In the days when this text was written, the tabloids in Serbia and the region frantically reported on the case of a war veteran from Tuzla who killed his wife and then himself. For the umpteenth time, they make the same mistake: they call the case a tragedy, they point out that the murderer-suicide was a holder of the Golden Lily badge, which is awarded to soldiers and officers for their contribution to the armed forces of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 war.
The manner in which the Bosnian tabloids report on this case is irresistibly reminiscent of the ailments from which the Serbian media has somewhat recovered. In Serbia, it really happens less often that the media romanticizes femicide that is followed by the suicide of the perpetrator.
Listen Pajcin-Kapisoda
But the road to that was long and painful. The case that received the most media attention was certainly the murder of singer Ksenia Pajcin in March 2010. She was shot dead by her emotional partner, Filip Kapisoda, who then committed suicide himself. In the days and weeks that followed, the media wrote about the Pajcin-Kapisoda couple as "Romeo and Juliet", the headlines contained phrases like "a tragic end to a great love", and there were media speculations that they would be buried together.
The latter "took the final straw": the Pajcin family and numerous women's organizations reacted, stressing that in this case it is clear who is the killer and who is the victim, and that the fact that the killer killed himself does not change anything when it comes to his responsibility . Ksenia Paychin did not have the opportunity to make a choice whether to live or not, while Kapisoda did.
And there should and must be the end of any narrative that tries to present the phenomenon of femicide and suicide as tragically Shakespearean. Because if we draw parallels with great literary works, we must be precise: both Romeo and Juliet committed suicide, albeit independently of each other.
"I love her so dead, cold and shriveled up"
In November 2012, Darijan Music killed his girlfriend Vladislava Červenko in Novi Sad. Musić did not kill himself, he ran away from the police for days, leaving kilometers of posts on his Facebook profile in which he addressed the dead Vladislava directly, pathetically declaring his love and threatening suicide. "I love her even when she's dead, cold and shriveled up." I will love her forever more than myself and everything! She still loves me too, we are something special. But because God had a plan for me again... You hate me, you have a reason, I will love her again!!! Condolences to the family, I didn't want to jbg, I'll equalize now. Convey my condolences to my mother," wrote Music after, according to the findings of court experts, Vladislavi inflicted more than 60 injuries with his hands, feet, metal rod and knife.
The official cause of death of Vladislava Chervenko was a liver injury caused by multiple blows. Musić did not kill himself, he was arrested and convicted, but the way in which the media directly transmitted his posts on Facebook, as well as the brutal way in which he killed Vladislava, caused the public's unequivocal condemnation.
An unprecedented media failure
However, this was not the case with Stella Gudelj (26), a medical student who was strangled by her ex-partner Aleksandar Šundić (2013) in 23. He also ran away from the police for days and left messages that he would not surrender alive, but in the end he surrendered. However, the media fumble that followed this case is unprecedented even here, where ethics and compassion in the media are not held in high esteem.
Almost all the media reported the statements of Alexander's friends who described him as a nice young man "who fell in love with an easy girl", who "intentionally made him jealous", "was older than him", how she "drove him crazy". However, Stella broke off her relationship with Alexander a few months before the murder, and when they were called to account for what they were doing, the media, which, without exaggeration, defended Alexander's act, claimed that the "other side" should be heard.
We remind you that in the case of femicide there is no first and second party, the first is killed, crushed and silenced.
Ominous statistics
In Serbia, as well as in the rest of the world, the number of studies on the topic of femicide followed by the perpetrator's suicide is almost in single digits. In Serbia, this phenomenon is mentioned as part of researched femicides, while sociocultural studies of this phenomenon are available only for Ghana, Israel and a few other countries, which are culturally difficult to compare with the Balkans.
We still have some data. In this year, until November, 25 femicides took place, of which eight were suicides by the killer and six attempted suicides. In 2021, 26 femicides occurred, five of which were followed by the killer's suicide, while in 2020, out of a total of 29 femicides, 10 were followed by the killer's suicide.
In the period from 2017 to 2020, three quarters of perpetrators attempted or committed suicide after femicide, according to the publication "Analysis of cases of femicide with firearms" (UNDP, 2021). Of the three cases in which the perpetrators tried to kill themselves after committing femicide, in one case the only information was that the perpetrator was in a serious condition and that his life was in danger, for one perpetrator there was no further information, while in the third case the media reported that the perpetrator recovered and that he was remanded in custody.
In cases where the perpetrators did not commit suicide (4 cases), the institutional response immediately after committing femicide was the arrest and detention of the perpetrator for 48 hours, which was extended to 30 days. Only in one case was there a judicial outcome and, according to the media, the perpetrator was sentenced to 10 years in prison (nine years for murder and one year for illegal carrying of weapons). The murder was changed from serious to ordinary, and the perpetrator was released until the final verdict, so the media reported that the victim's daughter fears for her safety since she lives near the perpetrator.
Suicide threats as a pattern
In the available literature, it is also mentioned that the perpetrator's threats of suicide have been observed as a pattern of abuse of intimate partners, especially when the victim leaves the abuser and he uses manipulative threats of suicide in order to regain control over her (Burden, 2020). This is reflected in the following behavior of the perpetrator towards the victim: he tells her that she is his reason for living; he threatens to kill himself if she tries to leave him or divorce him; he tells her that she has no reason to live if she doesn't come back to him or if she doesn't stay with him; he threatens suicide in order to make her "prove" her love for him by doing everything he demands; hints that the woman will be blamed if he ends up dead (Burden, 2020).
Murderer's suicide is characteristic of men who kill women - only 1 percent of intimate partner murders followed by suicide are cases in which women killed their male partners and committed suicide (Mršević, 2013:63).
In professional literature, suicide after committing a murder within a partner relationship is called prolonged suicide. Although murder-suicide has been frequently reported in recent years, there are few studies that study this phenomenon. Depression, pathological possessiveness and fear of losing one's partner are cited as the most common cause of suicide by a murderer (Mathews, 2005:20-21 cited according to Lacmanović, 2018:4; Mathews, 2008: 37), unrequited love, fraud, loss of interest and other emotional problems. nature. Suicide after murder represents an eruption of unbridled aggression, which originates from mismatched emotions, prolonged stress and the formation of high-risk anxiety, especially between married and extramarital partners (Kovačević, Kecman, 2006:38).
No available study mentions - avoidance of responsibility. That motive somehow stings the eyes and is the first thing that comes to our mind, but exact evidence is very difficult to come by, because no murderer who survives a suicide attempt will say in his defense: I tried to kill myself so that I would not be responsible for the murder.
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