The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Tokyo

A Japanese man upset by the death of his pet turned himself in after fatally stabbing a bureaucrat and his wife, Japanese police and media said on Sunday.

Police were searching the house of a 46-year-old man who said he murdered a former vice minister for health and welfare, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said.

Kyodo news said the man also admitted to the fatal stabbing of the 66-year-old bureaucrat's wife, although the police spokesman was unable to confirm that.

Takehiko Yamaguchi and his 61-year-old wife, Michiko, were found dead at their home with stab wounds to the chest on Tuesday, Kyodo News said.

Also Tuesday, the wife of another former health and welfare bureaucrat was seriously stabbed at the entrance to her home by a man pretending to be making a delivery, domestic media reported.

Her husband, who had also been vice minister, was not home at the time, according to media reports.

Japanese police and media originally believed the stabbings may have been a backlash against former employees of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, due to widespread resentment over the government's handling of the national pension system.

However, the man who turned himself in to police said he was upset over the death of a pet, Kyodo said.