Fascinating destinations from all over the world
On November 22, 2002, Dena Schlosser, from Plano, Texas, amputated the arms of her 11-month-old daughter, Margaret. The child died as a result. Schlosser suffers from severe mental health problems. Dena Schlosser was committed to North Texas State Hospital, where she shared a room and became friends with Andrea Yates.
On April 10, 2001, Robert Fisher blew up his house. The bodies of his wife Mary Fisher and their two children, 12-year-old Brittney and 10-year-old Robert Jr., were then found inside.
It turns out it was not the explosion that killed them. There was evidence that the children had been killed with a knife and that Fisher's wife had been shot. Robert Fisher is one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives.
On June 22, 2007, the Canadian pro wrestler murdered his wife Nancy Benoit and their seven-year-old son, Daniel, before taking his own life.
On June 20, 2001, an American woman named Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub. Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a mental facility.
On May 19, 1983, American criminal Diane Downs shot her three children (one of them fatally) and then took them to the hospital, claiming they had been victims of an attempted carjacking. She was sentenced to life in prison.
Perhaps one of the most infamous cases of filicide is that of singer-songwriter Marvin Gaye, who was murdered by his father, Marvin Gay Sr., during an argument on April 1, 1984.
German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda Goebbels, who was also a prominent member of the Nazi Party, had six children together.
On February 17, 1970, US Army physician Jeffrey MacDonald's pregnant wife and two children were murdered at home. MacDonald claimed that intruders did it. The story was not true, however, and Jeffrey MacDonald was charged with the murders in 1979.
In 1990, the German car designer, who was working for BMW at the time, stabbed his 33-year-old son to death following an argument.
On December 31, 1913, British musician Harry Fragson (pictured) found his mentally-ill father Victor Pot at home in Paris about to take his own life. Victor fatally shoot his son following an argument. Pot eventually died a few weeks later in an asylum.
Francisca Rojas, from Argentina, murdered her two children in 1892. Rojas is believed to be the first ever criminal to be convicted through fingerprint evidence.
Mary A. Cowan, also known as "The Borgia of Maine," was an American serial killer active between 1884 and 1894. Cowan murdered three of her children and a stepson.
Peter I, aka Peter the Great, got rid of his son Alexei Petrovich, after he plotted to overthrow him in 1718. Petrovich was tortured into confessing, and died of the injuries.
On May 1, 1945, in order to avoid surrendering to the Red Army, the couple injected their five daughters and their son with morphine, and then took their own lives with cyanide.
Circa 1373, the Ottoman Sultan's son, Savcı Bey, rebelled against him and tried to seize power. The move backfired and Murad I had his son killed.
The story goes that, in November 1581, Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich (aka Ivan the Terrible) physically assaulted his son's pregnant wife, Yelena Sheremeteva, causing a miscarriage. When his son confronted him, Ivan hit his son on the head with a scepter, and he later died of the injuries.
Suleiman the Magnificent is yet another parent who murdered his child in the Ottoman Empire. He was led to believe his son, Şehzade Mustafa, was conspiring against him, so he had him killed in 1553.
In 1615, Abbas the Great, the 5th Safavid Shah (king) of Iran, had his son Mohammad Baqer Mirza killed over suspicions of usurpation. The story goes that Abbas I immediately regretted his decision.
Herod the Great had his sons Alexander I and Aristobulus IV killed because he feared they would usurp him. Not only that, but he ordered all male children aged two and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem to be killed. This event became known as the Massacre of the Innocents.
Antonia Minor's daughter, Claudia Livia, was accused of poisoning Drusus Julius Caesar in the year 31 CE. Livia was locked up in a room by her mother and starved to death.
Roman Emperor Aulus Vitellius is said to have killed his son, Aulus Vitellius Petronianus, in order to claim the inheritance of his son's maternal grandparents.
In December 263 CE, Liu Chen, the Prince of Beidi, China, took his own life and that of his family's after the fall of the Shu Han empire.
Roman Emperor Constantine the Great had his son Crispus executed in 326 CE. The reason for the execution remains unclear.
This biblical figure from the Book of Judges sacrificed his daughter to Yahweh (God of the Israelites) after winning a battle.
In 509 BCE, the founder of the Roman Republic murdered his sons Titus and Tiberius because they supported the monarchy.
The Byzantine empress had her son Constantine VI killed, so that she could rule the whole empire unchallenged.
On November 9, 1971, an American man named John List murdered his mother, wife, and three children, and then vanished. The mass murderer was not captured until June 1989.
The Roman general executed his son in 340 BCE after he left his post. He did so to attack a group of Latins, but his father was clearly not happy about his son's audacious move.
The Roman military leader-turned-dictator murdered his son in 431 BCE because he quit a post assigned to him by his father.
A woman named Lori Vallow Daybell was convicted of murdering two of her children, as well as conspiracy to commit murder in relation to the death of Tammy Daybell, her husband's first wife. The three deaths occurred in 2020. Her young children, seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, both disappeared in September 2019. At this time, Lori was having an affair with the married Chad Daybell, but in October of that same year, his wife Tammy Daybell was attacked and died in hospital 10 days later. Lori and Chad were married shortly after Tammy's death, and when the police began looking into the welfare of Lori's children, she and Chad claimed that they were staying with family.
In March 2020, Lori was arrested for desertion of her children, who could not be located. Three months later, the bodies of JJ and Tylee were found buried in Chad's backyard, and Lori was charged with first-degree murder. She was also charged in relation to the death of Tammy Daybell. Lori was convicted on all charges in May 2022, and on July 31, 2023, she received multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. Lori continued to deny her involvement in the murders, stating, "Jesus Christ knows the truth of what happened here. Jesus Christ knows that no one was murdered in this case."
A 10-year-old girl named Sara Sharif was found dead at her family home in Surrey, England, in August 2023. Her father, Urfan Sharif, her stepmother, Beinash Batool, and her uncle, Faisal Malik, left the country for Pakistan the day after she died. A note was reportedly found beside her body which read, "Whoever see this note, it's me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating." The written confession continued, "I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it."
He reported himself to the police in Pakistan, stating that he had accidentally beaten his daughter to death while punishing her for being naughty. A postmortem found more than 70 injuries to the young girl's body, and prosecutors shared evidence that the torture had been going on for years before her death. Sharif, Batool, and Malik were all put on trial in England and a jury found them guilty of Sara's murder on December 11, 2024.
Sources: (The Crime Wire)
See also: The most mysterious murders of all time
Taking another person's life is always a tragic event, but things get even darker when it's a family member, especially a person's own child. Supposedly, parent-child love should deter such murders from happening, but sadly love is not always enough. For one reason or another, parents have been killing their own kids since the dawn of civilization, and will likely continue to do so.
In this gallery, we bring you some of the most infamous cases of parents who killed their own children, from antiquity to the present day. Click on to learn all about them.
Parents who murdered their own children
The most infamous cases of filicide
TRAVEL True crime
Taking another person's life is always a tragic event, but things get even darker when it's a family member, especially a person's own child. Supposedly, parent-child love should deter such murders from happening, but sadly love is not always enough. For one reason or another, parents have been killing their own kids since the dawn of civilization, and will likely continue to do so.
In this gallery, we bring you some of the most infamous cases of parents who killed their own children, from antiquity to the present day. Click on to learn all about them.