Father arrested in slayings of wife, kids

A man decapitated his wife and stabbed to death his four children in Sharoura east of Najran Province on Monday, Najran police said.
The victims were the 26-year-old wife of the alleged killer and his three sons and one daughter.
The boys were ages 5 to 11 years old and the daughter was 2 years old. One of the boys, Abdullah, was the suspect’s ex-wife’s son who lived with his mother’s parents. The father took the boy from the parents Monday afternoon.
Najran police Capt. Abdullah Al-Ashawi said the father reported at 10 p.m. Monday that he had killed his wife and children at about noon that day.
Najran Health Affairs said Sharoura General Hospital received the bodies at 11:30 p.m.
Witnesses said the suspected killer had appeared mentally unstable in the days leading to the incident.
They said he was acting strangely in the past few days and was seen severely abusing his children.
“He ascended the imam’s minbar (the raised platform where the imam stands to deliver sermons) after a prayer and said things that were incomprehensible,” one witness said. The incident took place in the Souan district.