Police arrested a 30-year-old man from Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture, on Saturday in connection with the death of a 16-year-old girl whose body was found floating off Shiogama port.
The police identified the suspect as Koji Sugawara, who claims to be an office worker. He is charged with abandoning the body of Manami Konno, a high school student studying through a correspondence course, from Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture.
Sugawara had confessed to the crime during questioning, but denied it after his arrest, according to police. They said he is also suspected of being involved in the girl's death.
The police suspect Konno may have been killed, as an autopsy indicated that her body was dumped into the ocean after her death.
Police said Sugawara allegedly started contacting Konno on a mobile phone mainly via a dating service Web site.
Konno's body was discovered Aug. 10 in Shiogama, northeast of her home in Utsunomiya. Police found that Sugawara had been carrying her mobile phone and had sent a text message to her friend under Konno's name. The message told the friend she was doing fine, police said.
Sugawara reportedly told investigators that he had found Konno's phone.
Investigations claim Sugawara tied the body to two concrete blocks, each weighing several kilograms, and dumped it into the ocean between July 25 and Aug. 10.
Konno graduated from junior high school in Sendai in March and began the high school correspondence course in April. She left her older sister's home in Utsunomiya on July 12 to visit her mother and friends in Sendai, but disappeared around July 25.
Konno's body was found floating 30 meters off the port in Miyagi around 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 10 with two concrete blocks tied to her abdomen with a rope.