Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said a major break has occurred in the possible identification of a woman’s body found Oct. 5 along Kane Springs Road near U.S. 93.

Lee reported police in Pittsburgh, Penn. arrested a man who confessed to the murder of an adult woman north of Las Vegas in late September.

Positive identification will not be made until family members can provide DNA samples and lab tests can be done, which Lee said may take two to three weeks.

He said he was informed by Pittsburgh police of a white, male adult who confessed to binding a woman with cable ties, suffocating her, tying her to a signpost on the Kane Springs road, and after she died, stripping her body and leaving her in the open.

Based on the amount of decomposition that occurred before a passerby found the body, Lee said, it appeared to have been there for at least a week or longer.

The remains were taken to the Clark County Coroner’s office for autopsy, however, attempts to rehydrate the fingers for fingerprints were unsuccessful, as were attempts to find records of the numbers on the surgically implanted metal rods in the woman’s back.

Lee said, “Now, with all the physical appearance and physical information we are receiving, it does appear to match what we found at the scene ourselves. However, none of this is as yet official. The Clark County Coroner’s office is continuing with that.

“I have been contacted by both the NBC stations in Pittsburgh and Las Vegas about the story,” he said, “and with the information we have, it appears to be the same person.”

Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Tribune newspaper reported Nov. 15 of the arrest of 39-year old John Chapman of Oakland, Maryland, as a suspect in connection with the disappearance of a short, petite woman from Bethel Park, Penn., who has been missing for over two months.

The Tribune reported, “Chapman is facing felony charges of kidnapping and criminal use of a communication facility, as well as a misdemeanor charge of obstructing administration of the law, court records show.”

A motive in the case has not yet been determined.