Moscow, Nov 21 (IANS/RIA Novosti): Moscow police have detained a mentally-ill 40-year-old man who allegedly killed his mother, two children and tried to murder his wife because of his debts, police said.

The incident happened when the killer's wife came home to find the bodies of her nine-year-old son and six-year-old daughter, together with their grandmother, lying in a pool of blood with their throats slashed.

The woman said her husband, Igor Televinov, told her that he had already "sent his mother and children to heaven" and suggested she followed them before stabbing her in the neck and face.

Televinov wanted to kill his wife first and then kill himself, but she managed to flee the murder scene and locked herself in her neighbours' apartment, before calling the police who detained the attacker, Komsomolskaya Pravda said.

"She was in shock, her cheek and neck were slashed," neighbours said.

The woman was hospitalised, and her life is not in danger, doctors said.

Neighbours told police the suspected killer was unemployed because he was "seriously ill". The couple ran into debts trying to provide the man with medical treatment.

Televinov suffered from a psychiatric disorder and might have also committed the murder on religious grounds, police said.