Homicide–suicide in the United States, 1968–1975

This paper describes for the first time the epidemiology of homicide–suicide events in the whole of the United States using archival data. From 1968 to 1975, there were 2215 homicide–suicide events out of 123,467 homicides. The mean rate of homicide–suicide events was 0.134 per 100,000 per year. The murderers in these events differ from the typical murderer and the typical suicide in socio-demographic characteristics. Details of the characteristics of this population may be valuable for understanding the circumstances of homicide–suicide events and planning preventive measures.