Police: Wife of Oklahoma politician tried to stop son's fatal attack

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A rising politician's meeting with his mentally ill son at a restaurant turned deadly when the young man pulled out a large kitchen knife and stabbed his father to death while his mother and other horrified witnesses looked on, police said Monday.

Christian Costello, 26, was being held on a preliminary first-degree murder charge Monday after the Sunday night killing of his father, Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello, a two-term politician who was expected to run for higher office in 2018.

The son, who once spent 90 days confined in a hospital for treatment for an undisclosed mental illness, had asked his parents to meet him at the Braum's fast-food restaurant in northwest Oklahoma City, where he argued with his father while his mother waited outside.

"What set him off to attack the commissioner, we still don't know," Oklahoma City police Capt. Paco Balderrama said at a news conference.

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