Stay on top of breaking news!
Sign up for ABC 13 e-mail alerts.
Lynchburg, VA -
Murder-suicides are sad and frightening crimes, and we've seen several of them recently. There have been two in Virginia in the last seven days alone. Most often when these murder-suicides happen, they leave so many questions. Psychologists say most of the time, as we saw in Axton the victims are family members, but it's always a different set of circumstances when someone decides to take their life and their loved ones too. There's a common thread psychologist Wayne Sloop says ties together all perpetrators of murder-suicides.
Wayne Sloop, PhD, Psychologist - "They're very angry. They may not be necessarily be angry at the people they kill, because most of the murder suicides involve intimate partners."
Like when a man killed his wife in an apparent murder-suicide in Newport News this week, but Sloop says at some point, the killers may transfer their anger and despair for their own life on to others.
Sloop - "They feel like the loved ones maybe have not supported them well enough, have not done the things they were supposed to do, disappointed them in some significant way."
Sloop says the majority of murder-suicides are planned like the one in Axton, but sometimes killers only plan the murders not their suicide.
Sloop - "For an instant, they think about the ghastly thing that they've done, and they decide well, 'My life is totally finished now.'"
Every murder-suicide is different, but Sloop says financial hardship can be a cause.
Sloop - "Some researchers believe, and I happen to agree with them, that bad economic times, such as we're in now, leads to more murder-suicides."
The Crisis Line of Central Virginia has heard that cry in recent months.
Amy Hart, Suicide Prevention Coordinator - "We have had a few callers before that have talked about the fact that they're so depressed, that they wanted to end their own life, but they didn't want to leave anyone behind."
Amy Hart hopes people call her line, before committing another tragedy.
Hart - "Reach out to somebody else and say, 'I do need help with this. Because if I don't, something negative is going to happen, something bad is going to happen.'"
Amy Hart says depression and anger both go hand-in-hand with people contemplating suicide.
Email To Friend 
© 2009 WSET-TV, Inc.
The Associated Press may have contributed to this article.
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
ABC 13 to leave comments on news stories.