Police have arrested a Buffalo man they say killed a 15-year-old Sudanese refugee last month. Kowat Rual was found floating in the Buffalo River, dead from an apparent beating.

Buffalo Police say good detective work and tips from the public helped them to arrest the man they believe beat Rual to death. And the real break in this case came last week when Buffalo Police released photos of two men they called "persons of interest."

20-year-old Charles Williams saw the news report about himself and came forward to police. Williams says he was a witness to Rual's June 9th murder. And he said 21-year-old Julian Christopher, the other named person of interest, was the killer. Yesterday a tip call abut Christopher's whereabouts allowed police to track him down.

They say Christopher confessed to killing Rual in an undisclosed location and then dumped the body in the Buffalo River. Detectives would not elaborate on a motive for the killing, except to say it was over a minor theft.

"They're known to each other, we're not going to go into a lot of details. It was a beating that took place. They've known each other for at least several months," said Deputy Commissioner Dan Derenda, about Rual's relationship to Christopher.

Rual had been missing from his home for two weeks prior to his death, though his family did not report him as being a missing person. Police believe that most of those two weeks were spent with Christopher.

Rual's story is particularly sad because he managed to escape the violence in his homeland of Sudan to come here to Buffalo with his family to start a new life. But police say in the months leading up to his death, he'd been missing school and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Christopher is charged with one count of second degree murder.