KYODO NEWS - Apr 14, 2017 - 12:44 | All

A 46-year-old man was arrested Friday in connection with the murder of a 9-year-old Vietnamese girl whose body was found last month near a drainage ditch in Chiba Prefecture northeast of Tokyo, investigative sources said.

Police arrested Yasumasa Shibuya for allegedly abandoning her body, and not for the murder itself. Shibuya's DNA matched a sample police collected at a crime scene, according to the sources.

The police found the naked body of Le Thi Nhat Linh, a third-grade elementary school pupil living in Matsudo, Chiba, in a grass field in Abiko, also in Chiba, on the morning of March 26.

Shibuya, who told investigators he runs a real estate business, heads the group of parents at the school, the local education board said.

According to people living in the area, Shibuya took turns with other parents standing at roads in school zones to keep an eye on students on their way to and from school.

"I was waiting for the news of the suspect's arrest," the girl's father Le Anh Hao told Kyodo News over the phone. But he also said, "I don't feel ease because I don't know who the suspect is."

Police suspect Linh's body was dumped at the spot after she likely died of suffocation. The girl was apparently strangled elsewhere as there were no signs of a struggle in the grass field.

She went missing March 24 on her way to school, approximately 600 meters from her home. Her body was found two days later near a river about 10 kilometers from the school, leading police to believe she was abducted by someone immediately after she left home.

Linh had been lived with her Vietnamese parents and younger brother in Matsudo since moving from Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, in December 2015.