A Hong Kong man arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder and theft in Macau admitted he battered the head of a sex worker with a blunt object because she had insulted him, police in the city said on Tuesday.

Macau police identified the 45-year-old man with the surname Ho. They added he was a Hong Kong resident of Chinese nationality who was unemployed and who had been sleeping rough in the gambling hub.

The arrest came a day after officers found the body of a Macau woman, also 45, in a pool of blood in the bathroom of a budget hotel on Sunday. She had a 15cm wound on the left side of her head.

Police said the bathroom walls were splattered with blood, which suggested it was the murder scene.

The Pension Florida Hotel in Macau, where a Hong Kong resident is alleged to have murdered a sex worker.

“He claimed that the victim insulted him when she provided him with sexual services, which angered him,” a police spokesman said.

“So, he grabbed a hard object and repeatedly attacked her head to purposely kill her, but he denied the crime was premeditated.”

Police added that there were also signs the hotel room had been cleaned and no weapons or tools were found.

A mobile phone owned by the victim was discovered to be missing.

“According to our investigations, especially with him taking the victim’s mobile phone, cleaning the crime scene and his loitering at several locations to avoid detection by police, we have reason to believe that this was incompatible with his description that it was an impulsive act,” the spokesman said.

Police said the woman had rented the room at the Pension Florida Hotel in mid-February and had provided massage and sexual services.

Ho had been in Macau since March 2022 and claimed he had been sleeping in parks and abandoned shopping malls, the force added.

The spokesman said Ho was caught on CCTV surveillance cameras as he entered the hotel with a briefcase. He stayed for 30 minutes and was filmed walking out with the briefcase and an unzipped item of luggage. The luggage contained a pillow.

Police said Ho had tried to dump evidence in buildings across Macau and only the pillow had been recovered.

Officers said they had not yet identified or traced the murder weapon.