Aug. 12, 2026
Another Dad Just Killed His Entire Family; Why Is This Happening?
Apple Podcasts 
Spotify 
Castro 
RSS Feed It’s an unthinkable headline to wake up to, a husband and father calls 911 to report that he’s killed his entire family and when police arrive, all six people are dead, including the killer. That’s what Kansas officials are dealing with this week after 53 year old Ronald Williams shot his four children, their mother and himself this week. It comes on the heels of a Michigan father just last month killing his six kids and wife and setting his home on fire, and an Iowa father killing his six family members in June. Criminologists have isolated many of the common traits these men share, including the fact they are often educated, successful and family oriented, but have suffered some recent financial or relationship difficulty.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Wednesday, August twelfth, and it's happened again. Why are we seeing what seemed like very frequent headlines of a man killing his entire family? With that Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: Robes.
00:00:19
Speaker 1: It's happened again, this time Kansas and rob. This is not just a guy killing his wife and a child. We're talking about him wiping out whole families. We've seen so many of these, it feels.
00:00:31
Speaker 3: Like it does feel like that, because look, one is too many. But when you start easily being able to recount several recent similar tragedies like this, you have to stop and say, what is going on?
00:00:46
Speaker 4: I have told you this before.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: When we read these headlines and we get into these stories, I'm always struggling with if things were so bad, if you're that overwhelmed, if you're that upset, angry, whatever mental health crisis you're facing, why not just take your own life.
00:01:04
Speaker 4: Why must you wipe out, as you.
00:01:07
Speaker 3: Said, your entire family. And we're talking about young, sweet, innocent kids who have bright, full futures ahead. Why why could someone who is related to who is a parent of said children, how are they able to what is the reasoning behind rooms.
00:01:26
Speaker 1: I spent more time today doing a die on what you're talking about, and I'm going to share some stuff with the listeners and with you as well that we haven't fully discussed. That almost a light bulb went off. But still you ask a few questions, but exactly what you're asking about. There is a reason that sociologists, psychologists, and criminologists point to for why they don't just kill themselves. But this is the one we're seeing now in Kansas has happened. I think we got word about this was overnight, what no, Tuesday morning? This was yesterday morning and when phil Kansas. If you don't know where that is, it's southeast of Wichita. But a man robes killed four kids, killed his own four kids, and the mother of his four kids. And we're not sure exactly if they were married or not. But what you have here is a scene robes where they found six people dead. Four of them were kids, and one of the dead was the father of those four kids in robes. These were really young kids.
00:02:28
Speaker 4: Yes, this is just awful.
00:02:31
Speaker 3: And look whether or not it was his wife or not, this was the mother of his four children, This was his domestic partner.
00:02:37
Speaker 4: This was his.
00:02:38
Speaker 3: Yes person, who he was living with, who he resided with, family he shared his life with. And the bizarre part about this story is it began with a nine to one to one call from him two authorities telling them I killed my family and oh, by the way, I'm about to kill myself.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: It was striking to hear a police officer later in a press conference say, he called and he was telling us the truth.
00:03:06
Speaker 2: He said, what everything he's at? He said, yep.
00:03:08
Speaker 1: We had every reason because they got to the house and they kind of set up a barricade. They said they heard one shot when they got They didn't have any reason to rush in to think that there was danger because they believed him and what he did. And sure enough, the call came at eight fifty. They didn't go into the house till eleven am finally breached the house. They made it to the scene earlier, but there wasn't They didn't feel human life was at risk because they thought it was all over.
00:03:34
Speaker 3: And then even after they heard that single gun shot, they believed that.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: Was Hi him taking his own life.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: Following through on what he said he was going to do in that nine to one one call, and my god, I cannot imagine these poor emergency workers police who have to walk in on a scene like this. Look, we've been sitting through the Lindsey Clancy trial, and to hear the first responders just walking into a scene where children have been killed, where children have been killed at the hands of someone who loved them, who was a parent to them, is something that I can't imagine anyone could ever erase from their minds. It stays with you. And this is one of the absolute worst scenes for anyone to walk into and have to process.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: A scene a famili side as they call it, robes, and we're seeing more. It's weird to say we're seeing more and more of these, but robes. There's a headline of a father killing his four kids and his wife five kids, and his wife six kids, seven kids, eight. We have seen those headlines this summer. This yes, in recent months.
00:04:42
Speaker 2: This is not year.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: We'd have to go back several years. This is happening now and we can't really figure out why. But they do have some theories. This is a Ronald Williams Senior is his name, fifty three years old. They don't have a motive necessarily yet, as of this recording robes.
00:04:57
Speaker 2: But the folks he killed, yes, he killed.
00:05:00
Speaker 1: His domestic partner or his wife, Kelly George, who was forty four. But the kids rose aged nine, seven, five, three, and are the kids ages?
00:05:09
Speaker 3: When we did Morning Run, we touched on this in a headline fashion and it stuck with me. What you said kind of hit you. Look four young kids, Carol who was nine, Ronald who was seven, Sarah who was five, and Kelly who was three. You mentioned Ronald he was the only boy. The rest of them were his daughters, his little girls. But Ronald was named Ronald Williams Junior, his namesake.
00:05:37
Speaker 4: How do you get to a point?
00:05:38
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying obviously, killing any of your children and your wife is horrific and awful, but there was something significant about some a child you brought into the world who you regarded highly enough that you named after yourself, and then just the idea of it is just that, for whatever reason, that just creates another twist or rub to the story that's already beyond tragedy.
