U.S. Serviceman Turns Himself Into Police Following The Stabbing Of 2 Japanese Women

The Japanese media is reporting that an American serviceman has been taken in by police after an incident in which two Japanese women, aged 26 and 16, were stabbed:

Police are questioning a 19-year-old U.S. serviceman believed to have fled from an area in Yokosuka where two women were found stabbed and bleeding early Thursday, law enforcers said.

The 19-year-old was found and taken in for voluntary questioning following a police search on Thursday.

Police said that a passerby found one of the women collapsed and bleeding on a street in Yokosuka at abut 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, and phoned police. When officers from Uraga Police Station arrived at the scene, they found another young woman in a nearby apartment, bleeding from the wrists and back. A man was spotted running away from the scene toward the coast soon after the stabbings occurred.

The two women were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment but their injuries were not life-threatening. One of the victims had suffered only light injures, police said.

Investigators quoted one of the victims as saying that she had only recently met the man who fled the scene.

“He came to my apartment for the first time yesterday. While the three of us were talking the discussion got out of hand, and the guy started swinging a knife around. He was apparently a U.S. serviceman,” she was quoted as saying. Police are asking U.S. military authorities for information.

Investigators said the man who fled was about 170 centimeters tall. He was wearing a red shirt at the time.

The area where the attack occurred was about 200 meters east of Mabori Kaigan Station on the Keihin Kyuko Line.

Police said that a man working in an apartment near the scene said he heard someone yelling for help soon before a woman who appeared to be in her teens jumped from the balcony of an apartment. Her T-shirt was stained with blood. About five minutes later a black man was spotted coming onto the street, looking around, and then fleeing.

“The woman (on the street) was yelling, ‘Help, my friend is still inside,’” police quoted the witness as saying.

Update: More on the identity of the serviceman from the Washington Post…

A police spokesman said a 19-year-old petty officer second class from the frigate USS Gary, stationed at Yokosuka naval base south of Tokyo, had been arrested for the stabbings.