Child murder is infrequent and committed in most instances by the parencts. Most attention has been directed to the universal phenomenon of child abuse.
Infanticide was identified as being clinically different from other forms of child murder by parents because the crime is usually committed by young, single, immature, unmarried and not mentally ill women. The apparent motive of the infanticide
was
that
the child was unwanted.
Homicides of children by their parents have been discussed in medical, psychiatric aspects. Especially infanticidal behaviour in parents may mostly be associated with common forms of psychiatric disorders. So the major contributions to the
classification of child murder have been based mostly on the motives or the source of the impulse to kill.
It is extremely important for the scene investigator to personally interview the individual who was caring for the infant at the time be died and also to interview the first person who discovered the child.
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