00:06:03
Speaker 1: It was chilling, and I don't know if you'd seen it written down before what you've see in front of you, but it was just me seeing it laid out. Ronald Williams Junior seven, Ronald Williams Senior, suspect right, he shot his own this whole took out his whole family here, Robes, and they do not know why. But you and I immediately with this story said what the actual hell is going on? And we immediately started talking about we could start naming other cases that we've seen in recent months now, one that I didn't necessarily remember right off, but in Iowa. Ryan McFarland this was just in June, killed six family members, three of them were his kids between the ages of thirteen and twenty. Thirteen, sixteen and twenty, killed his wife and then killed two other family members. Took out six family members. Robes don't really have a good handle on why. And then, of course the one you first thing came to mind was the one out of Michigan.
00:07:00
Speaker 3: Because we obviously covered this one just last month. Christopher Karalkovitz. This was in July in Michigan, This beautiful home, this picture perfect American family. He kills his wife and his six kids, ages five to fifteen, and then sets multiple fires throughout his home to try and I don't know finish the job, cover up the crime. I don't even understand that after you've already killed your family members, you set the entire house on fire and then take your own life. You don't leave a note, you don't leave an explanation, You just wipe out an entire family.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Ro We're going to get into this because we always with these stories ask that question, why do they have to kill the family and roves there are some reasons that the sociologists give for why this happens, and it's not necessarily always or even that often mental illness.
00:07:56
Speaker 2: It is so fascinate.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: We're going to share it here in a second, because I haven't even shared and talked about it yet with you.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: Here Ropes.
00:08:01
Speaker 1: The other one, the first one that came to my mind was out of Louisiana. This was as disgusting and shocking of a crime as you'll hear.
00:08:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is Shamar Elkins and this was in April of twenty twenty six. But I think this will remind folks, unfortunately of this horrific story. But he shot and killed his killed eight kids, seven of them were his own. But he was chasing him, chasing them down and killing them. One of them I remember got away because she was hidden a tree.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: She had to jump off a roof with something bro This was I made no sense, but against seven of his own kids, and they were all young, young, they were all young.
00:08:38
Speaker 4: And different moms.
00:08:39
Speaker 3: But he went like door to door to door to take them all out. And then, of course one of the most famous cases that I spent a lot of time covering back when I my twenty twenty days, Chris Wattson. I think that's the name almost everybody remembers out of Colorado back in twenty eighteen. Not only did he smother his two children and kill his wife, he stuffed them down this pipe where he worked, where he actually had to do horrific things to their bodies.
00:09:06
Speaker 4: To fit them.
00:09:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was some narrow pipe that led to a tank where he worked, and literally he had to break his little baby girl's bones to get them in this narrow pipe, basically to hide their bodies. And this was all his actually was fairly in terms of the why he had a mistress and he didn't want to pay for child support, deal with the divorce, didn't want the shame of any of it, so he just wiped out his family to be with a girl.
00:09:38
Speaker 1: That was That is certainly one of the most famous recent cases ropes, and help me remember a part of it was that we didn't know what happened to his family for so.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Long they did was out there.
00:09:49
Speaker 3: He played the role of a grieving father and dad, and he was actually trying and eventually, but initially when he was caught because it was where he worked where the bodies were found, he claimed that he killed his wife, Shenan, because she killed the kids and he was trying to cover it. He had some crazy excuse, but yes, he played the part of a grieving husband and father who he didn't know where his wife had taken his kids. And there he was on the porch crying to reporters.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and then of course the other ropes. Nobody will ever forget if you're around when Scott Peterson, that case is now.
00:10:25
Speaker 2: She wasn't she missing for months and months?
00:10:27
Speaker 3: Yes, and her body turned up in the San Francisco Bay I believe ultimately she went out for a run on Christmas Eve and never came back.
00:10:34
Speaker 4: And he again played the.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: Role of a grieving husband who was desperate to find his wife and unborn son Connor. Yes, but ultimately he was convicted of those murders. And look, there are sadly so many others that just pop up into our heads. Even the Lindsay Clancy trial that we're covering right now, that's a mom doing it to her children. And Andrea Yates and Susan Smith. I mean, there are other female examples. But this predominantly is something that men.
00:11:04
Speaker 1: They will tell you, the folks of research, that this is a white man problem. This is overwhelmingly Yeah, ninety five plus percent of familicides are done by men, and overwhelmingly they are white men. Your definition here, roabes the crime of killing members of your close family, such as your partner and children.
00:11:25
Speaker 2: It seems like.
00:11:26
Speaker 1: Something that would be so rare, and I would automatically go to We've had these conversations where we say something has to be wrong, they have to be mentally ill. How else could anybody do this right?
00:11:39
Speaker 3: And then look, remember even Paul Canaro, we covered that trial in New Jersey where he brutally killed his own brother, his sister in law, his niece, his nephew young and then set the house on fire. I mean it's not his own family, but still members of his family.
00:11:56
Speaker 4: He would count in.
00:11:57
Speaker 2: That they are children, Yes they were. How old were they?
00:12:01
Speaker 4: Oh, they were like seven and eleven.
