Le parricide a de tout temps été considéré comme le crime le plus contre nature, le plus grave et le plus rare qui soit. Parmi les auteurs adultes de parricide, les malades mentaux sont nombreux. L'histoire exceptionnelle de ce schizophrène commettant un double parricide élargi permet de comprendre la dimension criminogène de certains états délirants paranoïdes et pose plus largement le problème du pronostic et de la prévention des passages à l'acte agressifs des sujets psychotiques.

Parricide has always been considered as the most appalling, rarest and most unnatural crime ever. Among the adults that have committed parricide, numerous of them are mentally ill. This incredible story of a schizophrenic responsible for committing double parricide, enables us to understand the dimensions conductive to crime related to delirious and paranoid states. In more general terms, this example opens the debate on the problems posed in approaching a prognostic and prevention of psychotic's violent acts. On the 25th December, Christmas day, feeling lonely and abandoned by everyone, A. calls his parents asking them to come to his home. Scared by previous violent incidents involving their son, they decide to go there accompanied by A's uncle, and ring on the bell. A. greets them on the side-walk, and seeming already “tolerably” agitated and unsteady, he offers a meticulously wrapped present to his father, which proves to be a loaded hunting gun. Confronted by his fathers refusal to accept the present, A. opens the package and kills him father firing two gunshots in his chest, then proceeded to fire at close range on his mother, killing her by a shot her in the abdomen. The uncle, now injured in the shoulder, manages to escape. As a result of this double murder, A. is questioned by the police. As consequence of faced with his delirious account, he is hospitalised immediately. How could such a terrible tragedy occur? At the time of the act, A. is 27 years old. His schooling is marked by early difficulties and instability, as is his professional experience, which only consists of various “small” jobs. He blames these failures on his parent's frequent disputes, who finally end up in divorce. This represents a real trauma for A., on which he crystallises the entirety of his suffering, which is fuelled by his persecutive delirium based on his past and lived experiences. In the preceding five years leading up to the murder, A. had been hospitalised for psychiatric care on four occasions, all linked with violence perpetrated on his mother. These all took place in a state of delirium, with themes of persecution and interpretation. Some examples including : “My parent's made a prostitute of my sister... They used me for the psychiatric services... I mustn't be hospitalised again, they practice vivisection on their patients... My mother used to insult me... She has been transformed and manipulated by the medical services... She has the strength of the devil...” clearly show us the active and targeted persecution and suffering ; violence is used in an effort to put an end to this. However, A's patch of violence does not stop within the family group. He has been involved, on two separate occasions with the law. Firstly, after a fight, for which he has not convicted, and secondly, for grievous bodily harm along with death threats and arson. For the latter, he was convicted following a psychiatric assessment, and served 15 months imprisonment with compulsory psychiatric treatment. All these measures do not stop such a tragedy occurring, after which, in accordance to clause D 398 of the French Procedure Penal Code, A. is hospitalised immediately. In accordance with two psychiatric assessments, the judge pronounces a decision of nonsuit in applying the French Penal Code clause 122-1 alinea 1. During his hospitalisation, and despite his transfer into UMD. “Unité pour Malades Difficiles” (Psychiatric Unit accepting dangerous mentally ill patients) and even if the delirium declines, with the effects of chemotherapy, psychotherapy and institutionalisation, A. remains potentially highly dangerous. He continues to be only superficially aware of his parricidal acts, represses his delirium and actively denies his pathology. Here we can see that mental illness occupies the preponderant place in the origin and dynamic in committing violent acts. The persecutive delirium, violence and denial (symptoms of mental dissociation) give a clinical explanation to this act, which is usually reputated among the most incomprehensible. This typical case of dangerous delirious schizophrenia illustrates once again the necessity not to underestimate the extremely clear and recurring signs of danger (lived experience, delirious directive speech, the generated pain and desire to end the suffering and alleged prejudices, all bringing about aggressive action...). These negative emotions aroused by deliriums of prejudice and persecution most often risk, and we insist of this point, a provocation of pathological self-defensive attitudes and behaviour. These are defensive, avoidance reactions or escape, or, as we saw with A., aggression against “the persecutors”. This violent acts are destined to control or stop the source of persecutive feelings. Constrained hospitalisation, even at long term if necessary, with constant and regular checks of chemical and psychotherapeutic treatment are curative and preventive measures which should be compulsory to avoid this type of tragedy.