A man who came forward last year and confessed to police that he killed a woman 21 years earlier today pleaded not guilty.

Brian Edward Jones was charged with murder and abuse of a corpse after he surprised Bessemer police by showing up out of the blue in March 2022 and confessing that he had killed 41-year-old Janet Jones Luxford in 2001 at a Bessemer hotel.

Jones remains in jail with bond set at $75,000.

Luxford had taken off with Jones in 2001. The two met at a Jacksonville, Florida hotel where Luxford worked, and where Jones, a truck driver, was staying.

She was never heard from again.

In 2022, Jones contacted Bessemer police and said he killed Luxford and then stuffed her body into a green suitcase and left it in a remote area where it went undetected until he led investigators to the crime scene.

Jones, of South Carolina, said he didn’t come forward until now because he didn’t want to disappoint his parents. They died in 2021, and it was time for Jones to get his horrific secret off his chest and allow Luxford to get a proper burial, police said.

Jones told police he accidentally killed Luxford during an argument in which she was asking for money to get back to her kids.

A month after his confession, Luxford’s daughter, Amanda Luxford Fernandez, now a mother herself, learned of the arrest.

“He left me as a child without a mother,’’ she said at the time. “He had his parents until he got old and he took that from me.”

“I’m just looking forward to the trial,’’ she said, “and to see what his punishment is going to be.”

“For so long there was nothing, no movement. We had no idea where she was, how she was, if she was alive or not,’’ Fernandez said.

“At least now I know she’s been passed on for a long time and so I’ve had an angel with me the whole time and that’s how I’ve made it through.”