00:12:03
Speaker 1: Like the way he brutalized those kids. And the younger one, the little one, the forty five pound one. Yeah, it just it doesn't make sense. But robes you bring him up. He also goes in line with the theory of why men do this, why we see these things happening, why there's sometimes it feels like they're happening more often, and the the head kid, the death counts robes when I had tough, Lacy Peterson was pregnant, Chris Watts had two kids. Stories we've seen this year are with four dead, six dead, eight robes. We're seeing that, So what is going on? Stay here, We're going to explain what a criminologists call the strain theory, how that's contributing, and also what are the characteristics and robes they are common that we see in the men who end up doing this.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. This is it's a chilling, but it's a fascinating conversation about just some of the horrific headlines and cases we have been reading about and covering about men who kill their entire families, their own children, and then themselves in most cases, not in all of the cases.
00:13:30
Speaker 4: Many times they will spare themselves. But the question we.
00:13:34
Speaker 3: Always want to know is why. It's an answer we rarely get. But it's been studied, and clearly we need more answers because it continues to happen. This summer has been, frankly a bloodbath. It's just been awful.
00:13:50
Speaker 1: And Robes there is something in common to just about all common to the point that it gives you chills. So they have studied this, They have looked at this extensively, and robes you.
00:14:00
Speaker 2: Let's see if you I assume.
00:14:01
Speaker 1: You will agree, and it starts to make sense some of the characteristics of these men, they say. It shows up in men first and foremost who are insecure, who are not secure in who they are, what they are. They're sometimes caught up in their own image, in their community, maybe even within their own family, of being successful, of being the breadwinner, of being in control. That's another characteristic. Controlling. They are controlling individuals, whether it's how their house should you run, who should be, when dinner should be. They are just guys who need to be in some way in control of everything something else.
00:14:37
Speaker 2: They quoted this, and I didn't think about it. Robe.
00:14:39
Speaker 1: Everyone has quoted this in all their studies. A difficulty with humiliation.
00:14:44
Speaker 3: Yes, and when honestly, that's a characteristic. I will say as a woman, I have looked at when I have met men, and if you're dating or you're considering getting in a relationship with someone, when you see someone who can't handle any humbling moment.
00:15:03
Speaker 4: That is a huge red flag.
00:15:05
Speaker 3: I would never think about that person becoming homicidal. But I also I'm thinking how difficult it is to have any growth with that person. How do you grow with somebody who refuses to admit wrong, who can't handle being humbled and certainly wouldn't tolerate any form of humiliation.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: Well, but yes, they all live like a top characteristic, have difficulty with humiliation.
00:15:32
Speaker 4: It's a red flag.
00:15:33
Speaker 1: They point to Robes. The person can have a history of domestic violence. That makes sense, but often they do not, don't have a criminal history of any kind, don't have a documented history of violence.
00:15:43
Speaker 3: Because they are desperately trying to remain in control of themselves as well. The problem is when they lose control, yell.
00:15:53
Speaker 2: We're getting to that. Robes.
00:15:54
Speaker 1: The other part of this often educate is successful and family are genuinely family or noted these guys are, But here is the thing.
00:16:03
Speaker 4: Because they're spreading their seed.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. Robes.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: This is often triggered by something financial difficulty, job loss, relationship trouble of some kind.
00:16:16
Speaker 2: Robes.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: You go up to Chris Watts, you talk about there was an affair, yes, but he had also just gone through a bankruptcy correct, and there was a financial strain in that relationship.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Robes.
00:16:26
Speaker 1: Shamar Elkins had a hearing date coming up having to do with court and his wife.
00:16:33
Speaker 2: That was on the way. Christopher say his name.
00:16:36
Speaker 4: Again, Karkowitz.
00:16:37
Speaker 3: You remember, just lost his high powered job and his wife, if you look at some of her posts from before, looks as though he was having an affair and perhaps that was exposed, perhaps why he lost his job.
00:16:50
Speaker 1: It's triggered oftentimes Robes by that humiliation, something that some kind of way takes away their manhood or takes away their idea of what control is for a man, which is to be successful, to provide, to put food on the table, to have a happy home. When they lose that ability to do so Robes it can set some of these guys off there.
00:17:12
Speaker 4: I guess that makes sense.
00:17:14
Speaker 3: It's awful, but yes, Chris Watson, Scott Peterson in the sense that they had someone else they wanted to be with. They didn't want to lose money through divorce, and they didn't want to lose their reputation by getting divorced because they had prided themselves on being good husbands and good dads. Those videos of Chris Watts playing with his children, smiling, good looking guy, going to the gym, taking care of himself. He had an image he wanted to continue. And getting divorced and having an affair, well, that would tarnish his images, so better to kill them and make him look like the victim warning his wife and children. That is awful, but it's psychotic, it's sociopathic.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: But it's explained this way. Robes animy is what it's called as a n O M I E. Now a French scientists came up with this concept. But Robes, this is what it is. You just described as a social condition where the shared norms and values lose their power to regulate people's behavior, meaning there's such a shift in societal norm for this person that it can no longer they can no longer control their behavior. Anemy A n O.
00:18:27
Speaker 2: M I. E.
00:18:28
Speaker 1: Again describes a state robes they describe as norm less nests. Wow, when society's rules, values, and expectations lose their power to guide behavior, leaving individuals feeling a drift disconnected. And this happens rapidly, so it directly translates to what you were just saying. Someone doesn't isn't able to pay the bills anymore. You lose that part. This is gone now, and so your moral umpus is gone. You don't know what's right and wrong. They say that. Then robes leads to this other thing, a strain. Okay, people who are unable to achieve wealth and success through conventional means experience this strain, this enemy. How do they escape at robes? They do it by killing their family as an act of retreatism or rebellion. Retreatism is somebody that's killing the family to escape the strain. The rebellions kill the family because they are the source of the strain. So they're saying, people end up killing their families because they lose all control. I am no longer in control of this house, this whole. Are these people. I can't take care of myself, they can't take care of themselves. I'm ending it all for everybody, So they wipe everybody out. They don't see it as a suicide. They see this as a continued part of their duty here and the norms are gone. So now this is what I'm wanted to do, Robes.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: It's fascinating.
