9. Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal massacred most of his family at a party in 2001 before shooting himself in the head
Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah (b. 1971 CE) was the Crown Prince and later penultimate King of Nepal, serving as the shortest-lived monarch of his country, just three days, reigning from June 1-June 4, 2001. Educated at Eton College in England, Dipendra was awarded a Ph.D. from Tribhuvan University in Nepal and graduated from the Academy of Royal Nepalese Gurkha Army.
On June 1, 2001, during a party held at the Narayanhity Royal Palace Dipendra opened fire with an automatic weapon killing his father, King Birendra, his mother, Queen Aishwarya, and seven other members of the royal family including his younger brother and sister. After massacring much of his family, Dipendra shot himself in the head and entered a coma. Due to his sudden murder of most of the Nepalese line of succession, Dipendra himself was crowned King of Nepal but would die of his self-inflicted head wound just three days later on June 4; he was succeeded by the last King of Nepal, his uncle Gyanendra, who would reign until 2008 when Nepal declared itself a republic and abolished the monarchy.
The motives behind the massacre remain unclear, with the most prominent theory highlighting a disagreement over Dipendra’s choice of wife. Desiring to marry Devyani Rana, the daughter of an Indian royal house he had met during his studies in England, King Birendra objected and Dipendra would have been forced to renounce his claim to the throne in order to marry Devyani. Other interpretations of the events include Dipendra’s dissatisfaction with the decreasing power of the Nepalese monarchy, shifting from an absolute to the constitutional role following the 1990s People’s Movement, or as part of a wider conspiracy theory involving his uncle Gyanendra to seize power; this conjecture is supported by the absence of Gyanendra at the event, that none of his relatives at the party were killed, the lack of forensic examination during the only week-long investigation, and that Dipendra’s head wound was inflicted on his left temple despite being right-handed.