5 members of family found dead in Cavan - NO SPECULATION

Is it a certainty that it was the father and not the mother or someone else?

Whoever did it, I can't imagine them being a well person and as horrific as the crime is and tragic as the loss of kids lives always is, I can't help but wonder if the killer was as cold and calculated as people are assuming, or if they were in some world of inner agony of their own.

I feel desperately sorry for all the family of everyone lost, but a special part of my heart goes out to the parents and close family of the father, knowing that their son, whom they loved I assume, took the lives of children they love. That must be a hard burden, since they can't even console themselves that he was an innocent victim.

SAMTALK

My heart goes out to all involved at this awful time. Be it the families of those involved or the guards/ambulance personnel.

The mind is a most delicate thing and nobody here can begin to imagine what state a parents mind has to be in to do such a thing so to a certain degree I would have sympathy for the parent who did this.

The families have enough to deal with without all the vile headlines and surmising that is going on .

RIP to the whole family.

Musketeer4

RIP to those kids and their mother.

Samaris

RIP to all of them. It's tragic, horrendous and incomprehensible from the outside, but I've read a few too many accounts of desperate people talking about their state of mind when the only way out seemed to be killing themselves and their children. In fairness, those accounts were mostly single women who, apart from anything else, could see no future for their child or children - a care home, and the mother had gone through one of them herself and couldn't face her children going to one, for instance. This case is different and more unusual, but without understanding why and knowing that in all likelihood I could never understand why... I got nothing, bar hoping they all rest in peace.

mille100piedi

when I heard the news I recall a similar event happened in my grandmother village. The husband killed himself but before he killed the wife and a child with a hammer. He didn't manage to kill the other two son that now are leaving with a reconstructed skull. One of the two is mentally disabled. They were saying that it was a normal family and they were at a basketball match the day before and every thing looked fine. They discovered the bodies in the morning.
But my cousin that was living close to them told me that it was not everything normal, the husband had a mental illness and he was taking antipsychotic. Nobody know how a single individual can react to drugs like that and mental diseases are unpredictable.
I will be surprise if they family didn't notice some kind of mental disorder in the father. I have family members that have mental disorders and it is clear to me that they are unstable and their type of behave is hurting others all the time. But this is an illness an awful illness.

trek climber

Rather than speculating on what did or did not not happen, spare a thought for the families/neighbours trying to come to terms with what has happened. It has devastated the local community (adults and young people) in a way that you could not imagine.

JOhnty78

I hate that the news gets so involved in these things. Celebrities get injunctions when theyve been caught cheating on their partner but the media can freely push out every detail and every single update on something like this. What good is it doing? There are a lot of people suffering from this.

eviltwin

I just hope those children were asleep and unaware of what happened. I feel sad for all involved.

demfad

I think we owe it to those who were killed yesterday to try and understand familicide and potential motives.

Here is a summary of scholarly studies and conclusions.

Here's another article about the death of 3 year old Clarissa McCarthy in Cork in 2013.

There is a better chance of minimizing this type of murder if we honestly try to understand it.

mille100piedi

trek climber wrote: »

Rather than speculating on what did or did not not happen, spare a thought for the families/neighbours trying to come to terms with what has happened. It has devastated the local community (adults and young people) in a way that you could not imagine.

unfortunately this kind of tragedies happen many time in my country. Of course I am very sorry about the devastated family, but we should understand why this has happen. Many people with mental disorders don't have the support they need and it is considered a stigma and nobody want to talk about this.
To prevent cases like this happening in the future we have to understand why, if we don't understand why it would be more complicate give the right support at the right time and it might happen to other families

wonderfullife

Heartbreaking stuff.

I know it's not easy but hard questions need to be asked in the public domain and the more people skirt around these issues "out of respect for family/friends/community" the more it gets brushed under the carpet.

The Irish approach to dealing with suicide (and murder-suicide) for decades has been to respect the loved ones remaining and keep it all hush-hush, low key.

Calling murder-suicide a tragedy dangerously implies it's the same thing as a whole family dying in a car accident. It's really not.

In nearly every one of these cases, it's a male killing a female and children. That immediately correlates to the overall pattern of suicide demographics in this country and should lead to questions as to how to involve men into opening up to others.

In most of the recent Irish cases, the families involved were parishioners. Church-goers. Religious. At the very least, all were christened and all buried in their local parish.