00:20:02
Speaker 3: Well, I wonder if you could also consider it a form of narcissism in that yes.
00:20:07
Speaker 2: Yes, they can't.
00:20:08
Speaker 3: They can't take care of themselves without me. And now that I have just proven to myself that I can't take care of anything, where the world's going to look at me in such a way. I have to now end everybody's lives.
00:20:22
Speaker 1: Yes, and the other way some look at it. The reason they do is because they're looking at the family. I got five kids here and a wife. I don't want this. It's causing me all these problems. I can't pay these bills, I can't feed all these kids. Then they see the family as the problem, and then they take everybody out and themselves.
00:20:40
Speaker 2: But they explain, there's Robes.
00:20:41
Speaker 1: These are all guys who essentially and there is a build up to it, so it's not like they just snap in a moment. But there is something that causes that particular strain, and it happens to men because we are the ones with the mindset of what life is supposed to be and what manliness is supposed to be, head of household is supposed to.
00:21:01
Speaker 3: We need to be teaching our sons that it's okay cop to be humiliated.
00:21:07
Speaker 4: It's you're gonna survive it.
00:21:09
Speaker 3: It's gonna hurt, but you're gonna learn from it, and you're going to become a better man because of it.
00:21:14
Speaker 4: Rather than I.
00:21:16
Speaker 3: Can't allow anyone to see me as weak or immoral or unable to provide, and so I'd rather die and take everyone out with me than experience shame of any kind.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: That is what happens. And they say a lot of time, this isn't a matter of mental illness. These guys don't have some history of mental illness or some signs or anything like that. There is a particular, just an enormous strain that comes. That's how they expect personal and professional failures that a man can feel. That leads to this sociological phenomenon that causes them to react and behave.
00:21:56
Speaker 2: In this way.
00:21:58
Speaker 3: It is fascinating, It is frightening at the same time, and I guess I'm always trying to figure out how we can learn from it and it really we do have to provide better emotional training, safety, love to our sons, to our brothers, to the men in our lives, to let them know it's okay.
00:22:19
Speaker 4: You don't always have to get it right.
00:22:22
Speaker 3: It's really sad to think that this is the only way out or the only option, or at least that's what they think they're faced with.
00:22:30
Speaker 2: But it's a yeah, not all.
00:22:33
Speaker 1: Obviously, most guys don't react this way, but this is something they've been keeping an eye on for the past several years now. Obviously, guns are available everywhere. I think eighty plus eighty six percent of something like that. Of these or weapons are guns. It's how they take out their families, roams. This is terrifying to I don't know if you put it together. I didn't, because it seems like it's right there in our face, every one of these. Oh he was about to be exposed for this, Oh the job, Oh he had a chord hearing. H The divorce is about to go through. Oh, it was something that triggers them.
00:23:06
Speaker 4: I just didn't understand.
00:23:07
Speaker 3: I understood that, but I just didn't understand why they couldn't just take their own lives, why they had to take their entire family out. It almost seemed like it was a form of punishment to the wife, or a form of punishment to other people who love those kids. But truly it was just about protecting their own shame.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: They feel a sense of purposelessness, isolated, or frustrated. While societies may see higher levels of deviants, unrest and moral confusion, deviants, unrest and moral confusion, a lot.
00:23:37
Speaker 4: Of people would just see evil.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what, that's one word that didn't pop up in all the research I was reading.
00:23:43
Speaker 4: Isn't that interesting?
00:23:44
Speaker 3: Evil? I mean Chris Watts, it was evil. He was described as a sociopath. I spent forty five minutes on the phone with his mother, who believed the best.
00:23:52
Speaker 4: In her son.
00:23:53
Speaker 3: You know, so what you're describing would make a lot more sense than the notion that he was just an evil sociopath.
00:24:01
Speaker 2: And Robes I watched that.
00:24:02
Speaker 1: You haven't watched it, and you say you didn't want to watch it, But there's a hell of a documentary about that whole case. And they don't use interviews and videos that they knew stuff shot. It's only pieced together through ring cam video, police body cam, and that stuff they weave together a store. You see him from the moment police say hey, what's going on? And his behavior sociopath?
00:24:27
Speaker 3: Sociopath that's what the FBI profither who I sat down with, that's how he described Chris Watson. But his wife's parents, who I also sat down with, they were in his home, lived with him and thought he was a wonderful man. That's how good he was at fooling everyone around him.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: But that's the thing. Robes a lot of these guys. But what did Scott Peterson do.
00:24:54
Speaker 1: I can't remember what his background was, the Carol Kowitz or whatever.
00:24:57
Speaker 4: From mission, Oh, Carol Kowitz.
00:24:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a big.
00:25:01
Speaker 4: Time VP of sales.
00:25:03
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, these guys are capable guys. Who he's got six kids, he was into family. How does this happen? Where does this happen? There were no.
