A study of juveniles who have murdered a family member is presented. Tentative dynamics are suggested.

ADOLESCENCE is a violent period of emotional development.Intra-psychic upheavals must be contained through the mustering of all available defence mechanisms, lest the ego in its search for identity destroys itself or disastrously acts out. Statistics show the commonest causes of death in the twelve to 20 age group to be auto or gun accidents, suicide and homicide. Criminal behavior and the onset of schizophrenia are not uncommon in adolescence.Some of the findings of our recent study of 100 &dquo;assaultive&dquo; juveniles' 1 are worth noting here. Though legally charged with assaultive types of crime many of these were not really &dquo;assaultive&dquo; and most of these youths were not really &dquo;violent&dquo; characters. Nearly all of them came from seriously deprived and depressed environments where delinquent acts were sociosyntonic. The infliction of serious injury upon victims was not common and homicide was rare.My earlier study of juvenile murderer, which included some 15 cases collected over a period of eight years, indicated that murder is a very special crime, and that it usually involved special predisposing psychological factors, stressful preparatory psychologically pertinent events, and particular situational factorsfindings that were cited recently by Mack et al.1 In this article a further series of cases is presented that may throw more light upon the complex determinants precipitating murder.Case No. 1 Terry, aged 16, a non-delinquent boy from a marginal neighborhood, had been having much inner conflict in relation to his mother during adolescence. A deprived woman, given to fits of anger and of depression, she'd driven her husband away some years before, but was hardworking and sought to maintain good standards in the home. Terry left school at 16 because he felt that the women teachers picked on him. He gave up two subsequent jobs because of friction with women employees who were interfering with his relationship with the foreman. Unemployed and loafing about, he borrowed money from a companion-some of it perhaps for the purchase of minor drugs. When pressured by threats to repay the loan, his &dquo;friend&dquo; described handbag snatching as an easy way to get the money. Accordingly Terry grabbed the bag of an elderly woman near the market. He did not actually touch her, but in turning quickly she lost her balance and fell, striking her head on the kerb-

Clinical case histories of two juvenile girl murderers are presented to explore possible causative psychodynamics and assess their congruence with a large series of boys who committed homicide.