Difference between Homicide, Murder and Manslaughter

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This week: homicide, what is it, how many variations of killing is there? First, understand there is a difference between homicide, murder and manslaughter, these words aren’t interchangeable.

Homicide: Homicide is the killing of one person by another, having made a decision or committed an action to bring about another person’s death, whether accidental or deliberate.

Homicide is split into two categories; justifiable and criminal homicide; justifiable homicide includes self-defence, killing in war, euthanasia and capital punishment, where the death isn’t premeditated by criminal intent. Where-as criminal homicide is divided into two distinct categories, murder and manslaughter.

Murder is the unlawful killing of another person with premeditation (a plan to kill) and their actions have criminal intent. Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of another person without premeditation, but the perpetrators actions are intended to cause serious harm or injury to the other person, but not death, but results in the death of another.

But what other types of killing is there.

• Suicide, person kills themself; separated into Autocide – suicide by automobile, Medicide – by the aid of a physician, Murder-suicide – a suicide committed immediately after one or more murders and Self-immolation – suicide as a form of protest, often by fire

• Mother  - Matricide and Father - Patricide (Matri & Patri, Latin terms for mother and father)
• Brother - Fratricide and Sister - Sororicide
• Uncle (maternal) - Avunculicide but there no term for murdering an aunt, nearest is Parricide, which is the killing of a close relative, although oddly we have Nepoticide (the act of killing one's nephew), nepotism, and yet there’s no term for killing a niece.
• Husband - Mariticide – the act of killing one's husband, although it’s a term which has become a gender neutral term for either spouse, or romantic partner. Ironic, forward thinking term and yet Uxorcicide (the act of killing your wife or romantic partner), is not currently gender neutral
• Parent (mother or father) kills son or daughter - Filicide (Filius is Latin for son, not daughter)
• Spouse and children – Familicide
  
• Elderly relative - Senicide (Senex being Latin for old man, not old person), and yet, if you were to abandon an elderly relative - Geronticide – left to die, commit suicide or be killed.

• Killing a child? Infanticide?  No. Pedicide - the act of killing a child, but is split into distinct categories; Prolicide –kill your own children, Siblicide –kill an infant relative, Feticide –kill a foetus, Infanticide –kill a child within the first year of its life;  and Neo-naticide - kill an child within the first twenty-four hours of its life).

A few others; a friend – Amicicide, killed by the government – Democide, the extermination of a nation, race, religion or ethnic group – Genocide, and (God forbid) Omnicide is the act of killing all humans, to create intentional extinction of the human species. I’ve done my research, there’s no legal term for killing a work colleague or boss? So it must be legal. Hoorah. 

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Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime  podcasts at the British Podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk