A 39-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of killing her 7-year-old daughter and her 5-year-old son at their home in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture.

According to police, the woman turned up at a police station at 3:40 a.m. With her was her 11-year-son who had choke marks on his neck, but was not badly injured. Fuji TV quoted police as saying that the woman told them she had strangled her daughter and youngest son and that she had wanted to die.

Police went to the house and found the unconscious bodies of Yumea Ochiai, 7, and her 5-year-old brother Haruma in a second-floor bedroom. They were taken to hospital where they were pronounced dead two hours later.

The woman lived in the house with her husband, their three children and her husband's parents. The woman's 47-year-old husband was out at the time, while her in-laws were asleep in other rooms and heard nothing, police said.

Meanwhile, a child welfare center in Atsugi said the woman has consulted them at the end of last year, saying she was feeling the strain of rearing three children. The center had asked the school where the 11-year-old and 7-year-old attended to be on the lookout for any signs of abuse.

© Japan Today