In most of the cases, there was no known pre-existing mental illness or criminal record involved. We all assume anybody who kills their family and commits suicide must have been suffering from depression or mental illness but it's not always the case.


There needs to be a hard-hitting, thought-provoking, soul searching debate from the top down on this issue because it's getting towards endemic in this country.

More pressure needs to be put on the Government to fund and expand all frontline mental health services. We're broke as a country but find the feckin money from somewhere.

More work is needed on assisting and advising people in debt and financial difficulties - this is factually one of the biggest risk factors associate with Familicide.

More pressure needs to be put on religious leaders to take an introspective look on the messages they put out in Mass.

I'm no expert on the Bible, religion or catholicism but the idea that an all-forgiving God will just forgive and welcome murderers into Heaven would be something i'd like firmly contradicted by the Church. It makes my blood boil to give this get-out-of-jail free card to someone mentally ill or who has simply snapped, to have at the back of their mind it will all be ok.

Having read up on these cases, there seems to be one absolute common denominator:

In the aftermath of such a tragedy, the family, friends and Priest all focus on "the love he had for the wife and kids".

It may help the family cope - to think this was something done out of misguided love.

But it's a pretty dangerous message to send out to anyone of a similar mind. That it's all ok, it's really "love" and it'll all be ok.

I'd really like someone to take a stand and say "no, this is not love, this is pure evil".

Hard questions need to be asked in the public domain. This idea of "respect the feelings of friends and relatives" is sweeping it under the carpet.

What's the bigger evil here? Offending/upsetting the relatives and friends left behind or allowing it to be swept under the carpet and doing nothing to even TRY prevent these horrible events happening?

If you're from the area or knew these people, my heart goes out to you. It's terrible.

But, personally, i'd rather live in a society where i upset you short term with the intention of preventing more children losing their life. The only way we can even try to minimise and prevent these situations is by confronting the evil and figuring out what we can do as a nation, a government and a society.

wonderfullife

wonderfullife wrote: »

I'm no expert on the Bible, religion or catholicism but the idea that an all-forgiving God will just forgive and welcome murderers into Heaven would be something i'd like firmly contradicted by the Church. It makes my blood boil to give this get-out-of-jail free card to someone mentally ill or who has simply snapped, to have at the back of their mind it will all be ok...

I don't think I have ever read a post by someone who knows less about Catholicism.

You really think that the message is God forgives and you can do anything and end up in Heaven?

Seriously?

Have you actually never heard of the word "Hell"? I'm not religious myself, but I know enough to know that the message you derive is bizarre.

Autonomous Cowherd

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't think I have ever read a post by someone who knows less about Catholicism.

You really think that the message is God forgives and you can do anything and end up in Heaven?

Seriously?

Have you actually never heard of the word "Hell"? I'm not religious myself, but I know enough to know that the message you derive is bizarre.

I did not get that impression at all from the previous poster. I found it to be a thoughtful attempt to unravel some of the moral and emotional ambiguity that can be fostered in the wake of familicides. We are all confused and shocked and deeply saddened by events like this...it is almost too much to think about in truth...and we grope around in the dark in our various ways trying to ''fix'' it.

AudreyHepburn

What a horrendous end for ALL involved.....yes I even have a little sympathy for the father. I can't even imagine what sort of horrible place you'd have to been in to do this. Something tells me though that he was not the cold hearted evil monster people seem to want him to have been.

I'm sure it doesn't need to be said that nothing, nothing at all, justifies the taking of a child's life, especially your own child.

But in a time when we are trying to encourage men to speak out about what they are feeling and going through, trying to paint the men who commit these acts, or think about committing these acts, as cold unfeeling monsters really does nothing to help the situation.

If anything, in my opinion anyway, all such reactions do is re-enforce the belief that a lot of men have that they cannot speak out, that they are not allowed to feel weak and ill and desperate.

Something was clearly wrong in this family, with this man, that was not dealt with as it should been.

A little bit of perspective is badly on this one.

captbarnacles

I don't feel any sympathy towards the father. He chose to do this, he wasn't compelled by other forces. He was a selfish violent man.

If he killed the neighbours kids and then himself would there be sympathy for him? Probably not so why when its his own children - is it because at some level they are seen as his 'property'?

captbarnacles

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

What a horrendous end for ALL involved.....yes I even have a little sympathy for the father. I can't even imagine what sort of horrible place you'd have to been in to do this. Something tells me though that he was not the cold hearted evil monster people seem to want him to have been.

