An 18-year-old university student was arrested Saturday on suspicion of killing his mother and seriously injuring his father and brother in an alleged attempt to kill them because he did not want to commit suicide alone, police said.
"I was afraid to die alone and wanted my family as companions to go with me," the youth, who cannot be identified as he is a minor, was quoted by the police as saying.
The student's 16-year-old girlfriend, who was with him when police stopped them in a car, was also arrested for allegedly preparing to kill her own parents after also buying a knife.
Police officers and rescue workers went to the house in Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture, after the father, a 46-year-old office worker, telephoned for an ambulance at around 2:15 a.m.
He told rescue workers that he had been stabbed by his son, the police said.
The officers discovered that the father, the 43-year-old mother and the 14-year-old brother had been stabbed and admitted them to a hospital. The woman died shortly afterward, the officials said.
About an hour later, police officers located the university student and his girlfriend in a car some 2 km away from the family's home. After being briefly questioned, he admitted to the stabbings and police arrested him on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
He told the police he bought a kitchen knife two or three days earlier because he was tired of life and wanted die. But he became scared of dying alone, according to the officials.
The 22-cm-long kitchen knife was found in the house.
The student enrolled at a private university in the prefecture in April but has been skipping classes since September, the police said.
