A junior high school teacher was arrested Saturday in connection with the case of a junior high school girl who died in July after being found fatally wounded along a highway in Kobe, police said.
Ken Fukumoto, 34, taught at a junior high school in the town of Kasumi, Hyogo Prefecture.
He is suspected of initially confining Noriko Kamiie, aged 12, a first-year junior high school student from Osaka's Higashi-Yodogawa Ward, before dumping her alongside the highway, the police said.
Initially, Fukumoto admitted meeting the girl through a telephone dating club, but denied any involvement in her death, the police said, but he later admitted all the allegations.
A driver discovered Kamiie lying barefoot and handcuffed beside the Chugoku highway in Kobe's Kita Ward shortly after 10:30 p.m. on July 24. She was rushed to a hospital, but died the following day, they said.
Earlier, police said there is a strong possibility that Kamiie was pushed out of a vehicle while it was still moving, as she had suffered a fractured skull and broken left leg.