Marcelle Brandina was a 23-year-old retail manager and reportedly a sex worker who was found dead by a highway in Brazil. (Facebook)

A 44-year-old man confessed to killing a 23-year-old trans sex worker after she tried to extort him, leaving her body by a highway in São Paulo, Brazil.

Marilia Civil Police arrested on Tuesday afternoon the man suspected of killing Marcelle Brandina. She was found by a rural property by the Rachid Rayes Highway in Marilia that morning.

As concerned family and friends went to police to flag Brandina’s disappearance, police immediately informed them of her death.

When local law enforcement arrived to arrest the man, he was attempting to take his own life, local media reported.

What happened?

According to the man’s testimony, the pair met at a hotel in Vera Cruz on Monday afternoon. But after she tried to ask for payment from him, he killed her in the hotel.

She was a sex worker, the man alleged.

He then hauled her body to a rural property by state highway.

Brandina’s body was found by a manager of a local business with a bullet wound on the left-side off her back and signs of asphyxiation, investigators said.

She was around 348 kilometres from the Rachid Rayes Highway, a crucial lifeline for commuters in southern Brazil.

The man then returned to the hotel and attempted to steal the victim’s car located by Samu, Marília.

Brandina, from Tupã, was based in Marília, Brazil. She previously studied at Unimar Universidade de Marília and worked as a manager at Quicksilver, according to her Facebook profile.

Loved ones of Brandina came to the police station to report her disappearance. However, when they arrived to the station in Tupã, officers informed them of her murder.

The man has no prior rap sheet, investigators said, and attempted to die by suicide before officers stopped him from doing so.

He was given a temporary prison and was sent to the São Pedro do Turvo public jail.