LOS ANGELES - Detectives believe an aspiring model and actress from Macedonia who had been missing for more than a month was killed and dumped in a shallow grave in Northern California, police said Wednesday.

The model's boyfriend, who was engaged to another woman and killed himself after a police chase last week, is suspected in her death, Los Angeles Police Capt. Billy Hayes said at a news conference. He said an autopsy on Thursday would confirm whether the body is that of 25-year-old Adea Shabani.

She was last seen leaving her apartment in Hollywood with her boyfriend, 33-year-old Chris Spotz, on Feb. 23.

Los Angeles police found what's believed to be her body on Tuesday some 690 kilometers away in a shallow grave by a creek in the Spenceville Wildlife Area.

Through an attorney, Spotz told detectives that he and Shabani left Los Angeles on Feb. 23 on a road trip to Spotz's father's house in northern California.

Spotz said he and Shabani had an argument in the Santa Clarita area just outside of Los Angeles and that he let her out on the side of a freeway and hadn't seen her again. Hayes said detectives found nothing that corroborated that statement.

During the investigation into Shabani's disappearance, Hayes said Spotz and his fiancee drove from Los Angeles to her parents' home in Fort Morgan, Colorado, just outside of Denver.

When detectives tried to track him down there, Spotz was gone.

Detectives issued a warrant for Spotz's truck. Last week, he led police on a chase east of Los Angeles after they tried to pull him over. Spotz fatally shot himself in the head after the short pursuit.

Hayes said detectives suspect that Shabani has been dead for more than a month. - AP