Kill for machismo, commit suicide for machismo

Kill for machismo, commit suicide for machismo

Funeral services introduce the body of the young woman in the car in the midst of a strong police presence. In the circle, door of the sealed address. / MARTA MORAS

30% of sexist criminals ended up taking their own lives, experts do not believe that they are guilty, but impulsiveness due to the lack of control over their victim

Jose Antonio Guerrero

The last two sexist murderers ended up committing suicide after killing their partners. Last Sunday, the Police found the body of a 67-year-old woman in a Benidorm home when they were about to notify her that her husband had perished in a traffic accident. He had stabbed her before crashing her car into a tow truck. On Monday, Raquel Carrión, 32 years old and mother of two small children, was found dead at her home in Palencia when the police were going to inform her of the death of her partner, run over by a train. The investigations indicate that after strangling her with a strap, the criminal left the apartment and threw himself onto the tracks.

Both cases put on the table a face as ugly as it is little known, that of men who commit suicide after murdering their partners, a reality that, so far this year, has already happened a dozen times. Of the 33 women murdered by gender violence in 2022, in ten cases her executioners ended her life, and in one more, she tried.

The first occurred on January 25, in Algarinejo (Granada), where Mónica, 50, was stabbed to death by her husband, who later committed suicide with a shotgun blast. On March 2, in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), Lobna, 32, was stabbed to death by her ex-partner, who took her own life with the same knife. They left 4 orphans between 6 and 12 years old. The next day, in Maqueda (Toledo), Isabel, 45, was killed with a shotgun blast by her ex-partner, with whom she was in the process of separating. The man later shot himself.

suspected killers

and suicides

They committed suicide after committing the murder

There was no suicide attempt

Source: Ministry of Equality

suspected killers

and suicides

They committed suicide after committing the murder

There was no suicide attempt

Source: Ministry of Equality

suspected killers

and suicides

They committed suicide after committing the murder

There was no suicide attempt

Source: Ministry of Equality

Lloret del Mar, Tomelloso, Calle Serrano in Madrid (where an aristocrat killed his wife and a friend before taking his own life), Dos Hermanas, Albuñol... have been the scene of similar episodes, and thus up to ten suicides (the 30.3% of all sexist crimes in 2022, the same percentage as in 2021), and a suicide attempt that occurred in Nohales (Cuenca) on April 4.

There is no scientific study that has analyzed in depth the combination of gender violence and suicide. In fact, the Ministry of Equality has only begun to give this data in 2021. And the experts do not see a defined pattern that allows a definitive conclusion to be drawn. But they agree that these criminals respond to the profile of an insecure and emotionally unstable man, very impulsive, conflicted with others and with himself, more fearful of criminal conviction than social, and who feel that his life has no meaning after losing control over their victim, once they have killed her.

Suicidal criminals "show limitations in empathy and minimize responsibility and blame"

nuria lamb

Forensic psychologist and expert in gender violence

Nuria Lamb, specialist in forensic psychology and expert in gender and intrafamily violence, reports that there is no single profile of the aggressor, but there are a series of psychopathological factors, such as a borderline personality disorder, a paranoid or narcissistic personality, as well as a set of indicators of dangerousness, among which he cites "emotional instability and strong domination together with suspicion and impulsiveness and a marked aggressiveness".

The psychologist does not believe that these individuals are erased from life due to a supposed feeling of guilt. In some cases, she does not recognize the damage inflicted "and therefore they do not assume that responsibility", and she recalls that criminals "show limitations in empathy and emotional illiteracy" and therefore "minimize responsibility and blame". Cordero points out that the marked emotional instability of these individuals, together with their impulsiveness and internal conflict, are risk factors that promote suicidal behavior. “The perception of the breakup would act as a trigger for the murder of their partners and could explain the fact of committing suicide after murdering them”, indicates the specialist.

«Suicide occurs on many occasions as another uncontrolled exit in the face of what happened»

TIMANFAYA HERNANDEZ

Health and forensic psychologist

Timanfaya Hernandez, health and forensic psychologist, also thinks that there is no common behavior mechanism, "but there are cases in which suicides do it consciously and premeditated", such as that of Tomás Gimeno, the father of Olivia and Anna, who planned the death of his daughters (he suffocated them and threw them into the sea in Tenerife), and then he got out of the way to cause the mother inhuman pain and plunge her into uncertainty, since his aim was to make all traces of him disappear and of the little ones.

But there is not always such cruel and obsessive planning, and sometimes suicide acts as a way out of control. “The basis of macho behavior is insecurity”, points out Hernández, “insecurity leads to trying to exercise control and when for different reasons I lose it, the emotions it generates, frustration, anger and lack of control of impulses cannot be tolerated. It can be said that it is committing suicide due to machismo after having killed due to machismo", illustrates the psychologist, who adds: "That does not mean that one is not aware of what has been done. Suicide occurs on many occasions as another uncontrolled exit in the face of what happened.

"There are suicides who seek to cause the greatest pain to their partners by eliminating their children, and with the determination to kill themselves later, as Tomás Jimeno did"

Javier Jimenez

Clinical psychologist and honorary president of the Association for Research, Prevention and Intervention of Suicide (AIPIS)

Xavier Jimenez, clinical psychologist and honorary president of
AIPIS, The Association for Research, Prevention and Intervention of Suicide, which he has directed for ten years, distinguishes between two types of suicidal sexist murderers, those who kill premeditatedly and those who do not, that is, those who have been mistreating their partners for years until one day, as they say vulgarly, they are out of hand. «It is a subjective appreciation of mine because we do not have scientific studies, but I would say that in the case of the latter, most commit suicide not so much because of the social stigma of 'what will society think of me?', but to deliver the criminal sanction. The legal sentence weighs more than the social one, ”emphasizes Jiménez.

Then there are the suicides who seek to cause the greatest pain to their partners or ex-partners by eliminating their children, and with the determination to kill themselves afterwards, as Tomás Gimeno did. "And there is another guy, who is the one who kills her because she or she is mine or nobody else's, and she is making me suffer so much that I am going to kill myself, but first I take her ahead of her." Jiménez believes that this profile of individuals "who are generally super-impulsive and aggressive" are not affected by campaigns of gender violence. "They are like acorn animals, they may already be crushing the media with campaigns that are slippery for them." The AIPIS psychologist believes that it would be good to do a psychological autopsy on these people (talk to their family and friends, investigate the searches they did on the Internet...) to delve into why a sexist murderer commits suicide.

"If she does not die in the abuse, there is no suicide," says a Family judge

Margarita Pérez-Salazar, Family judge in Pamplona and with several years of experience in a court of violence against women, believes that his suicide is related to her death. “When the abuse is serious but she does not die, there is no suicide. Therefore I think that when they commit suicide they do not do it because of guilt or because of the criminal conviction. Pérez-Salazar has taken statements from dozens of aggressors “and very few recognize themselves as abusers. Most of them justify her actions and they almost always find a reason in her: she makes me nervous, she provokes me...». In her view, her suicide may be caused by her loss, “as it no longer makes sense to be there. The loss", remembers the magistrate, "also motivates the murder in many cases. When she decides to separate from her, faced with that loss, he acts. That is why the idea of ​​loss can also motivate suicide. The loss is the lack of control for him and control, in the abuser, is key.