Petty King Murchad and a Murderer at court?

[Detective Costeau]

So, I'm trying to get started on this game after picking it up, and I've been playing Petty King Murchad as he's a recommended beginner choice.
The thing is, three times in a row, I've had my game tanked in the first generation by the serial killer at court event chain that ends up with half my family dead and my heir branded a kinslayer. Having half my family wiped out that early in the game and being stuck with an heir with terrible traits (If there's a way to disinherit him for, you know, *murdering his mother and three siblings*, I can't find it) basically wrecks my game. So,

1) Is this just hard-coded to happen to Murchad, or am I having bizarrely terrible luck?
2) Do *any* of the choices in this event chain actually do anything useful? Mostly they seem to expend gold and prestige or ruin your vassals' opinion without actually having any positive effect.
3) Most importantly, is there a mod to disable this event chain, or at least dramatically reduce its frequency? I don't mind random crazy court intrigue, but "Lol, half your family is dead and your heir sucks now" in the first thirty years of the game seems less like an interesting challenge, and more like the game kicking me in the balls for a laugh.

Thanks!

[CrUsHeR]

1) Absolutely NO this is a 100% random and rare event chain

2) You can use a good spymaster to "find secrets" at your court. There must be 1 character with a "cannibal" secret, who is the murderer. Expose the secret and imprison them. And DO NOT banish or release them, they will continue even if they are 2000 miles away on another court.

If the event chain continues, then there must be another cannibal, so keep searching.

[Detective Costeau]

Well, thanks for that. It seemed to be a pointlessly harsh thing to do on one of the recommended newbie starts, I guess the random number generator just hates me.

[CrUsHeR]

It is very very rare. Though the RNG can let the most rare things happen subjectively too often to a single player. Unless they would add some kind of "shared savegame" where it puts a limit on how frequently the "FUBAR" events like this are allowed to happen.

There are some other things you really couldn't do much about. Epidemics can always kill a couple of courtiers. For landed heirs this is even worse because they do not abuse marriages to get the best doctors, so they might even die from botched treatments instead.
Or you only son contracts leprosy, 1 week before his betrothed would marry him.
Peasant revolts sieging your capital can easily kill 5-10 people including all your kids, wives etc.

[ThatsMrAnon2u]

should definitely be random, but watch out for a spymaster with +100 opinion of you regardless. My spymaster was 19 intrigue and +100 opinion; but killed my wife and first born son before being caught by a visitor to court and was stopped in the act of killing my second born (daughter) because she ended up being a cannibal