Miyagi Prefectural Police arrested a 29-year-old man of Toda, Saitama Prefecture, Tuesday for killing a 17-year-old girlfriend and dumping her body in the woods in Miyagi.
Ryo Sato, a construction worker, has admitted to the charges, according to police.
Investigators alleged that Sato murdered Mayu Shiratori, with whom he had lived in Saitama, put her body in a car and took it to a cedar grove near a vacant house in Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture, that is owned by his father.
The police concluded through an autopsy that Shiratori's corpse was dumped sometime between last December and September. On Sept. 12, Sato's father checked the vacant house for damage from the heavy rain that hit the region, and found a skeleton with two tires on top of it. The police identified the deceased as Shiratori through DNA testing.
Last November, Shiratori had consulted police in Saitama, claiming she was a victim of domestic violence perpetrated by her boyfriend. After she returned to Sendai, where she grew up, the local police advised her to break up with him.