A teenage girl arrested over a random attack with a knife in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward has said she stabbed two people she came across because she "wanted to get the death penalty," police said Sunday.
The girl, who was arrested Saturday on the spot on suspicion of attempted murder, has been identified as a 15-year-old junior high school student from Toda, Saitama Prefecture. Her name has been withheld because she is a minor.
The girl is suspected of stabbing a 53-year-old woman and her daughter, 19, from behind at around 7:20 p.m. with a kitchen knife on a street in Maruyama-cho, Shibuya Ward, near Shibuya Station.
The Metropolitan Police Department has seized three small knives the girl was in possession of at the time of the attack.
The mother and daughter suffered serious injuries that will require at least three months to heal, with the daughter sustaining a stab wound to her back more than 10 centimeters deep, the police said.
The girl denied the attack was linked to any trouble at home or school, according to the police, who did not elaborate further on a motive. She traveled to the scene of the attack from her home.
A witness has told Kyodo News that when the girl was held down by police officers, she was crying quietly with knives scattered around her. Wearing pants and a T-shirt, which had blood on it, the girl "had black hair and looked young," the 28-year-old male witness said.