00:25:12
Speaker 1: Signs before Robes. It's just it's fascinating. But there are things to keep an eye on, and there are things you can look out for. You never think somebody's going to do this for robes. Every time it happens, people start asking the same questions to get the same answers.
00:25:24
Speaker 3: It's a fascinating conversation and one that let's hope people continue to study and we get better at how we handle mental health in this country. All right, and without everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ.
00:25:38
Speaker 4: Holmes. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Wednesday, August twelfth, and it's happened again. Why are we seeing what seemed like very frequent headlines of a man killing his entire family? With that Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: Robes.
00:00:19
Speaker 1: It's happened again, this time Kansas and rob. This is not just a guy killing his wife and a child. We're talking about him wiping out whole families. We've seen so many of these, it feels.
00:00:31
Speaker 3: Like it does feel like that, because look, one is too many. But when you start easily being able to recount several recent similar tragedies like this, you have to stop and say, what is going on?
00:00:46
Speaker 4: I have told you this before.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: When we read these headlines and we get into these stories, I'm always struggling with if things were so bad, if you're that overwhelmed, if you're that upset, angry, whatever mental health crisis you're facing, why not just take your own life.
00:01:04
Speaker 4: Why must you wipe out, as you.
00:01:07
Speaker 3: Said, your entire family. And we're talking about young, sweet, innocent kids who have bright, full futures ahead. Why why could someone who is related to who is a parent of said children, how are they able to what is the reasoning behind rooms.
00:01:26
Speaker 1: I spent more time today doing a die on what you're talking about, and I'm going to share some stuff with the listeners and with you as well that we haven't fully discussed. That almost a light bulb went off. But still you ask a few questions, but exactly what you're asking about. There is a reason that sociologists, psychologists, and criminologists point to for why they don't just kill themselves. But this is the one we're seeing now in Kansas has happened. I think we got word about this was overnight, what no, Tuesday morning? This was yesterday morning and when phil Kansas. If you don't know where that is, it's southeast of Wichita. But a man robes killed four kids, killed his own four kids, and the mother of his four kids. And we're not sure exactly if they were married or not. But what you have here is a scene robes where they found six people dead. Four of them were kids, and one of the dead was the father of those four kids in robes. These were really young kids.
00:02:28
Speaker 4: Yes, this is just awful.
00:02:31
Speaker 3: And look whether or not it was his wife or not, this was the mother of his four children, This was his domestic partner.
00:02:37
Speaker 4: This was his.
00:02:38
Speaker 3: Yes person, who he was living with, who he resided with, family he shared his life with. And the bizarre part about this story is it began with a nine to one to one call from him two authorities telling them I killed my family and oh, by the way, I'm about to kill myself.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: It was striking to hear a police officer later in a press conference say, he called and he was telling us the truth.
00:03:06
Speaker 2: He said, what everything he's at? He said, yep.
00:03:08
Speaker 1: We had every reason because they got to the house and they kind of set up a barricade. They said they heard one shot when they got They didn't have any reason to rush in to think that there was danger because they believed him and what he did. And sure enough, the call came at eight fifty. They didn't go into the house till eleven am finally breached the house. They made it to the scene earlier, but there wasn't They didn't feel human life was at risk because they thought it was all over.
00:03:34
Speaker 3: And then even after they heard that single gun shot, they believed that.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: Was Hi him taking his own life.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: Following through on what he said he was going to do in that nine to one one call, and my god, I cannot imagine these poor emergency workers police who have to walk in on a scene like this. Look, we've been sitting through the Lindsey Clancy trial, and to hear the first responders just walking into a scene where children have been killed, where children have been killed at the hands of someone who loved them, who was a parent to them, is something that I can't imagine anyone could ever erase from their minds. It stays with you. And this is one of the absolute worst scenes for anyone to walk into and have to process.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: A scene a famili side as they call it, robes, and we're seeing more. It's weird to say we're seeing more and more of these, but robes. There's a headline of a father killing his four kids and his wife five kids, and his wife six kids, seven kids, eight. We have seen those headlines this summer. This yes, in recent months.
00:04:42
Speaker 2: This is not year.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: We'd have to go back several years. This is happening now and we can't really figure out why. But they do have some theories. This is a Ronald Williams Senior is his name, fifty three years old. They don't have a motive necessarily yet, as of this recording robes.
00:04:57
Speaker 2: But the folks he killed, yes, he killed.
00:05:00
Speaker 1: His domestic partner or his wife, Kelly George, who was forty four. But the kids rose aged nine, seven, five, three, and are the kids ages?
00:05:09
Speaker 3: When we did Morning Run, we touched on this in a headline fashion and it stuck with me. What you said kind of hit you. Look four young kids, Carol who was nine, Ronald who was seven, Sarah who was five, and Kelly who was three. You mentioned Ronald he was the only boy. The rest of them were his daughters, his little girls. But Ronald was named Ronald Williams Junior, his namesake.
00:05:37
Speaker 4: How do you get to a point?
00:05:38
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying obviously, killing any of your children and your wife is horrific and awful, but there was something significant about some a child you brought into the world who you regarded highly enough that you named after yourself, and then just the idea of it is just that, for whatever reason, that just creates another twist or rub to the story that's already beyond tragedy.
