7 Compiled October, 2024
Andreas Frei. (2016). The Psychological Autopsy as a Means to Analyse Cases of Mass-murder and Homicide-suicide. Universal Journal of Psychology, 4(4), 184 – 193. DOI: 10.13189/ujp.2016.040403. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreas-Frei 6/publication/308916992_The_Psychological_Autopsy_as_a_Means_to_Analyse_Cases_of _Mass-murder_and_Homicide-suicide/links/57f7634708ae8da3ce58ef32/The Psychological-Autopsy-as-a-Means-to-Analyse-Cases-of-Mass-murder-and-Homicide suicide.pdf
This in-depth case study or “psychological autopsy” describes the very rare event of a 2013 workplace mass murder in Switzerland, the employee-perpetrator being driven by his persecutory delusions stemming from paranoid schizophrenia. Although the author notes that retrospectively the subject “only fulfilled 3 of 12 items” on the WAVR-21 V1 Short Form (a previous form discontinued in the current WAVR-21 V3), the case demonstrates that just one highly relevant risk factor can determine the seriousness of a threat scenario.