A 28-year-old Lynden man walked into the Bellingham Police Department Monday afternoon and reportedly confessed to murdering a Skagit County woman and dumping her body near Sumas.

The woman is believed to be 45-year-old Dawn Ruger, according to a Skagit County Sheriff’s Office press release. A friend reported her missing in late December 2006 after she didn’t return from a trip to the wilderness with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Benjamin Price, Skagit County Undersheriff Wayne Dowhaniuk said.

After his confession, Price led detectives to a shallow grave in a ravine off a logging road near Paradise Valley Road, where police found the decomposed remains of a woman, according to documents filed in Skagit County District Court.

Price was then arrested and booked into Skagit County Jail on suspicion of homicide, with bail set at $1 million.

Ruger was last seen in late December 2006, when she told a friend that she was going to Rainbow Falls near Baker Lake with Price. When Ruger stopped picking up her government assistance checks, friends reported her missing.

“Anytime someone has a habit of doing something and they stop doing it, it becomes suspicious,” Dowhaniuk said.

Also suspicious was Price’s truck, which was found several days after Ruger’s disappearance. It was severely burned and stripped of several parts, including the seats, on a logging road off Highway 9 north of Sedro- Woolley.

Police say Ruger did not have a permanent home but had lived with several friends in the Skagit and Snohomish County areas for several years.

“She was kind of transient — wouldn’t stay in one location for very long,” Dowhaniuk said.

They had been investigating Ruger’s disappearance for more than a year and questioned Price several times but had not been able to gather enough evidence for an arrest — until Monday.

Price told police he had taken Ruger to Baker Lake and became frustrated with her on the way back. Price stopped his truck on Highway 20 near Sedro-Woolley and “killed her with his hands,” according to the documents.

Whatcom County Medical Examiner Gary Goldfogel and Washington State Crime Laboratory officials spent Tuesday trying to determine whether the remains are those of Ruger.

Price may suffer from mentalhealth problems. According to the documents filed in court, he told police he was turning himself in “because he is afraid to see others as Lucifer.”

Price has been cited for domestic violence-related crimes and spent time in prison. He was cited three times for violation of a no-contact order in a little more than a year.

According to Whatcom County Superior Court records, a 25-year-old Bellingham woman in November 2004 obtained a nocontact order against Price. Despite the order, the woman had asked Price to come to her apartment and baby-sit their child. When she returned home, Price refused to leave and the two fought. The woman told Bellingham Police officers that Price threw her to the ground, sat on her and held her down by the neck. Price was charged with felony violation of the order and intimidating a witness.

Price spent five days in jail for violating the no-contact order again in May 2005.

Then four days before the trial for the first violation charge, Price was cited for writing the woman a letter. In it, Price wrote, “My only hope is to fight dirty which means that my lawyer is going to be digging in our past. ... I won’t be going down without a fight. And I just want you to at least be prepared for this trial to be very ugly.” The woman told police that she felt threatened by the letter due to a “history of violence in the past,” according to court records.

Price pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. But he only spent five months of that sentence behind bars before being released into a community custody program in August 2006, Washington state Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said. It was unclear Tuesday why Price was released after serving just a third of his sentence.

Dowhaniuk said having someone in custody for the crime is a relief for law enforcement and hopefully for the family.

“When someone is missing there’s always the hope that they’re still somewhere alive,” Dowhaniuk said. “Now they can have some closure.”

Ruger has family in the Sedro-Woolley area. They did not return calls for comment.