In these circumstances, a perpetrator, usually a man, kills a victim, usually a wife or intimate, and then commits suicide shortly thereafter. Almost all homicide-suicides in older persons involve a husband who kills his wife before killing himself.
Older adults have homicide-suicide rates that are twice as high as younger adults.
Although these events are relatively rare, they have a traumatic impact on surviving family members as well as neighbors and friends in the communities where they occur. The motivations for homicide-suicide are complex. These lethal actions result from many factors. They are not impulsive actions. The older perpetrator has usually thought about the act for several months and sometimes years.