Murder in America.

Each week in the US there are on average some five killings of parents. Why does this happen? On BBC Three last night in I Shot My Parents we were able to consider the case of Nathon Brooks who at 14 shot his parents in the head while they slept. They survived the attack. The programme tried to understand his motivation. At one point Nathon says after he had been grounded by his father for some misdemeanour or other and "something clicked". It was later that night that he tried to kill them. The father was clearly a control freak, but there are many controlling fathers who don't end up being shot by their sons. Nathon was someone who was very introverted and kept his feelings under tight control. A depressed adolescence who had ready access to his fathers firearms. One way out of the prison he lived in was to kill his jailer. He wondered what "effect it would have on their marriage". Is that the key in understanding the case? An Oedipal unconscious revenge attack. As a one time psychoanalytic psychotherapist this would be one aspect of his motivation I would want to examine with Nathon. A familial tragedy.