I'm sure it doesn't need to be said that nothing, nothing at all, justifies the taking of a child's life, especially your own child.

But in a time when we are trying to encourage men to speak out about what they are feeling and going through, trying to paint the men who commit these acts, or think about committing these acts, as cold unfeeling monsters really does nothing to help the situation.

If anything, in my opinion anyway, all such reactions do is re-enforce the belief that a lot of men have that they cannot speak out, that they are not allowed to feel weak and ill and desperate.

Something was clearly wrong in this family, with this man, that was not dealt with as it should been.

A little bit of perspective is badly on this one.

I think the opposite of this. It must be shown by everyone that this is totally unacceptable and never ever in any tiny way justifiable. You want to end your own life and do then thats a tragedy but taking someone with you means you are a despicable person.

I don't believe it is misguided love in these cases but a refusal by the killer to let the world move on without them.

AudreyHepburn

captbarnacles wrote: »

I think the opposite of this. It must be shown by everyone that this is totally unacceptable and never ever in any tiny way justifiable. You want to end your own life and do then thats a tragedy but taking someone with you means you are a despicable person.

I don't believe it is misguided love in these cases but a refusal by the killer to let the world move on without them.

Ah come on now, I never said it was justifiable or acceptable. Just the opposite in fact.

All I said was surely the vitriolic hatred been shown towards the father would deter other men from coming forward for help.

Why would you want to ask for help, no matter how badly you want and need it, if all you see is hatred been projected towards other men who felt what you feel and who sadly acted on it?

SEPT 23 1989

captbarnacles wrote: »

I don't feel any sympathy towards the father. He chose to do this, he wasn't compelled by other forces. He was a selfish violent man.

If he killed the neighbours kids and then himself would there be sympathy for him? Probably not so why when its his own children - is it because at some level they are seen as his 'property'?

This is worse because the killer was trusted 100% by all his victims

Autonomous Cowherd

I think sometimes in mental illness, while we acknowledge confusion, sadness, despair, and so on, we ignore that in SOME cases cold implacable anger is at the root. Why are we not allowed to say that some people with mental illness are selfish, angry, possessive, cruel individuals...why do they always have to be presumed to be weak, sad and lost? I am not saying it is the case here.

strandroad

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I don't think I have ever read a post by someone who knows less about Catholicism.

You really think that the message is God forgives and you can do anything and end up in Heaven?

Seriously?

Have you actually never heard of the word "Hell"? I'm not religious myself, but I know enough to know that the message you derive is bizarre.

Is it ever said at such funerals that someone is or might be in hell? Never. It's all about God's love and understanding...

sadie06

It's such a complex issue, and I can understand almost all of the viewpoints being expressed, apart from the very extreme ones.

With the details that are emerging, unfortunately this is looking more similar to the Gregory Fox case (which was a flash point of anger) than the John Butler case, which was most definitely related to mental health issues.

If this turns out to be a fact, it would completely eradicate my feelings of sympathy for the perpetrator, and as others have said, gives rise to the idea of partners and children being seen as something that you own.

It is an absolute living nightmare for all involved. My mother supported (and continues to support) the immediate family of a perpetrator of this type of act, and it's about the worst thing that anyone can ever go through.

JustTheOne

Can people who murder now just use the mentally ill line?

sadie06

JustTheOne wrote: »

Can people who murder now just use the mentally ill line?

The mentally ill ones can. I think it's a fallacy to say that all murder-suicides are attributed to mental illness. I can think of incidents that clearly were, and weren't.

Then there is the issue of temporary insanity, as opposed to a history of mental illness. It's unbelievably complex, and can only be fully determined (if ever) by having all of the details, which we never will and rightly so.

In the Gregory Fox case, he survived the attempt on his own life, and admitted that he had always been controlling and jealous. Some would suggest that because of these character flaws, he suffered temporary insanity at the thought of his marriage ending. He himself says he 'went mad'.

I would argue that he had a personality type that gave him a feeling of ownership over his family.

mhge

mhge wrote: »

Is it ever said at such funerals that someone is or might be in hell? Never. It's all about God's love and understanding...

Because they are not speaking to or taking confession from the Deceased, they have to give their message to the family and friends. I don't think it would be appropriate for a Priest to refer to the possibility of Hell for a Deceased person at their funeral.