00:06:03
Speaker 1: It was chilling, and I don't know if you'd seen it written down before what you've see in front of you, but it was just me seeing it laid out. Ronald Williams Junior seven, Ronald Williams Senior, suspect right, he shot his own this whole took out his whole family here, Robes, and they do not know why. But you and I immediately with this story said what the actual hell is going on? And we immediately started talking about we could start naming other cases that we've seen in recent months now, one that I didn't necessarily remember right off, but in Iowa. Ryan McFarland this was just in June, killed six family members, three of them were his kids between the ages of thirteen and twenty. Thirteen, sixteen and twenty, killed his wife and then killed two other family members. Took out six family members. Robes don't really have a good handle on why. And then, of course the one you first thing came to mind was the one out of Michigan.
00:07:00
Speaker 3: Because we obviously covered this one just last month. Christopher Karalkovitz. This was in July in Michigan, This beautiful home, this picture perfect American family. He kills his wife and his six kids, ages five to fifteen, and then sets multiple fires throughout his home to try and I don't know finish the job, cover up the crime. I don't even understand that after you've already killed your family members, you set the entire house on fire and then take your own life. You don't leave a note, you don't leave an explanation, You just wipe out an entire family.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Ro We're going to get into this because we always with these stories ask that question, why do they have to kill the family and roves there are some reasons that the sociologists give for why this happens, and it's not necessarily always or even that often mental illness.
00:07:56
Speaker 2: It is so fascinate.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: We're going to share it here in a second, because I haven't even shared and talked about it yet with you.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: Here Ropes.
00:08:01
Speaker 1: The other one, the first one that came to my mind was out of Louisiana. This was as disgusting and shocking of a crime as you'll hear.
00:08:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is Shamar Elkins and this was in April of twenty twenty six. But I think this will remind folks, unfortunately of this horrific story. But he shot and killed his killed eight kids, seven of them were his own. But he was chasing him, chasing them down and killing them. One of them I remember got away because she was hidden a tree.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: She had to jump off a roof with something bro This was I made no sense, but against seven of his own kids, and they were all young, young, they were all young.
00:08:38
Speaker 4: And different moms.
00:08:39
Speaker 3: But he went like door to door to door to take them all out. And then, of course one of the most famous cases that I spent a lot of time covering back when I my twenty twenty days, Chris Wattson. I think that's the name almost everybody remembers out of Colorado back in twenty eighteen. Not only did he smother his two children and kill his wife, he stuffed them down this pipe where he worked, where he actually had to do horrific things to their bodies.
00:09:06
Speaker 4: To fit them.
00:09:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was some narrow pipe that led to a tank where he worked, and literally he had to break his little baby girl's bones to get them in this narrow pipe, basically to hide their bodies. And this was all his actually was fairly in terms of the why he had a mistress and he didn't want to pay for child support, deal with the divorce, didn't want the shame of any of it, so he just wiped out his family to be with a girl.
00:09:38
Speaker 1: That was That is certainly one of the most famous recent cases ropes, and help me remember a part of it was that we didn't know what happened to his family for so.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Long they did was out there.
00:09:49
Speaker 3: He played the role of a grieving father and dad, and he was actually trying and eventually, but initially when he was caught because it was where he worked where the bodies were found, he claimed that he killed his wife, Shenan, because she killed the kids and he was trying to cover it. He had some crazy excuse, but yes, he played the part of a grieving husband and father who he didn't know where his wife had taken his kids. And there he was on the porch crying to reporters.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and then of course the other ropes. Nobody will ever forget if you're around when Scott Peterson, that case is now.
00:10:25
Speaker 2: She wasn't she missing for months and months?
00:10:27
Speaker 3: Yes, and her body turned up in the San Francisco Bay I believe ultimately she went out for a run on Christmas Eve and never came back.
00:10:34
Speaker 4: And he again played the.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: Role of a grieving husband who was desperate to find his wife and unborn son Connor. Yes, but ultimately he was convicted of those murders. And look, there are sadly so many others that just pop up into our heads. Even the Lindsay Clancy trial that we're covering right now, that's a mom doing it to her children. And Andrea Yates and Susan Smith. I mean, there are other female examples. But this predominantly is something that men.
00:11:04
Speaker 1: They will tell you, the folks of research, that this is a white man problem. This is overwhelmingly Yeah, ninety five plus percent of familicides are done by men, and overwhelmingly they are white men. Your definition here, roabes the crime of killing members of your close family, such as your partner and children.
00:11:25
Speaker 2: It seems like.
00:11:26
Speaker 1: Something that would be so rare, and I would automatically go to We've had these conversations where we say something has to be wrong, they have to be mentally ill. How else could anybody do this right?
00:11:39
Speaker 3: And then look, remember even Paul Canaro, we covered that trial in New Jersey where he brutally killed his own brother, his sister in law, his niece, his nephew young and then set the house on fire. I mean it's not his own family, but still members of his family.
00:11:56
Speaker 4: He would count in.
00:11:57
Speaker 2: That they are children, Yes they were. How old were they?
00:12:01
Speaker 4: Oh, they were like seven and eleven.
00:12:03
Speaker 1: Like the way he brutalized those kids. And the younger one, the little one, the forty five pound one. Yeah, it just it doesn't make sense. But robes you bring him up. He also goes in line with the theory of why men do this, why we see these things happening, why there's sometimes it feels like they're happening more often, and the the head kid, the death counts robes when I had tough, Lacy Peterson was pregnant, Chris Watts had two kids. Stories we've seen this year are with four dead, six dead, eight robes. We're seeing that, So what is going on? Stay here, We're going to explain what a criminologists call the strain theory, how that's contributing, and also what are the characteristics and robes they are common that we see in the men who end up doing this.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. This is it's a chilling, but it's a fascinating conversation about just some of the horrific headlines and cases we have been reading about and covering about men who kill their entire families, their own children, and then themselves in most cases, not in all of the cases.
