ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italian police said Friday they have identified a suspect in the beheading of a woman in Florence, who media reports described as a homeless 44-year-old German.

Police “found the decapitated body of a woman” at an abandoned site in Scandicci, a suburb of the Tuscan city, after a homeless person raised the alarm Wednesday.

“The investigation resulted in the seizure of several items, including a machete and a knife with blood traces, found in the immediate vicinity of the body,” the police said in a statement.

“A man, already known to law enforcement and currently hospitalized under surveillance, is a serious suspect in the brutal crime,” it said.

The man was spotted with “multiple traces of blood” on his clothes just before the woman’s body was found, it added.

The woman was German and was known to homeless charities in the area, moving around a lot and frequenting several food kitchens, the regional La Nazione newspaper said.

The suspect was a young man from North Africa and known to suffer from mental health problems, it said.

The pair were “seeing each other” and shared a makeshift shelter in the area, it added.