I'm not trying to sell religion or the idea of heaven and hell, but to blame the Church when we are relying on speculation, and to give a completely wrong interpretation of the Church's position on sin, is miles out.

rjpf1980

Anyone can go off the deep end. This appalling event proves that. This man acted completely out of character based on what has been said about him. A family man a respected teacher and sportsman. We will never know for sure what set him off. All of us are capable of going down a dark tunnel if our troubles overwhelm us.
If he was captured alive no question he should have served multiple life sentences.
There may be no way of preventing tragedies like this but if this shocking event makes someone else planning something similar snap of their trance maybe these deaths will not be in vain.

rjpf1980

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Because they are not speaking to or taking confession from the Deceased, they have to give their message to the family and friends. I don't think it would be appropriate for a Priest to refer to the possibility of Hell for a Deceased person at their funeral.

I'm not trying to sell religion or the idea of heaven and hell, but to blame the Church when we are relying on speculation, and to give a completely wrong interpretation of the Church's position on sin, is miles out.

As I understand it at every funeral it is assumed the dead whether they were low life or a respected public figure who did great good are equal before God and in need of our prayers.
Hitler might get into heaven before you or Mother Teresa could be burning in hell.
You don't know.
The point of a funeral is to affirm that God's love is more powerful than death and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross can redeem even the greatest sinner.
We are supposed to forgive because when we hate even the greatest evil doer we give victory to the power of evil in the world.

I'm not religious but I can see the wisdom of that thinking.

murpho999

wonderfullife wrote: »

Heartbreaking stuff.

I know it's not easy but hard questions need to be asked in the public domain and the more people skirt around these issues "out of respect for family/friends/community" the more it gets brushed under the carpet.

The Irish approach to dealing with suicide (and murder-suicide) for decades has been to respect the loved ones remaining and keep it all hush-hush, low key.

Calling murder-suicide a tragedy dangerously implies it's the same thing as a whole family dying in a car accident. It's really not.

In nearly every one of these cases, it's a male killing a female and children. That immediately correlates to the overall pattern of suicide demographics in this country and should lead to questions as to how to involve men into opening up to others.

In most of the recent Irish cases, the families involved were parishioners. Church-goers. Religious. At the very least, all were christened and all buried in their local parish.

In most of the cases, there was no known pre-existing mental illness or criminal record involved. We all assume anybody who kills their family and commits suicide must have been suffering from depression or mental illness but it's not always the case.


There needs to be a hard-hitting, thought-provoking, soul searching debate from the top down on this issue because it's getting towards endemic in this country.

More pressure needs to be put on the Government to fund and expand all frontline mental health services. We're broke as a country but find the feckin money from somewhere.

More work is needed on assisting and advising people in debt and financial difficulties - this is factually one of the biggest risk factors associate with Familicide.

More pressure needs to be put on religious leaders to take an introspective look on the messages they put out in Mass.

I'm no expert on the Bible, religion or catholicism but the idea that an all-forgiving God will just forgive and welcome murderers into Heaven would be something i'd like firmly contradicted by the Church. It makes my blood boil to give this get-out-of-jail free card to someone mentally ill or who has simply snapped, to have at the back of their mind it will all be ok.

Having read up on these cases, there seems to be one absolute common denominator:

In the aftermath of such a tragedy, the family, friends and Priest all focus on "the love he had for the wife and kids".

It may help the family cope - to think this was something done out of misguided love.

But it's a pretty dangerous message to send out to anyone of a similar mind. That it's all ok, it's really "love" and it'll all be ok.

I'd really like someone to take a stand and say "no, this is not love, this is pure evil".

Hard questions need to be asked in the public domain. This idea of "respect the feelings of friends and relatives" is sweeping it under the carpet.

What's the bigger evil here? Offending/upsetting the relatives and friends left behind or allowing it to be swept under the carpet and doing nothing to even TRY prevent these horrible events happening?

If you're from the area or knew these people, my heart goes out to you. It's terrible.

But, personally, i'd rather live in a society where i upset you short term with the intention of preventing more children losing their life. The only way we can even try to minimise and prevent these situations is by confronting the evil and figuring out what we can do as a nation, a government and a society.

Sorry but I find your post way OTT.

The problem of family murder/suicide is not unique to Ireland and it is no more prevalent here than it is in other countries.

It’s very easy to say that the government should do more and more money should be provided but how can anyone predict or identify a seemingly ordinary person like a school vice-principal would have such issues and go on to commit this awful crime.