00:13:30
Speaker 4: Many times they will spare themselves. But the question we.
00:13:34
Speaker 3: Always want to know is why. It's an answer we rarely get. But it's been studied, and clearly we need more answers because it continues to happen. This summer has been, frankly a bloodbath. It's just been awful.
00:13:50
Speaker 1: And Robes there is something in common to just about all common to the point that it gives you chills. So they have studied this, They have looked at this extensively, and robes you.
00:14:00
Speaker 2: Let's see if you I assume.
00:14:01
Speaker 1: You will agree, and it starts to make sense some of the characteristics of these men, they say. It shows up in men first and foremost who are insecure, who are not secure in who they are, what they are. They're sometimes caught up in their own image, in their community, maybe even within their own family, of being successful, of being the breadwinner, of being in control. That's another characteristic. Controlling. They are controlling individuals, whether it's how their house should you run, who should be, when dinner should be. They are just guys who need to be in some way in control of everything something else.
00:14:37
Speaker 2: They quoted this, and I didn't think about it. Robe.
00:14:39
Speaker 1: Everyone has quoted this in all their studies. A difficulty with humiliation.
00:14:44
Speaker 3: Yes, and when honestly, that's a characteristic. I will say as a woman, I have looked at when I have met men, and if you're dating or you're considering getting in a relationship with someone, when you see someone who can't handle any humbling moment.
00:15:03
Speaker 4: That is a huge red flag.
00:15:05
Speaker 3: I would never think about that person becoming homicidal. But I also I'm thinking how difficult it is to have any growth with that person. How do you grow with somebody who refuses to admit wrong, who can't handle being humbled and certainly wouldn't tolerate any form of humiliation.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: Well, but yes, they all live like a top characteristic, have difficulty with humiliation.
00:15:32
Speaker 4: It's a red flag.
00:15:33
Speaker 1: They point to Robes. The person can have a history of domestic violence. That makes sense, but often they do not, don't have a criminal history of any kind, don't have a documented history of violence.
00:15:43
Speaker 3: Because they are desperately trying to remain in control of themselves as well. The problem is when they lose control, yell.
00:15:53
Speaker 2: We're getting to that. Robes.
00:15:54
Speaker 1: The other part of this often educate is successful and family are genuinely family or noted these guys are, But here is the thing.
00:16:03
Speaker 4: Because they're spreading their seed.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. Robes.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: This is often triggered by something financial difficulty, job loss, relationship trouble of some kind.
00:16:16
Speaker 2: Robes.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: You go up to Chris Watts, you talk about there was an affair, yes, but he had also just gone through a bankruptcy correct, and there was a financial strain in that relationship.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Robes.
00:16:26
Speaker 1: Shamar Elkins had a hearing date coming up having to do with court and his wife.
00:16:33
Speaker 2: That was on the way. Christopher say his name.
00:16:36
Speaker 4: Again, Karkowitz.
00:16:37
Speaker 3: You remember, just lost his high powered job and his wife, if you look at some of her posts from before, looks as though he was having an affair and perhaps that was exposed, perhaps why he lost his job.
00:16:50
Speaker 1: It's triggered oftentimes Robes by that humiliation, something that some kind of way takes away their manhood or takes away their idea of what control is for a man, which is to be successful, to provide, to put food on the table, to have a happy home. When they lose that ability to do so Robes it can set some of these guys off there.
00:17:12
Speaker 4: I guess that makes sense.
00:17:14
Speaker 3: It's awful, but yes, Chris Watson, Scott Peterson in the sense that they had someone else they wanted to be with. They didn't want to lose money through divorce, and they didn't want to lose their reputation by getting divorced because they had prided themselves on being good husbands and good dads. Those videos of Chris Watts playing with his children, smiling, good looking guy, going to the gym, taking care of himself. He had an image he wanted to continue. And getting divorced and having an affair, well, that would tarnish his images, so better to kill them and make him look like the victim warning his wife and children. That is awful, but it's psychotic, it's sociopathic.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: But it's explained this way. Robes animy is what it's called as a n O M I E. Now a French scientists came up with this concept. But Robes, this is what it is. You just described as a social condition where the shared norms and values lose their power to regulate people's behavior, meaning there's such a shift in societal norm for this person that it can no longer they can no longer control their behavior. Anemy A n O.
00:18:27
Speaker 2: M I. E.
00:18:28
Speaker 1: Again describes a state robes they describe as norm less nests. Wow, when society's rules, values, and expectations lose their power to guide behavior, leaving individuals feeling a drift disconnected. And this happens rapidly, so it directly translates to what you were just saying. Someone doesn't isn't able to pay the bills anymore. You lose that part. This is gone now, and so your moral umpus is gone. You don't know what's right and wrong. They say that. Then robes leads to this other thing, a strain. Okay, people who are unable to achieve wealth and success through conventional means experience this strain, this enemy. How do they escape at robes? They do it by killing their family as an act of retreatism or rebellion. Retreatism is somebody that's killing the family to escape the strain. The rebellions kill the family because they are the source of the strain. So they're saying, people end up killing their families because they lose all control. I am no longer in control of this house, this whole. Are these people. I can't take care of myself, they can't take care of themselves. I'm ending it all for everybody, So they wipe everybody out. They don't see it as a suicide. They see this as a continued part of their duty here and the norms are gone. So now this is what I'm wanted to do, Robes.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: It's fascinating.
