Slain Woman's Family Awaits Autopsy Results After Man's Body Found in Hawaii Lava Field

Hawaii police are investigating a body found near where a Tustin, Calif., woman was found last year in an unsolved homicide case.

A body found on the Big Island of Hawaii may be that of the former boyfriend who was named by police as a suspect in the strangling of a pregnant Southern California woman.

A hiker found the decomposing body on Thursday and reported it to police, said NBC4's affiliate Hawaii News Now. Residents said the body was hanging from a tree near a lava field off a highway.

It was found near where 25-year old Brittany Jane Royal, of Tustin, and her ex-boyrfriend Boaz Johnson, 22, (pictured) were camping in May. 

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Authorities found Royal's strangled body May 28 in a fishing line in the ocean, police said. She was 2-months pregnant.

Johnson went missing the day the couple were going to buy 10 acres of land where they were camping. He was named as a suspect in the slaying.

Johnson, of Petersburg, Alaska, had last spoken to his family at noon on May 27, the Hawaii Police Department said in a statement. Police found his ID and a phone, but had no sign of him.

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Investigators were waiting for autopsy results before confirming the identity of the body found Thursday. There is also the possibility that the body may be that of a missing Japanese tourist who disappeared in the area nearly a year ago.

"We'll wait to see what happens," Royal's father, Ted, told Hawaii News Now.

"If it is Bo, then it appears that he murdered my daughter and then he killed himself and justice has been done and we move on. And it's a very sad story, both for his family and for ours."

Added the mother, Julie: "I thought about his family, and I reached out and talked to them. They're in my heart every day."

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