After the macabre discovery of a headless body on Saturday by walkers near the D65 in the municipality of Albias, near Montauban, a suspect was arrested the same day, AFP said on Monday, confirming a information from La Dépêche.
"A person close to the victim is currently in police custody", confirms the deputy Emmanuel Ferrand to the newspaper.
Placed in custody in the premises of the research brigade (BR) at the Hire barracks in Montauban, he would have confessed.
The suspect is a man in his fifties from Réunion and the victim's roommate.
He would have quickly confessed to being the author of the crime, shortly after his arrest at his home in Albias.
The suspect would have confirmed to investigators from the Research Brigade that a violent brawl would have broken out between them on the night of December 23 to 24.
Once his victim had been stabbed several times in the chest and back, he allegedly began to cut her up to hide the body.
Presented to a judge in the next few hours
Investigators were able to quickly identify the corpse on Saturday after the report of the walkers.
"He is a 31-year-old man known to the courts for traffic offenses and thefts," the interim public prosecutor of Montauban, Anne Gaullier, said in a statement.
He had recently found "refuge" in a shared house located in the countryside of Albias, 12 km east of Montauban, specifies La Dépêche.
A criminal investigation was opened for "murder" and "attacking the integrity of a corpse" by the investigators who favored "the hypothesis of a heinous crime".
The suspect could be presented to a judge on Monday.