Whilst murder is a terrible and evil crime in itself, the killing of a close relative resides even deeper within the levels of Dante’s Hell. Among such violent assaults, patricide and matricide remain perhaps the worst of all: the killing of the very people who brought you into the world, protected you in infancy, and raised you into adulthood. Despite the horrific and condemned nature of the crime, history is littered with incidents of such murders by sons and daughters.
Here are 20 of history’s most interesting cases of patricide and matricide, ranging from ancient to modern and chilling to sympathetic in motivation or justification: