Seven people in the same family were found stabbed to death in western Japan yesterday and police said they plan to arrest a family member who was taken to hospital with burns suffered in a car crash while leaving the scene.
The bodies of four men and three women ranging in age from 26 to 80 were discovered in adjacent houses near the port city of Kobe. An eighth victim, a woman in her 50s, is in serious condition with multiple stab wounds to the abdomen.
The suspect, a 47-year-old unemployed man who is the nephew of the oldest victim, was burned when the car he was driving away from the scene crashed and caught fire, police said. He will be arrested on his release from hospital, they said.
Domestic media said the suspect had confessed that "a long-held grudge" had driven him to commit the killings.
He is also thought to have set fire to his own nearby house, burning it to the ground but causing no further injuries, Kyodo news agency said.
Crime rates have been rising in Japan, with 2.85 million crimes reported in 2002, the highest level since World War Two.
Strict gun laws mean many violent crimes involve knives. A 12-year-old girl was stabbed to death by an 11-year-old classmate in June in an incident that shocked Japan.
In 2001, a former mental patient killed eight children and injured a number of others in a knife attack in a primary school in Japan's second city of Osaka.
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