You also seem to assume that religion plays a part in all of this cases which I don’t think it does and I also don’t believe that there is any such thing as ‘pure evil’. It’s simply a matter of the terrible reactions coming down to a complicated mental health issue that is not fully understood and that’s it.

No need to blame governments or church guidance (I never get why people and Irish media insist on turning to them).

I do not see how it is being swept under the carpet either as the case is in the full media spotlight and leading to great debate.

I do not have the answers but I think these sort of tragic cases have always happened throughout history and will sadly always happen in the future as human beings are complex psychological beings and the solutions are not as easily found as you suggest by throwing money at it or having support networks.

Shop40

Have to say I think it's significant that this happened the night before the father was due to return to teaching. My dad was a teacher who struggled deeply with this role (although this was a secondary school with tough to control kids). Now a completely different situation as he didn't resort to actions such as what happened in Cavan, but he did confide in me in later years that he contemplated suicide many times, how he planned he would do this etc. He suffered a complete breakdown when I was very young, never worked again and has suffered from depression since 25 years later. It completely changed our family and my childhood i.e. he stopped socialising with friends/his siblings, unleashed his mood swings daily, hit me, called me horrible names. I let men mistreat me all through my twenties as it was what I was used to. It was very tough growing up in a house where depression had its foot in the door.

I suppose, where I'm coming from is that teaching can be a very difficult profession and sometimes people can feel trapped, lose all reason and snap.

Zubeneschamali

JOhnty78 wrote: »

I hate that the news gets so involved in these things.

I particularly hate where they interview the bishop, the local politician and the neighbours, and everyone says this was a lovely normal family and no-one had any idea.

Clearly in cases like this we are not dealing with a lovely normal family. These people being interviewed are basically saying : "I have no idea what I am talking about". So why interview them?

demfad

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

What a horrendous end for ALL involved.....yes I even have a little sympathy for the father. I can't even imagine what sort of horrible place you'd have to been in to do this. Something tells me though that he was not the cold hearted evil monster people seem to want him to have been.

I'm sure it doesn't need to be said that nothing, nothing at all, justifies the taking of a child's life, especially your own child.

But in a time when we are trying to encourage men to speak out about what they are feeling and going through, trying to paint the men who commit these acts, or think about committing these acts, as cold unfeeling monsters really does nothing to help the situation.

If anything, in my opinion anyway, all such reactions do is re-enforce the belief that a lot of men have that they cannot speak out, that they are not allowed to feel weak and ill and desperate.

Something was clearly wrong in this family, with this man, that was not dealt with as it should been.

A little bit of perspective is badly on this one.

We do not want to see this happen again therefore a truthful assessment of why these cases happen is needed. Have you tried to find out about other cases like this in order to inform your 'opinion'? Have you actually read any studies on familicide?
Here is a summary of scholarly studies often using testimonies from murderers that botched up their suicide attempt and victims who survived.
Here is an excellent piece about Clarissa McCarthy who was murdered by her Father in 2013.

What this demonstrates is that mental health issues (present in a minority) of cases can explain the suicide but does not explain the murders. According to studies on this type of mass murder the killer usually believes that his family are somehow his 'property' and does not have a right to life if he cannot live. This rather than mental health is what connects these type of murders.

I actually wish that the murderer had botched this suicide. I'm sure when he had to stand up in a court of Law and explain in detail how he first butchered his wife, why he chose her first (presumably because he knew she would fight to her death for the lives of her children if he rattacked them first). He would have to recount how his wife suffered at the end of her life, Did he cruelly tell her his intentions for the children as she died? He would have to recount in detail the order of murder, how long each murder took, the reaction after the first cut, the realisation, did the others wake during the butchering, how would he rate the terror, the suffering?

Clearly if this man had survived the public reaction would be entirely different. It would be honest. He would be completely vilified.

Instead this man's terrible crimes will be excused as 'complicated'. It will be claimed he 'loved' his children when he, infact, butchered them like animals.
He will probably even be buried in the same graves as the people he executed. And as a result the next potential murderer, seeing that the public agree with his view of things, that there will be minimal consequences to his lagacy, will be more inclined to take that next horrific step.

PS "Something was clearly wrong in this family"

I find this a despicable comment on your behalf. You seem to be trying to hint at blame elsewhere in that family. The problem with that family was with the father who regarded the lives of other members of his family as worthless without his own.