A man in South Korea has confessed to murdering his girlfriend and hiding her body in cement 16 years after she was reported missing.

The man, in his 50s, admitted to local police that he struck the woman with a blunt object during an argument in his apartment in the southern city of Geoje. After killing her, he placed her body in a suitcase and concealed it under bricks and cement on his balcony.

The body remained hidden until last month when a maintenance worker uncovered it while drilling, according to local media reports. The suitcase had partially preserved the remains, and fingerprint analysis identified the victim as the woman who had been missing since 2008. An autopsy confirmed that she had died from blunt force trauma to the head.

The suspect, identified as Mr. A by police, was no longer living in the apartment when the body was discovered but was quickly located and arrested. He confessed to living with the woman for about five years before the fatal argument in October 2008, which led to her death.

Mr. A buried the suitcase under a layer of bricks and cement on a third-floor balcony that could only be accessed from one of the bedrooms.