The murder of the disabled by their caregivers is something we care very much about. Accuracy is important, and misconceptions and misunderstandings have to be cleared up; so we offer these disclaimers.
The accused are innocent until proven guilty.
When this site lists someone in connection with a death, that doesn’t necessarily mean that this person has been convicted of a crime. In the United States where ASAN is based, as well as in many other countries, anyone who is accused of a crime is considered innocent until they have been declared guilty in court. Some of the people listed were never prosecuted, sometimes because they died before they could be tried, sometimes because evidence to bring them to trial could not be found and occasionally because what they did, though we consider it a filicide, was not a crime. The names of those involved in the deaths of their disabled family or household members are included to help researchers find information and to keep the visitors to our web site updated on their legal status–arrested, charged, convicted, sentenced, acquitted, or released.
Beware sampling bias.
- Research for this site is done primarily through Web searches and information sent in by concerned individuals. Because this site is in English and the researchers are primarily English-speakers, filicides in English-speaking countries are most likely over-represented.
- ASAN is based in the United States. Cases from the United States are more likely to come to our attention.
- Increased reporting of filicide cases does not necessarily mean that there are higher numbers of filicides; it only means that more filicides are being reported. As awareness of the problem increases, so does reporting of the problem.
- Because we started gathering news in 2014 and have slowly gained skill over the years, the older the case, the less likely we are to know about it.
- Some states are more likely to report abuse and neglect cases than others. Some countries are more or less likely to allow the press to name murder victims or those accused of crime, or to publish stories with enough details to show up on our web searches. Whether a story comes to light depends heavily on what factors cause a story to make it to the news.