Family homicide in the past and today in Varese and his district

Abstract

The authors analyse the intrafamilial homicide cases occurred in Varese district during two periods of fifteen years placed at one hundred years of distance one from the other. The article introduction provides a discussion on main variations in socio-economic and familial setting occurred, during the last century, in the analysed district. This study includes 11 intrafamilial homicide cases which occurred between 1888 and 1903, and 30 further cases that happened since 1988 to 2003. The authors collected information about these murders by reading articles relative to them published in “La Prealpina”, a local newspaper founded in Varese in 1888.Every case of intrafamilial homicide is analysed by extracting from news data about crime phenomenology. This information have been individually examined and then compared to the ones referring to other cases, in order to find out if any changing has occurred in intrafamilial homicide phenomenology during the last century. These are the factors considered as significant for the study purpose: crime timing, relationships between victim and murderer, homicide placing, victim and killer features, murder weapon. The authors also provide an analysis of main familial problems and difficulties pre-existing between murderer and victim, and describe motive for the murder reported by newspapers. The comparison between the data referring to 1888-1903 murder cases and the information relative to the period 1988-2003 is certainly not statistically significant, but allows the authors to express considerations about the influence of socio-economic and cultural changing on intrafamilial homicide motivation and phenomenology.