Body of 17-year-old girl found buried at construction site in Kiryat Motzkin
A 49-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after the body of a missing teenage girl was discovered to have been buried in a construction site in his hometown.
The body of a missing 17-yearold girl, identified to be Lital Yael Melnik, was found partially buried near a park in Kiryat Motzkin on Saturday morning, and a 49-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering her.
The girl was first reported missing by her grandmother on Friday after she failed to return home to Or Akiva from the boarding school she attended in the south of the country.
Melnik’s grandmother acted as her legal guardian, and her parents do not reside in Israel, KAN News reported.
Her body was found in Kiryat Motzkin on Saturday morning after a passerby contacted the police to report suspicious activity, and what looked like a freshly dug pit, at a construction site near a municipal park. Upon their arrival to the scene, police found a partially buried body which they later confirmed to be the missing teenager.
When reporting her disappearance, Melnik’s grandmother gave police the name of a 49-year-old man from Kiryat Motzkin with whom the girl had contact, and possibly a relationship.
Walla journalist Yoav Etiel reported via Twitter that police officers arrived at the man’s apartment on Friday night in order to question him about the girl’s disappearance, but found that he was not home. After the body was discovered on Saturday morning, they returned to his home, waited for him to enter, and arrested him.
The 49-year-old suspect is employed at a psychiatric hospital in Tirat Carmel near Haifa and has no criminal record.