‘Just Say Goodbye’ (January 2013 online edition)

DVRCV Discussion Paper No. 8At both trials Donna Fitchett was found guilty by the jury, which indicatesthe jury did not accept the psychiatric evidence that she was mentally impaired tothe extent that she did not know that what she was doing was wrong.Donna Fitchett’s case shares some similarities with the cases of Cathy andSamantha, outlined above. She was the primary carer for her children andbelieved she had little support in that role. She was described as a loving mother,whose sons were the priority in her life. She was depressed for some time beforethe filicide. She was unhappy about the breakdown of her marriage and thisappears to have contributed to her becoming suicidal. Her stated reason forkilling the children was also similar: she said she did not want to leave herchildren without a mother. She expressed a belief that if she killed herself, shewould be ‘abandoning’ her children.Anger and revenge in filicides by mothers?The evidence that Donna Fitchett’s case was one of ‘spouse revenge’ or‘retaliation’ is less clear than in the cases of paternal filicide discussed in Chapter4. In her suicide letter to her husband, Donna Fitchett apologised for heractions. This contrasts with the sentiments of anger and revenge expressed bysome fathers in the cases outlined in Chapter 4.In contrast to the cases in which mothers killed their children, in discussionswith family and friends, and in suicide notes prior to the killings, the fathersexpressed little direct concern about their children’s welfare. Their focus wasoften anger at their ex-partners and a perceived loss of their own rights tosignificant contact with their children and the financial assets of the family. Inthese cases, filicide aimed at hurting their ex-partner appears to be the primarymotive, even when suicide also occurs.Kirkwood (2000) found that some of the women in the filicide-suicides sheexamined expressed some anger and disappointment with their ex-partners. Forinstance, Cathy, discussed earlier, cut up her partner’s clothes. Women’s angerappears to stem from the difficulties they faced as mothers after separation andtheir perception of their partner’s lack of care for them and their children. Itis possible that women may be motivated by anger and may seek to hurt theirpartners by killing the children. But retaliation or revenge does not appear tobe a key motive in these cases. As outlined in the research in Chapter 3, womenmake up only a small proportion of the perpetrators of retaliation filicides. Thisis consistent with women forming only a small proportion of the perpetrators ofintimate partner homicide and an even smaller proportion of the perpetratorsof familicide (the killing of partners as well as the children).76