The grisly suicide case took place Saturday when a man surnamed Huang, aged 35 took his boy and his nine-year-old sister for a ride.

When the father parked near a river dike in the central city at around noon, he took out a knife to first hurt himself in the chest and killed his daughter.

He then slashed the boy in the chest.

The boy attempted to open the car door to escape, but was held back by the father, who locked the door again.

He told police that after seeing his sister motionless, he pretended to be dead and stayed still.

Only after making sure his father would not attack him again, the boy threw the blood-stained knife out of the car, and called his mother and aunt with his dead dad’s mobile phone.

The boy told police that when taking the action, his father kept murmuring he could no longer afford to raise and support them.

Initial police probe showed that Huang ran a small shop of electrical appliances but could never get the business off the ground.

He may have suffered from depression because of bad business and his divorce nine months ago.

In recent years, the number of suicides and multiple suicides involving adults and their children have shot up.

Taiwan’s suicide cases rose to 4,406 in 2006 for an average of 12 suicides per day or one suicide every two hours, according to a government report released recently by the Department of Health.

The situation only worsened this year, probably as more people could not keep up with rising living costs and pressures in their daily lives.

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