Money tied to murders

Still lots to sort out, but the suspect in a murder-suicide in Porter Ranch over the weekend was apparently having financial problems. During a press conference a few minutes ago, an LAPD spokesman said that the killer, who police did not identify, cited money problems in the note he left behind. He killed his wife, mother and three children. Police say that the suspect had an MBA in finance and had been out of work for some months. The bodies were found in a two-story house in a gated community. Here's an early AP story) In this case, as well as others, media reports are bound to make a connection to the current economic turmoil. That may well turn out to be the case, but a note of caution: People do horrible things in good times and bad.

This recent piece in Slate offers some perspective:

Tall tales about panicked speculators leaping to their deaths have become part of the popular lore about the Great Crash. But although jumping from bridges or buildings was the second-most-popular form of suicide in New York between 1921 and 1931, the "crash-related jumping epidemic" is just a myth. Between Black Thursday and the end of 1929, only four of the 100 suicides and suicide attempts reported in the New York Times were plunges linked to the crash, and only two took place on Wall Street. (There were some crash-related suicides that didn't involve fatal jumps: The president of County Trust Co. and the head of Rochester Gas and Electric both killed themselves, but they used a gun and gas, respectively.)