Mass killers who kill their own families

A mass murderer is a murderer who slays three or more victims over a short period of time. The duration is typically hours but can be days. If the act takes place in one location, it is usually continuous. Murder spree is a term that criminologists use if the victims are killed at more than one location. Michael Kelleher, in his 1997 book Flashpoint, also adds the phrase "mass murder by intention," that provides the 1996 example of Larry Shoemake in Jackson, Mississippi, who killed only one victim even though he fired more than a hundred rounds of ammunition and torched a restaurant.

Mass killers differ from serial killers in that serial killers murder their victims separately and over a period of time, with a cooling-off period between murders.

One of the difficulties in gathering data on the mass murderer is that he or she often commits suicide. The terrorists involved in the World Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies died when the planes they hijacked hit their objectives. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris committed suicide after their mass murder at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. Marc Lepine, an avid woman hater, slaughtered fifteen "feminists" studying engineering in a Montreal school in 1989. Then he committed suicide. Authorities could never figure out why Thomas Eugene Braun went on his killing spree in 1967. While several hypotheses exist, there is no definitive explanation of why Charlie Lawson, a North Carolina farmer, killed his wife, six children, and himself on Christmas Day, 1929. On December 5, 2007, 19-year-old gunman, Robert Hawkins opened fire with a rifle inside the Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska. He was standing near the children's clothing area while killing eight people and then himself. The gunman who killed four people in shooting rampages at two Colorado religious institutions on December 12, 2007,committed suicide after he was shot by a church security guard.

Truly the saddest incidents of mass murder are when families are murdered by other members of the families.

Jessie Dotson, 33, confessed to murdering six people who were found inside a home at 722 Lester Street in Memphis Tennessee on March 3, 2008. Dotson was also accused of trying to kill three other children. He killed his brother, his brother's girlfriend, two other adults and two of his nephews. He stabbed the kids with a knife. His motive for killing all six of his victims was that after killing his brother, he didn’t want the others to be witnesses at his trial.

Just prior to the killings, he had been just released from prison after serving time on another murder charge. He was released in August 2007 after serving 13 years of an 18-year sentence for second degree murder. The Department of Corrections reported that Dotson was disciplined 29 times from 1995 to 2006. The incidents included fighting, assault, and threatening a jail employee. In the report, it is noted that in April 1998, Dotson stabbed another prisoner in the back of the neck with a homemade knife. Obviously, the man was a dangerous man and should never have been released from prison. He was charged with six counts of first degree murder which made him eligible for the death penalty.

At approximately 11:30 p.m. on December 24, 2008, in Covina, a community in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, 45-year-old Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, dressed in a Santa Claus suit, knocked on the door of his former in-laws' house, occupied with about 25 people, with a gift-wrapped package (containing a homemade flamethrower) in one hand and a semi-automatic handgun in the other hand; he also had three additional semi-automatic handguns in his possession. When the door opened, Pardo fired the handgun at an eight-year-old girl as she ran to greet him, injuring her in the face. He then fired indiscriminately at fleeing partygoers. Police speculate that Pardo may have stood over and pointedly executed some of the victims, using the other handguns.

After the shootings, Pardo unwrapped the package containing the homemade flamethrower, and used it to spray racing fuel gasoline to set the home ablaze. Nine people died from either gunfire or flames, and three others were wounded: the eight-year-old girl who was shot in the face with severe but non-life-threatening injuries, a 16-year-old girl shot and wounded in the back, and a 20-year-old woman who suffered a broken ankle jumping out of the second-floor window. There was one survivor who called the authorities during the attack after escaping to a neighbor's house. The resulting fire soared approximately 40 to 50 feet and took 80 firefighters an hour-and-a-half to extinguish. Due to the intensity of the fire, identification of the victims had been done by referencing dental and medical records.

Police speculate that the motive of the attack was related to marital problems. Pardo's wife of one year had settled for divorce in the prior week. However, Pardo held no criminal record and had no history of violence. In June 2008, divorce court had ordered Bruce Pardo to pay $1,785 a month in spousal support. During the divorce proceeding, Bruce had confided to a friend his wife was "taking him to the cleaner." In July, Mr. Pardo was fired for billing false hours. Pardo was also required to pay his ex-wife $10,000 as part of the divorce settlement. It was revealed that he had planned to kill his own mother after the massacre at Sylvia's home due to her apparent sympathy for his ex-wife during the divorce proceedings.

