Tokyo woman killed in stabbing attack

The 22-year-old victim died at 10:31 p.m. Tuesday from a stab wound on the left side of her chest. She was working at the Keibundo bookstore in a shopping complex connected to Hachioji train station.

The wounded woman, who is 21, was also stabbed at the store.

Police arrested Shoichi Kanno, 33, near Hachioji Station in west Tokyo just after 10 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after the attack. A police spokeswoman, who declined to give her name, citing department policy, said the suspect had admitted to the stabbings.

"I had trouble with my family about my job. I was frustrated and I got a knife. I just wanted to kill someone at random," she quoted the suspect as saying.

The stabbing comes after a killing spree that left seven people dead in Tokyo's Akihabara district June 8, when a man slammed a truck into a crowded street and then jumped out and began stabbing people at random. Tomohiro Kato, a 25-year-old factory worker, was arrested at the scene, his clothes soaked in blood.

It was the worst murder rampage in Tokyo in recent memory and received intense scrutiny from the Japanese media. News reports and talk shows focused on what may have prompted the assault, Kato's troubled personality and a string of messages he sent to an Internet bulletin board warning he was planning to kill.

The city has been on high alert for copycat crimes since.

Non-lethal stabbings have occurred in train stations, and police have arrested several people for allegedly using the Internet to make specific threats of violence.