Results from Analysis of Over 40,000 Suicide Notes Released
Higher Frequency of "Money" and "Anger" in Murder-Suicide Cases
The most frequently appearing words in suicide notes left by the deceased were those referring to family, specifically "mom (mother)" and "dad (father)."
On October 9, the Korea Life Respect Hope Foundation recently released a report titled "Study on the Characteristics of Murder-Suicide through Suicide Note Analysis," which analyzed 102,538 suicide deaths from 2013 to 2020. The report compared cases of "murder-suicide," where individuals killed family members such as children, parents, or spouses before taking their own lives, with general suicide cases where no such act occurred.
The foundation, together with a research team from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), extracted 209 suicide notes from murder-suicide cases and 418 notes from 37,735 other suicide cases, and analyzed them using natural language processing techniques.
The analysis found that, among the 7,015 nouns in the murder-suicide notes, "mom, mother" appeared 246 times (3.5%), making it the most common, followed by "dad, father" at 149 times (2.1%). In the notes from other suicide cases, "mom, mother" (522 times, 3.8%) and "dad, father" (414 times, 3.0%) also had the highest frequencies. In other words, expressions referring to parents were the most frequently found in suicide notes overall.
Korea Life Respect Hope Foundation 'Study on the Characteristics of Murder-Suicide through Suicide Note Analysis' Report
These figures include not only messages addressed to parents but also sentences in which the writer referred to themselves as "mom" or "dad." In the general suicide notes, other frequently appearing words included "person" (1.7%), "son" (1.6%), "words" (1.6%), and "family" (1.2%). In contrast, in murder-suicide notes, "money" was the third most frequent word at 1.7%. The proportion of "money" in other suicide notes was relatively lower at 1.2%.
The research team also categorized the emotions in the notes into 28 categories. In murder-suicide notes, "anger," "excitement," and "neutral" emotions were more prominent, while in other suicide notes, "consideration," "love," and "sadness" stood out more.
Looking more closely at murder-suicide cases, when the victim was a child, parents in their 30s and 40s cited economic burdens or their child's health problems as reasons. When the victim was a parent, perpetrators aged 50 and above most often mentioned caregiving burdens and economic difficulties as the main causes.
The researchers suggested, "To prevent murder-suicide, multifaceted policy support is needed, including expanding social security for economic support, increasing social services for conflict resolution within families, and improving access to psychological counseling."
If you are struggling with depression or other difficult concerns, or if you know a family member or acquaintance facing such challenges, you can receive 24-hour expert counseling by calling the suicide prevention hotline at 109 or through the Madlen SNS counseling service.
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