Survey shows state is No. 1 nationwide in murder-suicides

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida has the highest number of murder-suicides in the country, but only a fraction are committed by women over 55, state records show.

Of the roughly 300 murder-suicides committed in Florida since 1997, only three involved older women. Experts say it's hard to explain murder-suicides committed by older women because there are so few cases to study.

Donna Cohen, who has studied murder-suicides for more than a decade, recently completed the first national survey that shows Florida leads the nation in the number of occurrences in people of all ages.

Last year, a murder-suicide in Florida happened on an average of once every six days, she said.

"Florida is the fourth-most-populous state," said Cohen, a professor in the University of South Florida's aging and mental health department. "And 25 percent of the population is 55 and older, the age group with the highest suicide rate."

Common motives in murder-suicides are health and financial problems, which often lead to depression, experts said.

Authorities still don't know what drove Joan Shiver, a doting 60-year-old Orlando mother and grandmother, to fire a .357 pistol into the sleeping bodies of her husband and mother-in-law before turning the gun on herself July 18.

The three were aboard a pontoon boat, fishing in the Gulf of Mexico off Hernando County.

Dr. Valerie Rao, Lake County's medical examiner, said Joan Shiver died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the mouth.

Investigators, who ruled the deaths a double murder-suicide, spent last week trying to re-enact the killings. Shiver suffered for years from breast cancer but apparently felt well enough to go on the fishing trip and a planned trip to Europe.

Cohen said Shiver shares some characteristics of older women involved in murder-suicides.

"It fits with a loving, caring nature," Cohen said. "She may have killed them because she was concerned they couldn't take care of themselves without her there."

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