Posted on 11/01/2003 7:25:45 PM PST by sushiman
KAWACHINAGANO, Osaka -- An 18-year-old university student was arrested early Saturday after fatally stabbing his mother and attempting to kill his father and younger brother in a murder suicide bid, police said.
"I was tired of living and decided to end it all. But I was afraid of dying alone so I tried to take my family with me," the student was quoted as telling investigators during questioning. At around 1:30 a.m., the boy stabbed his 42-year-old mother in the neck and stomach with a kitchen knife while she was in the first-floor bedroom of their home in the Kotobukicho district of Kawachinagano, police said. She died from massive blood loss.
He used the same weapon to slash his 46-year-old father and 14-year-old brother in a bid to kill them. They suffered serious stab wounds and the father alerted paramedics.
The student fled his home by car without attempting to commit suicide as he had intended.
About an hour later, police officers spotted him in the car parked on a street about two kilometers northeast of his home, and took him into custody on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. The family house is located in a residential area about 1.5 kilometers west of Kawachinagano Station on the Nankai Railway Koya Line.
The boy told investigators that he had bought the kitchen knife with the intention on using it to kill himself.
the family that dies together stays together
My understanding is that in Japan, when a man kills his family and then himself (apparently a not uncommon occurrence, and possibly even an acceptable means of honorable suicide - I even saw a mainstream Japanese movie once which ended that way) the newspapers report that "the family committed suicide".
Says a lot about Japanese cultural attitudes toward the relative value of family members' lives...
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