Updated at 4:15 a.m. ET on Nov. 5:  ROME -- The suspect in the stabbing of a 19-year-old American student in the Italian capital Rome says he has no recollection of the events, officials said Saturday.

Reid Schepis, 20, told a judge Saturday that he didn't even want to go clubbing Halloween night before the Thursday morning stabbing, his lawyer told NBC News.

The victim, New Jersey-born Fabio Malpeso, is "doing much better and is awake and has already spoken to his parents and sibling," Police Chief Lorenzo Suraci told NBC News. "Doctors are more confident on his recovery now."

Malpeso was in critical condition after the attack, officials said.

Suraci said police hope to speak to Malpeso, who underwent surgery for stab wounds to his lungs and other parts of his body, when he recovers further.

Attorney Vincenzo Comi, who represents Schepis, also said he was told Malpeso is improving.

"He is obviously still under observation but he is awake and talking," Comi told NBC News. "He even asked about the situation and what is happening."

Earlier: Italy police say student stabs sleeping American friend while on drugs

Comi said a judge on Saturday confirmed Schepis' arrest and will decide soon on a defense request that Schepis be held under house arrest.

Comi said that Schepis told the judge that he "did not remember anything of the episode."

"As he spoke of the events leading up to the tragedy he was crying desperately and sobbing throughout," Comi said. "He kept saying how sorry he was. Every time Fabio's name was mentioned he would break down. He just couldn't explain the events."

Comi said Schepis went "against his will" with Malpeso and two unnamed young men to the club Atlantic, where some in the group drank alcohol and took drugs.

Schepis told the judge that it was the first time he had ever taken drugs, Comi said.

Schepis firmly denied buying the drug, Comi said. An unnamed friend among the foursome gave it to him, Comi said.

Schepis remembers seeing his friend collapse, Comi said. He said he panicked and became very agitated as he tried to think of how to help and recalls running to the bathroom, fetching a glass of water and throwing on his friend, Comi said.

Schepis said he then started feeling ill and faint himself, Comi said. From that moment on he has no recollection of going back to the house or any of the horrific events that took place there, he said.

Schepis "woke up in the police station cell."

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"Reid is a good kid; he comes from a good family,” Comi told NBC News. "Fabio and Reid were the best of friends. They were both in their second year of university but knew each other from before. Even their parents knew each other. This is another dramatic aspect of the whole tragedy. They were all friends."

"Reid is just a 20-year old kid who found himself in the middle of something he could never even have imagined," he said. "There was not a single sign that could have forewarned anyone of this tragedy." 

Yara Nardi / F3 Press

Reid Schepis is taken into custody Thursday after allegedly stabbing fellow student Fabio Malpeso in Rome, Italy.

Authorities earlier said the motive for the early Thursday attack in an apartment that overlooks Rome's famous Colosseum was unclear. However, detectives suspect "drug- and alcohol-related delirium" might be a factor.

Schepis and Malpeso are both second-year students at John Cabot University, an American college in Rome, Comi said.

A third man, an Italian in his 30s named Andrea Rinaldi, suffered injuries to his arms and hands trying to defend Malpeso, and was also in the hospital, police said. Rinaldi is the boyfriend of Malpeso's sister, Federica.

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The couple had returned to the flat early Thursday and had not gone to the club with the foursome, as earlier reported.

The two unnamed youths with Schepis and Malpeso had returned to the flat, too, but left before Malpeso was stabbed about 7:45 a.m., according to court testimony.

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UK police via AFP - Getty Images

Megan Stammers and Jeremy Forrest appear in this composite image supplied by police in the U.K.

An English man has been arrested on suspicion of child abduction after he was found in France with a 15-year-old high school student, police said Friday.

A statement on the Sussex Police website said Megan Stammers and Jeremy Forrest, a 30-year-old math teacher, were found “safe and well” at 1:15 p.m. local time in France (7:15 a.m. ET).

