OSAKA — Police arrested a 34-year-old sanitation worker around dawn Tuesday on suspicion of attempting to murder his female roommate — after they had spent most of the night persuading him not to kill himself.
Osamu Nonaka allegedly stabbed the woman in the neck with a kitchen knife in their apartment in Osaka's Higashi-Sumiyoshi Ward after an argument Monday night. The woman, whose name and age was not provided, is reportedly in serious condition.
Police said that after receiving a call from Nonaka around midnight Monday, investigators rushed to the apartment and found him trying to leap from the roof of the building.
Two plain-clothes officers spent about five hours persuading Nonaka, who was apparently trying to commit suicide, to come down. He voluntarily walked down the stairs and turned himself in at about 5 a.m.
During the ordeal, the investigators told the man a story of a parent who lost a child, saying, "Don't die so easily. We will listen to your problems."