A 29-year-old suspect identified as Innocent Oseghale, who was accused of murdering 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro in Macerata in January, has admitted to chopping up the 18-year-old Roman woman’s body but not to her homicide, reports said on Tuesday.

It was gathered that Mastropietro’s dismembered body was found in two suitcases near to Macerata.

Oseghale is accused of homicide and of the charges of trying to hide a body and contempt for a human corpse.

During questioning in English with investigators at Marino del Tronto jail, Oseghale said Mastropietro died of a drugs overdose at his home and he cut up her body as part of an attempt to get rid of it.

Oseghale also denied raping Mastropietro and cleared his compatriot Desmond Lucky, saying he was alone with the woman when she died.

Oseghale is said to be an asylum seeker with a residence permit, which expired last year. He is married and has a daughter. He, however, stays alone in an apartment, not rented in his name. Police, after searching his flat found 70 grams of hashish, but not heroin.

Carabinieri forensic police found bloodstained clothes belonging to the victim and other blood traces at the suspect’s home. They also found a receipt from a nearby pharmacy where the victim had bought a syringe, reports said.

Oseghale has a record for drugs offences, police said. He was pinned down by CCTV footage of the area where the suitcases were dumped, and by a foreign national who said he saw him carrying the suitcases there.