Israeli police suspect a four-year-old girl was murdered and dumped in a river by her grandfather and her mother, who were in a romantic relationship.
Police removed a gag order over the details of the gruesome case, which they described as "one of the most shocking in the country's history".
The grandfather, identified as Ronny Ron, 45, lived in the coastal town of Natanya just north of Tel Aviv with 23-year-old Marie Pisam, a French woman who had emigrated to Israel with Ron's son Benjamin, with whom she had a daughter named Rose.
Benjamin Ron divorced Pisam three years ago after he found out she was having an affair with his father. Ron and Pisam now have two children together, police said.
Leading police investigator Ilan Ben Shalom told reporters that Ron had admitted to beating Rose to death before stuffing her body into a suitcase and throwing it into the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv three months ago.
"Ronny and Marie are involved in the murder and disappearance of Rose," Ben Shalom said at a news conference.
Although he had reconstructed the murder, Ron later retracted his testimony, Ben Shalom said. Police have yet to locate the body.
"We have conducted an extensive search in different places, including the Yarkon River where for several days we applied different means to locate the body," he said.
Police suspect that the murder occurred in May, but the girl's disappearance was only brought to their attention about two weeks ago when her great-grandmother contacted welfare authorities.