HACHINOHE, Aomori -- An 18-year-old youth is being questioned Thursday over the deadly stabbing and torching of his mother, brother and sister, police said.

The 18-year-old has been arrested for breaking the Firearms and Swords Control Law after he threatened cops with a hunting knife and was found carrying more knives, police said.

He is being questioned over the deaths of his 43-year-old mother, 15-year-old brother and 13-year-old sister whose bodies - all containing knife wounds - were discovered in the charred remains of a blaze that gutted their Hachinohe apartment late on Wednesday night.

The teen is apparently still agitated, but cooperating with investigators.

Police said the bodies of the mother and her two children were found laid out alongside each other in the burned out remains of the living room of the second-floor apartment where they lived. The mother had been stabbed in the neck and abdomen, while the children had been stabbed in the neck and slashed on other parts of their bodies.

Police said the three victims had been stabbed to death before the fire that razed their home. Investigators will examine the scene and conduct autopsies on all the victims.

The teen being questioned in connection with the incident lived in the apartment together with the three victims. Police noticed that soon after the blaze broke out on Wednesday night, the eldest boy was missing.

Police believed he knew something about the outbreak of the fire and began a search for him. Officers found a youth matching his description about two kilometers away from the scene and approached him to try and question him. But the youth whipped out a survival knife and brandished it at the police officers, holding them off long enough to be able to flee with several cops in pursuit. Officers later overpowered him and found several more knives in his possession.

Residents of the area where the family lived said the suspect had barely been sighted in the apartment over the past few years, but regularly turned up toward the end of last year. The residents said that he had been violent toward relatives in the past.

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