Brooklyn man admits stabbing his wife to death while vacationing in France after her body was found in a storm drain and he was stopped from leaving the country at airport

A French-American man from Brooklyn was in custody Sunday in southwest France after he told police that he twice stabbed his wife, a local newspaper reported.

La Dépêche du Midi named the man as Billy Kruger and said he was detained Friday as he was preparing to fly from Toulouse. It said he was bound for Jakarta, Indonesia, where the couple lived.

Held on suspicion of murder, he subsequently confessed to killing his wife, 52-year-old Laure Bardina-Kruger, saying he stabbed her twice, the newspaper reported, citing prosecutor Marie-Agnès Joly.

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Laure Bardina-Kruger was found dead in a storm drain in France. Police said her husband Billy Kruger confessed to stabbing her dead

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Billy Kruger, seen with his wife, was arrested at the airport bound for Indonesia

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Bardina-Kruger worked as a French teacher and lived in Indonesia

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A bouquet of flowers is placed on a storm drain where Bardina-Kruger was found in the village of Peyriac-de-Mer in southern France

The prosecutor did not respond Sunday to an emailed request for comment from The Associated Press and her office was closed.

The wife's body was found in a storm drain Friday in Peyriac-de-Mer, on the Mediterranean, south of Narbonne.

 Laure's father raised the alarm after the couple did not turn up at his home to say goodbye.

The newspaper said that he worked as a diving instructor in Indonesia and that she taught French. It said the couple vacationed several weeks of the year at their holiday home in Peyriac-de-Mer.

After the body was found, a manhunt ensued and Billy Kruger was arrested in the departure area of the Toulouse airport.

On Sunday, a bouquet of white roses had been placed at the top of the drain where Laure's body was found.

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Billy Kruger celebrated his wedding anniversary in a Facebook post in 2017

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Former colleague Helen He described Bardina-Kruger as a 'bright, kind and beautiful person inside and out'

"We don't know yet what happened, but we never got any alarm signal from Laure regarding violent acts against her by her husband," Laure's brother Pierre Bardina wrote on Facebook.

"You always think this can only happen to other people, but violence against women can happen all of a sudden."

This latest murder brings the number of suspected femicides in France this year to at least 40, according to an AFP tally.

In 2019, AFP counted at least 126 cases of women killed by their partners or ex-partners, or an average of one woman every three days.