00:20:02
Speaker 3: Well, I wonder if you could also consider it a form of narcissism in that yes.
00:20:07
Speaker 2: Yes, they can't.
00:20:08
Speaker 3: They can't take care of themselves without me. And now that I have just proven to myself that I can't take care of anything, where the world's going to look at me in such a way. I have to now end everybody's lives.
00:20:22
Speaker 1: Yes, and the other way some look at it. The reason they do is because they're looking at the family. I got five kids here and a wife. I don't want this. It's causing me all these problems. I can't pay these bills, I can't feed all these kids. Then they see the family as the problem, and then they take everybody out and themselves.
00:20:40
Speaker 2: But they explain, there's Robes.
00:20:41
Speaker 1: These are all guys who essentially and there is a build up to it, so it's not like they just snap in a moment. But there is something that causes that particular strain, and it happens to men because we are the ones with the mindset of what life is supposed to be and what manliness is supposed to be, head of household is supposed to.
00:21:01
Speaker 3: We need to be teaching our sons that it's okay cop to be humiliated.
00:21:07
Speaker 4: It's you're gonna survive it.
00:21:09
Speaker 3: It's gonna hurt, but you're gonna learn from it, and you're going to become a better man because of it.
00:21:14
Speaker 4: Rather than I.
00:21:16
Speaker 3: Can't allow anyone to see me as weak or immoral or unable to provide, and so I'd rather die and take everyone out with me than experience shame of any kind.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: That is what happens. And they say a lot of time, this isn't a matter of mental illness. These guys don't have some history of mental illness or some signs or anything like that. There is a particular, just an enormous strain that comes. That's how they expect personal and professional failures that a man can feel. That leads to this sociological phenomenon that causes them to react and behave.
00:21:56
Speaker 2: In this way.
00:21:58
Speaker 3: It is fascinating, It is frightening at the same time, and I guess I'm always trying to figure out how we can learn from it and it really we do have to provide better emotional training, safety, love to our sons, to our brothers, to the men in our lives, to let them know it's okay.
00:22:19
Speaker 4: You don't always have to get it right.
00:22:22
Speaker 3: It's really sad to think that this is the only way out or the only option, or at least that's what they think they're faced with.
00:22:30
Speaker 2: But it's a yeah, not all.
00:22:33
Speaker 1: Obviously, most guys don't react this way, but this is something they've been keeping an eye on for the past several years now. Obviously, guns are available everywhere. I think eighty plus eighty six percent of something like that. Of these or weapons are guns. It's how they take out their families, roams. This is terrifying to I don't know if you put it together. I didn't, because it seems like it's right there in our face, every one of these. Oh he was about to be exposed for this, Oh the job, Oh he had a chord hearing. H The divorce is about to go through. Oh, it was something that triggers them.
00:23:06
Speaker 4: I just didn't understand.
00:23:07
Speaker 3: I understood that, but I just didn't understand why they couldn't just take their own lives, why they had to take their entire family out. It almost seemed like it was a form of punishment to the wife, or a form of punishment to other people who love those kids. But truly it was just about protecting their own shame.
00:23:23
Speaker 1: They feel a sense of purposelessness, isolated, or frustrated. While societies may see higher levels of deviants, unrest and moral confusion, deviants, unrest and moral confusion, a lot.
00:23:37
Speaker 4: Of people would just see evil.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what, that's one word that didn't pop up in all the research I was reading.
00:23:43
Speaker 4: Isn't that interesting?
00:23:44
Speaker 3: Evil? I mean Chris Watts, it was evil. He was described as a sociopath. I spent forty five minutes on the phone with his mother, who believed the best.
00:23:52
Speaker 4: In her son.
00:23:53
Speaker 3: You know, so what you're describing would make a lot more sense than the notion that he was just an evil sociopath.
00:24:01
Speaker 2: And Robes I watched that.
00:24:02
Speaker 1: You haven't watched it, and you say you didn't want to watch it, But there's a hell of a documentary about that whole case. And they don't use interviews and videos that they knew stuff shot. It's only pieced together through ring cam video, police body cam, and that stuff they weave together a store. You see him from the moment police say hey, what's going on? And his behavior sociopath?
00:24:27
Speaker 3: Sociopath that's what the FBI profither who I sat down with, that's how he described Chris Watson. But his wife's parents, who I also sat down with, they were in his home, lived with him and thought he was a wonderful man. That's how good he was at fooling everyone around him.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: But that's the thing. Robes a lot of these guys. But what did Scott Peterson do.
00:24:54
Speaker 1: I can't remember what his background was, the Carol Kowitz or whatever.
00:24:57
Speaker 4: From mission, Oh, Carol Kowitz.
00:24:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a big.
00:25:01
Speaker 4: Time VP of sales.
00:25:03
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, these guys are capable guys. Who he's got six kids, he was into family. How does this happen? Where does this happen? There were no.
00:25:12
Speaker 1: Signs before Robes. It's just it's fascinating. But there are things to keep an eye on, and there are things you can look out for. You never think somebody's going to do this for robes. Every time it happens, people start asking the same questions to get the same answers.
00:25:24
Speaker 3: It's a fascinating conversation and one that let's hope people continue to study and we get better at how we handle mental health in this country. All right, and without everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ.
00:25:38
Speaker 4: Holmes. We'll talk soon.