On December 14, we learned of the violent, untimely deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner. In the days since, their son Nick has been arrested and charged with their murders. If it is ultimately proven that he is responsible, he will have committed parricide, the term for the killing of a parent by their child.

Parricide is rare—it accounts for only 2 percent of all homicides—and the killing of both parents is a tiny percentage (4 to 8 percent) of all parricides. When it happens, we are horrified and deeply saddened, confounded by the extreme violence and loss within a family.

Although single-victim parricide by both adult and juvenile offenders has been studied, relatively little is known about the slaying of both mothers and fathers. One of the first systematic studies using a national database took place only 10 years ago (Fegadel & Heide, 2015), examining the characteristics of the offender, the victims, and the incidents themselves. In the period between 1991 and 2010, 45 incidents were identified, 35 of which were committed by offenders acting alone.

The overwhelming majority of offenders were male and White. Among adult offenders in this study and subsequent ones, the average age was 30 (Bojanic, Flynn et al, 2020). The crimes usually occurred in the parents’ house, and weapons were often blunt, pointed, or sharp objects, or firearms (Divella, Grattagliano et al., 2017).

These facts are descriptive only and do not help us to understand this tragic event. It is the disturbing nature of the underlying drivers of such events that shakes and baffles us. Research suggests a range of motivations and precursors that are often involved. There are some differences between those who kill parents during adolescence and those who do so as........

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