Murder-Suicide Within the Family
Dealing with Familicide When It Takes the Life of Someone You Love
One of life's greatest tragedies is losing loved ones through unexpected death. A sister whose brother killed his family in Gurnee, Illinois offers tips on coping.
When a loved one kills a spouse and their children before taking his or her own life in a single, unimaginable moment is probably the most difficult challenge anyone may ever face in life.
How do you cope? How do you go from having such precious individuals in your life one day to dealing with their unexpected deaths the next? Dealing with coroners and planning funerals when you are at your weakest emotionally, while the rest of the world prefers to focus on the gruesome horror attached to familicide?
"Somehow you cope, you really have no choice," Donna Blauvick says. “You pull yourself together as best you can and you just…cope.”
Her brother, Daniel LaMere, a Navy veteran suffering extreme survivor guilt after 37 of his shipmates lost their lives on the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf in 1987, killed his wife and her two children from a previous marriage before taking his own life on Memorial Day in 1998.
The grieving, Donna says, never ends. "I’ve spent years trying to preserve a memory of my brother other than that one event."
Donna believes the best steps that family members can take during such an inexplicably difficult time are:
- Avoid the media. “No matter what you say, everything gets twisted,” she says. A substantial number of newspaper stories about her brother and the killings printed across the country over the years contain false or misleading information. She advises refraining from trying to explain the unexplainable to reporters who are only interested in writing sensationalized stories for public consumption.
- Realize you will suffer your own survivor guilt and may need counseling. “You’ll constantly think, ‘If only I had done something, this wouldn’t have happened,” she says. It’s important to remember you had no way of saving your loved ones, no way of being there to prevent such a tragedy. Get professional help for your grief if you need it.
- Others may not be forgiving or understanding. “You’ll always be acquainted with that ‘bad person’ who killed a family in their eyes,” she says. Don’t waste time and energy trying to make them understand. “They won’t,” she said. Focus instead on keeping you and your own family strong and dealing with the loss.
She also feels friends and family members should:
- Not be judgmental. Remember only mentally ill individuals are capable of such an act. “Talk about that person. Talk about the good times, “Donna says. “Just don't judge. You are dealing with people still in shock and suffering terribly over this tragedy.”
- Tell children connected to the tragedy only what they can comprehend. Donna’s daughter was so young at the time that she was told a car accident took her uncle’s life and his family. It was enough.
- Show empathy. Realize immediate family loved that individual who did a horrible thing and that they also mourn the loss of the others killed. “You’ll feel you need to downplay that loved one’s death,” Donna says, “But we need people around us. We need to feel their love and be reminded they cared for someone like my brother.”
Is a life entirely defined by a single tragic moment?
Donna, like other survivors of murder-suicide, hopes with all her heart it isn't.
"He was my brother and I loved him," she says. "Unfortunately, he didn't get the help he needed."
For more information on getting help before or after murder-suicide, resources are available at Befrienders Worldwide, Navy Newstand, Grief Net and Suicide Prevention.
