murder-suicide
A descriptive term, not a Danish criminal-law category, for two linked deaths
Murder-suicide denotes an incident in which a person kills another and immediately afterwards takes their own life — understood as one continuous course of events with two deaths. Under Danish law, the term is not an independent criminal-law category, but functions as a descriptive label used by investigators, media and analysts to characterise a suspected course of events, including in cases where the perpetrator is dead and can never be prosecuted.
In a true crime context, the term typically appears as an investigative theory: the authorities assess whether a death is the result of a murder-suicide, or whether instead there are two separate killings, a killing without a suicide, or a staged scenario. This distinction is decisive for whether a case is investigated further and whether charges are brought against any third parties.
In Danish criminal-law terms, the relevant provisions in such a course of events would primarily be the rules on manslaughter in the Danish Penal Code (straffeloven). Suicide is not a criminal offence in Denmark, and attempted suicide is likewise not criminalised. Assisting another person's suicide, by contrast, is separately punishable. When the perpetrator dies, the possibility of criminal prosecution lapses.
In cases such as the Steve McNair case and the Vladimir Pokhilko case, murder-suicide is used as the central investigative hypothesis, which is either confirmed or rejected on the basis of technical evidence, autopsy results and witness statements. Establishing the sequence of the deaths and identifying who fired a shot or carried out a given act is often decisive for the classification.
