BELLEVUE, Wash. -- Police said a Sammamish woman whose body was found on a boat off Orcas Island in August was murdered in Bellevue.

Investigators said Albert Carl Beutler of Bellevue strangled Rhan Rha around 2 a.m. on Aug. 12, while she was visiting his condominium.

Police said Beutler, who had been dating Rha, took her body with him to Seattle and then to the San Juan Islands in a powerboat.

Police and the Coast Guard began looking for Beutler after he sent a text message to a friend in which he claimed he had killed his girlfriend, police said.

Rha was found on a boat Beutler had borrowed that afternoon. Police said Beutler fatally shot himself as investigators began to close in on the boat.

Bellevue officials said the slaying is the second in Bellevue in the last three years.