Roger Panes (1933 – 4 March 1974) was a British member of the
Exclusive branch of the
Plymouth Brethren
The Plymouth Brethren or Assemblies of Brethren are a low church and Nonconformist (Protestantism), Nonconformist Christian movement whose history can be traced back to Dublin, Ireland, in the mid to late 1820s, where it originated from Anglica ...
. In 1974 he killed his wife and three children with an axe before
hanging
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...
himself.
`We were strange, we were shunned, but there's little I would change' , Independent on Sunday, The , Find Articles at BNET.com
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Life
Panes was a cattle dealer in Andover, Hampshire
Andover ( ) is a town in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. The town is on the River Anton, a major tributary of the River Test, Test, and lies alongside the major A303 road, A303 trunk road at the eastern end of Salisbury Plain, ...
. In November 1973 he was "shut up," or shunned, by the other members of his church, for wrongfully shunning another member. This is a form of 'discipline' promulgated by James Taylor Jnr. and James Symington, leaders of the sect. His family were required to shun him and he was not allowed to sleep with his wife or eat with the family.
In February 1974, Panes was taken to hospital having taken an overdose
A drug overdose (overdose or OD) is the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities much greater than are recommended. Retrieved on September 20, 2014. of tablets, due to the stress of his situation. He recovered, but, on 4 March 1974, he killed his wife Pamela, 39, his two sons Graham, 7, and Adrian, 4, and his daughter Angela, 6, as they slept in their beds. An axe was found covered in blood. He then hanged himself from the stair bannisters with an electrical cable.
See also
* David Hendricks – member of the Exclusive Brethren convicted and then acquitted of murdering his wife and three children.
References
External links
Description of events
{{DEFAULTSORT:Panes, Roger
1933 births
1974 deaths
British mass murderers
British Plymouth Brethren
British murderers of children
Familicides in the United Kingdom
20th-century murderers
Murder–suicides in the United Kingdom
People from Andover, Hampshire
Suicides by hanging in England
Shunning