the explanations of the acts Maria Kaspersson, also using the term ‘suicidal murder’, explains why such murders vanished as caused by changes in the view of suicide in society.874 Further, Hans Andersson agrees with Jansson, in using ’suicidal murder’. In his view, the sequence is obvious, from weariness of life to thoughts about one’s salvation, resulting in the choice to murder a child. Despite this, he states that the crimes resulted from the religious discourse on judicial culture.At the same time he places them in an immanent perspective of power – through their actions, the criminals use the judicial system for their own purpose.875 Tyge Krogh with thoroughness has explored two hypotheses, the murders in question as a form of suicide, suicidal murders, and that certain spiritual movements, especially Pietism, created an environment especially productive for such murders.876 Interesting is the resemblance to the view put forward by Glenn Bowersock concerning those that volunteered and incriminated themselves to Roman authorities in order to become martyrs – ”their enthusiasm for death comes very close to a desire to commit suicide – a suicide to be arranged by an external agent but with a clear complicity of the victim.”877 Also for later martyrs this interpretation has been put forward. Eamon Duffy describes Cecily Ormes that in 1557 refused to keep quiet with her non-Catholic beliefs as ”apparently suicidally determined”.878 That such a longing for death as a relief that we could call suicidal sometimes occur can hardly be questioned especially when we consider the many, but rarely discussed from this perspective, of mainly prisoners and soldiers wanting to escape a penalty they considered worse than 874 Kaspersson 2003 p 77, 81. ”Suicidal murders disappeared as a combination of a lessened taboo against suicide and the decriminalisation of suicide attempts.” (Quotation p 81). 875 Andersson 1998 p 103. ”Suicidalmorden är på ett strukturellt plan en klar effekt av den religiösa diskursens påverkan på rättskulturen. Hellre än att begå självmord och för evigt vara fördömd, väljer den som av någon anledning tröttnat på livet att mörda ett barn.” … ”Man skulle nästan kunna kalla det en form av motmakt, ett sätt att utnyttja rättsväsendet för att nå sitt mål.” 876 Krogh 2012. 877 Bowersock 1995 p 61. 878 Duffy 2009 p 165. See also Covington 2009 p 273. 245
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