“Mr Forrest has been arrested on suspicion of child abduction and Megan has been taken into protection,” the statement said. “Their families have been informed and arrangements will now be made for Megan and Jeremy's safe return.”

In an interview with ITV News, Martin Stammers said he was “thrilled, delighted, overjoyed.”

“The most amazing thing at the moment,” he said, touching his chest, “is the joy in here that she’s safe and well … you cannot describe the relief.”

Police: UK teen thought to have run away to France with her math teacher

Stammers praised police and also people using social media sites to raise awareness about his daughter.

Megan’s sister Brooke Stammers expressed her joy at the news in several messages on Twitter.

“Absolutely on top of the world of the world right now, to know our Megan is safe and sound! Love you so much my beautiful sister xxxxxx,” she said in one.

“All our hope and faith came through so strong and our positivity stuck out!” she added.

Before they were found, Forrest’s father Jim had made an emotional appeal for Forrest or Megan to get in touch, ITV News reported.

“There are a lot of people back home who are desperate to hear from you. All I’m asking is for one of you to make a call or send an email to let us know that you are both safe,” he said. “We are all … we are all here for you both. We just need to hear from you.”

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Erin Conway-Smith/AP, file

Chimpanzees sit in an enclosure at the Chimp Eden rehabilitation center, near Nelspruit, South Africa in this Feb 2011 photo.

An American studying chimpanzee behavior in South Africa was “fighting for his life” after he was attacked by two of the animals, according to a report.

The chimpanzees dragged the man for more than a mile, under a fence and into their enclosure at Jane Goodall Institute Chimp Eden near Nelspruit, The Telegraph newspaper reported.

The paper said the victim of the attack had not been named. However, it said it understood he was a “young university student from the United States who had been observing the animals at the reserve for several weeks.”

Jeffrey Wicks, a spokesman for private ambulance firm Netcare911, told the Telegraph that witnesses said the man was leading a group of tourists when the attack happened.

"A ranger at a chimpanzee sanctuary near Nelspruit is fighting for his life after he was attacked by two frenzied animals while leading a tour group at the park this afternoon," he added. "According to eyewitnesses, two chimpanzees grabbed the man by his feet and pulled him under the perimeter fence and into the enclosure."

Armed escorts for paramedics
Paramedics needed armed escorts as they went in to treat the victim, NBC’s Rohit Kachroo reported. It was unclear whether this caused any delay.

The victim was stabilized at the scene and taken by ambulance to a private hospital in Nelspruit, NBC said. There have been no similar attacks at the reserve, which opened more than six years ago.

David Oosthuizen, Jane Goodall Institute executive director, confirmed the reserve was on lock down following the incident, The Telegraph said.

"We understand that the gentleman is stable and we really feel for him," he told the paper. "This has been very upsetting for everyone – it is just horrific. We are an organization that's respected worldwide for the work we do so anything like this is very bad."

Victim of chimpanzee attack shares progress, optimism

He added that some of the animals kept there had been abused before they were rescued and taken to the institute.

"These chimpanzees have six times the strength of a human being so you have to respect them and we certainly do," he said.

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Two Americans have been arrested in connection the death of a female Irish exchange student in Japan, police in Tokyo were reported as saying on Sunday.

Nicola Furlong, 21, from County Wexford, Ireland, was found unconscious in a hotel room early on Thursday, hours after attending a concert by the rapper Nicki Minaj, the Irish Times said.

She was later confirmed dead at a hospital, where an autopsy indicated she may have been strangled.

The Irish Times said Furlong is believed to have gone to Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, a business and shopping hub in central Tokyo, after midnight with her female friend after the two met the American pair.

The Daily Yomiuri in Japan said police arrested two American men - a musician, 19, and a dancer, 23 - on suspicion of sexually assaulting Furlong's friend and fellow student, 21, in a taxi on the way to the hotel.

It said police suspect the men know how Furlong subsequently died.

