Woman who stabs son jumps out of window

A woman stabbed her four-year-old son to death and later jumped out a police station window in northern Italy.

The woman was in a critical condition in hospital today but was expected to survive, according to news agency and television news reports. She apparently jumped while police were questioning her.

Police in Merano, about 20 miles north of Bolzano, received a telephone call on Thursday morning from the mother of three, who told dispatchers she had stabbed her middle child with a knife.

The 39-year-old woman told investigators that she had a “blackout” and authorities charged her with murder, the news agency ANSA reported.