Ascertaining the legal intention (mens rea) is inapplicable to cases properly categorized as insanity.
[1] According to an analysis of the London Times' reports of murder (1887-1990) by Danson and Soothill (1996), there is a much higher proportion of British male murder-suicides, in general, than female.
Failed attempts to achieve heroism, according to this view, can lead to mental illness and/or antisocial behavior.
[citation needed] From national and international data and interviews with family members of murder–suicide perpetrators, the following are the key predictors of murder–suicide: a history of substance abuse, the male partner some years older than the female partner, a break-up or pending break-up, a history of battering, and suicidal contemplation by the perpetrator.
In 18th-century Denmark, people wishing to die by suicide would sometimes commit murder in order to receive the death penalty.