthropologist.

84: 372-378.

Daly, M., Wilson, M., & Weghorst, S. J. 1982a. "Male secual jealousy," Ethnology and

Sociobiology. 3: 11-27.

Douglas, J. & Olshaker, M. 1995. Mindhunter. NY: Scribner.

Dutton, D., & Yamini, S. 1995. "Adolescent parricide: an integration of social cognitive

theory and clinical views of projective-introjective cycling," American Journal of

Orthopsychiatry. 65 (1): 39-47.

Eliade, M. 1952. Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

----------. 1957. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. NY: Harper & Row

Ferrell, J., Milovanovic, D., and Lyng, S. 1998. "BASE Jumping, Media Practices and the Elongation of Meaning." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology. Washington, D.C.

Fingarette, H. 1963. "Orestes: paradigmatic hero and central motif of contemporary

ego psychology," Psychoanalytic Review. 50: 437-461.

Freud, S. 1914. Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the psychic Lives of Savages and neurotics. NY: Vintage Books.

Friedman, J. & Gassel, S. 1951. "Orestes: a psychoanalytic approach to criticism,"

Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 20: 423-433.

Goldstein, P. J. 1986. "Homicide related to drug traffic." Bulletin for New York Academy of Medicine. 62(5): 509-516.

------------. 1985. "The drugs/violence nexus: a tripartite conceptual framework," Journal of Drug Issues. 14: 493-506.

Green, C. M. 1981. "Matricide by sons," Medicine, Science and the Law. 21: 207-214.

Hagedorn, J. M. 1988. People and Folks: Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City. Chicago: Lake View Press.

Harlan, H. 1950. "Five hundred homicides," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

40: 736-752.

Hawkins, D. 1995. "Ethnicity, race and crime: a review of selected studies." pg 11-45 in Ethnicity, Race, and Crime: Perspective Across Time and Place. (ed). Darnell Hawkins. Albany: SUNY Press.

Kanzer, M. 1948. "Dostoyevsky's matricidal impulses," Psychoanalytic Quarterly.

35: 115-125.

Katz, J. 1988. Seductions of Crime. NY: Basic Books.

Lee, J. S. 1990. Jacques Lacan. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press

Levy, I. 1995. "The fate of the Ordipus Complex: dissolution or waning," International

Forum of Psychoanalysis. 4: 7-15.

Lyng, S. 1990. "Edgework: A Social Psychological Analysis of Voluntary Risk Taking." AMerican Journal of Sociology 95: 851-886.

--------. 1995. "Squaring the One Percent: Biker Style and the Selling of Cultural Resistance." Pp 235-276 in Cultural Criminology. (eds) Jeff Ferrell and Clinton R. Sanders. Boston: Northeatern University Press.

-------. 1998. "Dangerous Methods: Risk Taking and the Research Process." Pp 221-251 in Ethnography at the Edge. (eds) Jeff Farrell and Mark S. Hamm. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Maas, R. L., Prakash, R., Hollender, M., & Regan, W. M. 1984. "Double parricide--

matricide and patricide: a comparison with other schizophrenic murders,"

Psychiatric Quarterly. 56 (4): 286-290.

Marill, I. H. 1991. "The Tin Drum: a cinematic portryal of an Oedipal tyrant," International

Review of Psycho-Analysis. 12: 161-172.

Marleau, J. D. & Webanck, T. 1997. "Parricide and violent crimes: a Canadian study,"

Adolescence. 32 (126): 357-359.

Millaud, F., Auclair, N., & Meunier, D. 1996. "Parricide and mental illness," International

Journal of Law and Psychiatry. 19 (2): 173-182.

Milovanovic, D. Forthcoming. "Postmodern Theory in Criminology and Deviance." in Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior, Volume 1: Historical, Conceptual, and Theoretical Issues. Blacksburg, VA: Taylor and Francis Publishers.

Mohr, J. W. & McKnight, C. K. 1971. "Violence as a function of age and relationships with

special reference tomatricide," Canadian Psychiatric Journal. 16: 29-32

O'Malley, P. and Mugford, S. 1994. "Crime, Excitement and Modernity." Pp 195-211 in

Varieties of Criminology. (ed) Gregg Barak. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Raizen, K. 1960. "A case of matricide-patricide," British Journal of Delinquency.

10 (4): 277-295.

Russell, D. H. 1984. "A case of matricide-patricide," British Journal of Delinquency. 10 (4): 277- 295.

Sadoff, R. 1971. "Clinical observation on parricide," Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 45: 65-69.

Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. 1997. "Neighborhoods and violent crime:

a multilevel study of collective efficacy," Science. 277: 918-924.

Scherl, D. & Mack, J. 1966. "A study of adolescent matricide," Journal of American

Academy of Child Psychiatry. 5: 569-593.

Schoenfeld, C. G. 1992. "The origins of law: a psychoanalytic interpretation," The Journal

of Psychiatry & the Law. 20: 351-374.

Shon, P. C. H. 1998a. "Creativity, crime, and subjectivity: The case of lust homicide," The Critical Criminologist 9 (1): 11-14.

--------------. Forthcoming. "The sacred and the profane: the trascendental significance of erotophonophilia in the construction of subjectivity," Humanity and Society.

Short, J. F. Jr. 1997. Poverty, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime. Boulder: Westview Press.

Skinner, J. 1961. "Ritual matricide: a study of the origins of sacrifice," American Imago.

18: 71-102.

Tanay, E. 1976. "Reactive parricide," Journal of Forensic Science. 21: 76-82.

Weisman, A. M. & Sharma, K. 1997. "Forensic analysis and psycholegal implications

of parricide and attempted parricide," Journal of Forensic Sciences. 42(6): 1107-1113.

West, D. J. 1968. "A note on murders in Manhattan," Medicine, Science and the Law.

8: 249-255.