The Japan Times said the 19-year-old suspect was alone in a room with Furlong when hotel staff went up to probe a complaint about loud noise.

None of the reports could be confirmed by msnbc.com.

Furling was attending Takasaki City University of Economics in Gunma Prefecture.

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MEXICO CITY - Mexicans got a rare glimpse into the rough-and-tumble student organizations at many of Mexico's universities Thursday, after five bodies were found buried at one group's headquarters in the western city of Guadalajara.

Jalisco state Attorney General Tomas Coronado said relatives had identified three of the dead as high school students who were reported missing along with two other people last week after they complained that the student group was demanding protection money to sell snacks outside a campus.

Hector Guerrero / AFP - Getty Images

Forensic investigators work at the site of a clandestine grave found in the garden of the Federation of Students of Guadalajara on Thursday.

Police uncovered three bodies in a pit late Wednesday and two more in another pit late Thursday. Investigators were trying to determine if the latest two were a fried-dough vendor and his son who went missing with the three teenagers, Coronado said.

The vendor, Armando Gomez, his son and three of his high school friends disappeared last Friday after going to the Federation of Guadalajara Students' headquarters, where the bodies were found. They went to complain that the student group was demanding too much protection money for allowing him to sell snacks outside a high school campus.

• Slideshow: Mexico violence

The first three bodies were found two days after two college students in nearby Guerrero state were killed in a clash with police after student protesters hijacked buses, used them to block a highway and fought officers with rocks and sticks.

Highly organized, semiformal and often violent groups are commonplace at Mexican universities. It is a phenomenon that dates back at least to the 1950s, but swelled during student radicalization in the 1960s.

The organizations have become less ideological over the years, however, and are now often linked to, or protected by, political bosses known in Mexico as "caciques," or chieftains. The groups sometimes act as enforcers to strong arm a politician's rivals, or freelance in extortion or petty robbery.

Distracted government
Political analyst John Ackerman said Mexico's current political atmosphere, with tension heating up before the July presidential election and a lame-duck central government distracted by the fight against drug cartels, may have emboldened such local groups.

"Cacique power is alive and well in Mexico," said Ackerman, of the legal research institute at Mexico's National Autonomous University. "This is another aspect in which democracy is still incomplete in Mexico."

The Federation of Guadalajara Students, known as by its Spanish initials FEG, no longer has any formal ties to the university, but it operates at high schools affiliated with the university.

The FEG specialized in charging food and soft drink vendors to operate around the high schools, according to one university official familiar with the group. While the group was once leftist, the FEG switched decades ago to supporting the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before losing the presidency in 2000, said the official, who agreed to discuss the group only if not quoted by name because he wasn't authorized to speak about it.

The FEG has a website in which it describes itself as "a student political organization ... teaching the promotion of Democracy and Tolerance." It lists no phone number or email contact.

On Monday, many Mexicans were shocked by the shooting deaths of two protesters at a demonstration by students from a rural teachers college in Guerrero state, but were not at all surprised students had hijacked buses, used them to block the toll highway leading to the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco and threw stones when police tried to clear the road.

Grenades planted?
The Guerrero state prosecutors office said students from the teachers college regularly block highways or take over toll booths to raise funds, but had acted with unusual violence in Monday's protest, which was called to demand more funding for the college.

Police called in to clear the blockade apparently opened fire on the students. Federal police have said it was state police who fired the fatal shots, while Guerrero officials released video of federal officers kicking and beating detained protesters.

Lawyers for the students and rights groups, meanwhile, are accusing authorities of planting grenades at the scene and an assault rifle on one student to try to justify the shootings.

Ackerman, at the national university, said he considered the shootings unjustified. But he added there were indications that "outside forces," perhaps directed by a former governor, may have infiltrated the protest in an attempt to create a politically embarrassing situation for current Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre.

"The long-standing tradition of using student 'golpeadores' (street fighters) to implement a strategy that authorities can't carry out themselves is alive and well in Mexico," Ackerman said.

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