The neighbour of slain Italian woman Pamela Canzonieri has confessed to strangling her on the tourist island of Tinhare, Brazilian media reports said on Friday, citing interior ministry sources.
The reports named the man as Antonio Patricio dos Santos and said he confessed to throttling 39-year-old Canzonieri while he was on cocaine, telling police he did not remember much about her murder.
Dos Santos has previous drugs convictions, according to Brazilian police.
Canzonieri's body was discovered on 17 November at her home in the village of Morro di Paolo on the palm-fringed holiday island located in Brazil's eastern coastal state of Bahia.
An autopsy confirmed the cause of Canzonieri's death was manual strangulation.
Brazilian authorities have released Canzonieri's corpse for repatriation and it was expected to arrive in Italy on Friday.
Prosecutors in Rome have opened an investigation into Canzonieri's murder.
A native of the Sicilian city of Ragusa, Canzonieri had spent the last five summers on Tinhare, where she supported herself by waitressing and rented a house.
