Homicide by psychotics in France: a five-year study

Records were reviewed for all psychotics who had been found not responsible for a homicide and admitted to a French state hospital for the criminally insane over a 5-year period (N = 109). Subjects were diagnosed primarily as schizophrenic (N = 64) or paranoid (N = 37). Paranoids were more likely than schizophrenics to have killed a relative or friend rather than a stranger or another mental patient (p less than .05), whereas schizophrenics were more likely than paranoids to have killed a parent than another relative or a friend (p less than .01). Homicide by schizophrenics commonly involved enmeshed parental relationships of delusional proportions; themes of jealously and megalomania predominated in homicides by paranoids.