No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

by Rachel Louise Snyder

Civil reputable killers tend to be middle or middle-upper class. Very often they are Caucasian. (Men make up 95% of all familicide perpetrators in the United States; Websdale’s research showed 154 men versus 7 women perpetrators between 2008 and 2013.) Their families tend to be traditionally gendered, which means the man is the primary support, while the woman takes care of the family and home. (This is not to say women don’t work, but rather they carry the emotional needs of the home.) Rocky Mosure is such an example. They’re often religious compared to the general population, with a fundamentalist outlook, and they can be rigidly constrained in their emotional range, all of which fit with Patrick O’Hanlon. Often they’re extremely socially isolated. Economics—loss of a job or rank or status, a pending bankruptcy—can be a catalyst for the final act of killing.