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Man Suspected of Stabbing Mom and Daughter Was Fatally Hit by a Train 20 Minutes Later

“It’s a weird twist of fate.”
japan, crime, train, stabbing, social media, knife, DNA
A man was hit by an oncoming train about 20 mins after the crime, at a station less than half a mile away. Photo: Soichiro Koriyama/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A man suspected of stabbing a mother and daughter was fatally hit by an oncoming train just 20 minutes later, Japanese police said.

The man was believed to be fleeing after attacking the 37-year-old mother and her 15-year-old daughter in their home in the southern prefecture of Fukuoka on Saturday. He was struck by a train at a station just 600 meters away from the crime scene and died, police said.

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Officials identified the man as a 17-year-old student from Tokyo. His DNA matched with samples found in the women’s home, national broadcaster NHK reported.

According to the police, the young man broke into their house and attacked them when the women returned home. Neighbors found the women covered in blood but conscious.

The daughter told police that she met the attacker through a social media app and when she stopped contacting him, he was able to track her location using the app’s GPS feature, Japanese broadcaster Fuji News Network reported. Police also found the man’s identification cards inside the women’s home.

According to police data, a growing number of criminals in Japan are finding their victims through social media, prompting officials to increase public messaging to reduce such crimes.

Since 2012, the number of minors abused by strangers who contacted them through social media nearly doubled to more than 2,000 in 2019, the highest on record, before the COVID-19 pandemic skewed police figures.

Sakura Tanaka, a 19-year-old resident of Fukuoka prefecture, told VICE World News she’d recently downloaded a dating app in the hopes of meeting someone but have now decided not to set up a profile. “You just never know who you’re meeting,” she said. 

“I can’t believe he was killed by a train though. It’s a weird twist of fate,” she said. 

Both the mother and daughter survived the attack. The police are currently investigating the incident as an attempted murder.

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