Ronald (Butch) DeFeo, Jr. (born September 26 1951) was tried and convicted for the 1974 killings of his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters in Amityville, Long Island, New York, The victims were car dealer Ronald DeFeo, Sr. (43), Louise DeFeo (42), and four of their children: Dawn (18); Allison (13); Marc (12); and John Matthew (9). All of the victims had been shot with a .35 caliber lever action Marlin 336C rifle at around three o'clock in the morning of November 13, 1974. DeFeo's parents had both been shot twice, while the children had all been killed with single shots. Louise DeFeo and her daughter Allison were reportedly the only victims who were awakened by the gunfire at the time of their deaths, but according to Suffolk County Police the victims were all found lying on their stomachs in bed. DeFeo was found guilty on six counts of second-degree murder. He told detectives: "Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. It went so fast. On December 4, 1975, Judge Thomas Stark sentenced Ronald DeFeo, Jr. to six consecutive sentences of 25 years to life.

The 1982 film Amityville II: The Possession is based on the book Murder in Amityville by parapsychologist Hans Holzer. It is a prequel set at 112 Ocean Avenue, featuring the fictional Montelli family who are said to be based on the DeFeo family. The story introduces speculative and controversial themes, including an incestuous relationship between Sonny Montelli and his teenaged sister, who are based loosely on Ronald DeFeo, Jr. and his sister Dawn. I don’t know if DeFeo and his sister really had an incestuous relationship.

Ronald DeFeo, Jr. had a stormy relationship with his father, but why the entire family was killed remains unclear. One can only assume that he killed the rest of his family so that there would be no witnesses.

What is really weird about this case is that the DeFeo family lived in the same address that a former family moved out of claiming that they had been terrorized by paranormal phenomena while living there. Jay Anson's novel, The Amityville Horror was published in September 1977 and was based on the information given to him by the family that moved out. It was later made into a movie by the same name. NO! I am not going to speculate as to whether or not DeFeo was influenced by some paranormal phenomena.

Ronald Gene Simmons, Sr. (15 July 1940 – 25 June 1990) was a retired United States Air Force sergeant who killed sixteen people, fourteen of whom were members of his family, and wounded four others, shortly before Christmas of 1987, On the morning of 22 December, he first killed his son Gene and his wife Rebecca at his home in Dover, Arkansas, by shooting them with a .22 caliber pistol. He then killed his three-year-old granddaughter Barbara by strangulation. Simmons dumped the bodies in the cesspit he had made his children dig. Simmons then waited for his other children to return to the house. After their arrival, he told them he had presents for them but wanted to give them one at a time. First to receive her ‘gift’ was his daughter, seventeen-year-old Loretta, whom Simmons strangled and held under the water in a rain barrel. The three other children, Eddy, Marianne, and Becky, were killed in the same way.

Around midday on 26 December, the remaining members of the family arrived for their Christmas visit. The first to be killed was Simmons’s son Billy and his wife Renata; both were shot dead. Then their son Trae was strangled and drowned, followed by their daughter. His oldest daughter Sheila who Simmons had an incestuous relationship with and her husband, Dennis McNulty, were also both shot dead. Ronald Simmons’ child by his own daughter Sheila, Sylvia Gail, was strangled, and finally he killed his grandson. Michael. Simmons laid the bodies of his whole family in neat rows in the lounge. All the corpses were covered with coats except that of Sheila, who was laid in state covered by Rebecca Simmons' best tablecloth. The bodies of the two grandsons were wrapped in plastic sheeting and left in abandoned cars at the end of the lane. After the murders, Simmons went for a drink in a local bar, then returned to the house and, apparently oblivious to the corpses lined up around him, spent the rest of the evening and the following day drinking beer and watching television.

On the morning of Monday, 28 December, Simmons drove into Russellville, and at a law office shot dead the receptionist, a young woman named Kathy Kendrick, with whom he had been infatuated and who had rejected him. He next went to an oil company office where he shot dead a man named J.D. Chaffin and wounded the owner, Rusty Taylor, and then drove on to a convenience store where he had previously worked, shooting and wounding two more people. Afterwards he went to the office of the Woodline Motor Freight Company, where he shot and wounded a woman, ending his killing spree. Simmons simply sat in the office and chatted to one of the secretaries while waiting for the police. When they arrived, he handed over his gun and surrendered without any resistance.

Simmons was charged with sixteen counts of murder, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He refused to appeal his death sentence, stating, "To those who oppose the death penalty in my particular case, anything short of death would be cruel and unusual punishment."

On 25 June 1990 he died, by the method he had chosen, lethal injection. None of his existing relatives would claim the body, and he was buried in a pauper's grave.

What is really heinous is the killing one’s own parents or one’s own children. These mass murders who killed their families (and there are many more who did) have forfeited their right to life. As I see it; none of these mass murderers should not have been permitted to continue living after they were found guilty. They all should have been executed.