Matricide&patricide - murder of mum & dad

Matricide and patricide-the murder of one's mother and father. Spine chilling expressions, that one silently wishes would only exist only in dictionaries and not within the reachable realms of reality. Even for those who acknowledge that these acts themselves exist, they often choose to distance themselves from the thought of what these two expressions really entail. Being one of these near-denialists, this City Press news report jolted me into accepting that there are, believe it or not, people who are capable of snuffing the life out of their own parents. People who have the guts, (Dare I say courage?) to take the life that carried them to life. Such people, good reader, are not locked up in a prison cell or mental ward. Here we are talking of the "boy or girl next door!"


When I first heard the story last night, it was from an enews TV bulletin. An elderly man who seemed to be either a close relative or family friend, said that he was struggling to understand how the young man hired a hit man to murder his own parents. It was impossible, he said, that an eighteen-year old who knows the Quran inside out could plan such a heinous act, all for the sake of getting a hefty inheritance. At that juncture, I wished that I could meet this old man in the flesh and break it to him as gently as I could, that some of the most gruesome massacres ever witnessed in the world, have been carried out by men who know the Bible, Quran or Torah inside out. Many more of these acts have been done in the name of these holy scriptures.


Being well versed about one's religion is not always a safeguard against doing the unspeakable or unthinkable. Being the offspring of someone, does not always mean that blood will be thicker than water. Going by the trends of today, it is equally dangerous to assume that someone is harmless just because of their youthfulness. The greed for wealth has become so humungous that there is no longer a care given when killing and robbing a parent, child, brothers or sister. Are we at that stage where it is official that people must not disclose to spouses, children or other close family, just how much wealth they are in possession of? How will this young man's siblings look at him again, knowing that he is responsible for their being orphans? This certainly ranks as as one of the shockers of 2010 and a stark reminder of how we seem to be drowning more and more into this illusion that we call normal life.