 If the perpetrator refused to pay weregild, it was up to the family of the slain to extract it from the perpetrator, or take his life.
The only other type of killing with consequences in Viking culture was "unjust killing', i.e., while the victim was sleeping, or if the victim's back was turned. While there were no more financial repercussions for this other than the normal rules of weregild, the killer in question suffered from a tremendous loss of trust.
 Other uses of the word
The word "murder" is sometimes used colloquially to mean some forms of mistreatment, e.g. a bad singer "murdering" a song, or describing something difficult to handle as "absolute murder". Sometimes during sports play an opponent may tell his rival "I'm gonna murder you!", "I'm gonna kill you!", "I'm murdering you!" or "I'm killing you!".
A murder is also the name given to a flock of crows (see also Collective nouns for birds).
 Murder demographics
Murder occurrences vary wildly among different countries and societies. In the Western world, murder rates in most countries have declined significantly during 20th century and are now between 1-3 cases per 100,000 people per year. Murder rates of Japan and Iceland are among the lowest in the world, around 0.5; rate of United States is highest among all developed countries, at 5.5 (2000). On the other hand, developing countries often have rates of 10-100 murders per 100,000 people per year.
Evolution of murder rates over time in different countries is often used by both supporters and opposers of capital punishment and gun control. Using properly filtered data, is possible to make the case for or against either of these issues. For example, one could look at murder rates in United States during 1950-2000  and notice that those rates went up sharply shortly after a moratorium on death sentences was effectively imposed in late 1960's. This fact could be used to argue that capital punishment serves as a deterrent and, as such, it is morally justified. Capital punishment opposers would counter that United States have much higher murder rates than Canada and European Union countries, although all those countries have abolished death penalty. Gun control advocates could further point out that, unlike United States, many European countries disallow gun ownership by private citizens, etc. Overall, the global pattern is too complex and, on average, the influence of both these factors is probably insignificant.
It is also often claimed that murder rates are correlated with overall wealth of the population ( i.e. that murders happen more often in societies where larger percentage of people lives below the poverty level ). This claim is not supported by evidence. On the other hand, many researchers have observed significant correlation between murder rates and wealth distribution inequality, as measured by Gini coefficient.
In the Western World, nearly 90% of all murders are committed by males. There is a sharp peak in the age distribution of murderers between the ages of 17 and 30. People become increasingly uncommon to commit a murder as they age. Incidents of children and adolescents committing murders are extremely rare.
 Documentary Films
- Blind Spot: Murder by Women, A film by Irving Saraf, Allie Light and Julia Hilder, 2000
- Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, Director: Nick Broomfield, 2003
 See also
- Child murder
- Combination of murder and suicide
- Cult homicides
- Femicide Murder of women, see Deaths in Ciudad Juarez
- Human sacrifice
- List of massacres
- List of murdered people
- Lust murder
- Mass murder
- List of unsolved murders and deaths
- Serial killer
- Spree killer
- Thrill killing
- Torture murder
- Proxy murder
 External links
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control "Atlas of United States Mortality"
- Cezanne's depiction of 'The Murder'
- 1986 Seville Statement on Violence
- Introduction and Updated Information on the Seville Statement on Violence
- [http://www.mvfr.org Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, Inc. - An Anti-Capital Punishment Group