A personal assistant of famed realtor Linda Stein has been arrested after confessing to her slaying, police officials said yesterday.

Natavia Lowery, 26, confessed to killing Stein, a former manager for the punk rock band, The Ramones, who parlayed her links to celebrities into a lucrative real estate career, by bludgeoning her to death with a piece of exercise gear called a yoga stick, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Police arrested Ms. Lowery early this morning after she made statements that implicated her in Stein’s killing, Mr. Kelly said. She later gave taped and written confessions, he said.

Ms. Lowery told investigators that she became enraged after Stein verbally abused her and then blew marijuana smoke into her face as she was reading an email at about 12:30 p.m. on Monday, October 30, Mr. Kelly said.

An argument ensued, and Stein started waving a yoga stick in Ms. Lowery’s face, the suspect told investigators. Ms. Lowery said she grabbed the stick out of Stein’s hands, and struck her with it six or seven times over the head, Mr. Kelly said.

Stein’s body was found in a pool of blood by her daughter, Mandy Stein, that evening at about 10:30 p.m.

During interrogations, Ms. Lowery, an African American, also told investigators that Stein had made a racist comment toward her, sources said.

After killing Stein, Ms. Lowery remained in Stein’s apartment until shortly after 1 p.m., making several phone calls from her cell phone, a detective on the case, Kevin Walla, said.

Stein’s yoga teacher, Patricia Smith, said Ms. Lowery called her at about 1 p.m. to cancel Stein’s appointment for the following day. Ms. Lowery told her that Stein had a business engagement and didn’t want to reschedule.

“I could hear hesitation in her voice,” Ms. Smith, who taught Stein yoga at her apartment three times a week, said. “Usually Linda would be in the background talking. She would always try to reschedule.”

Ms. Smith, however, said she was astonished that Ms. Lowery had confessed to the killing. She described Ms. Lowery as an attractive and stylish woman, who had a good working relationship with Stein. She also said she couldn’t imagine Stein blowing smoke in anyone’s face or using racist language.

Investigators have yet to find the murder weapon. Ms. Smith said that she had never heard of a yoga stick, let alone seen one in Stein’s apartment. Investigators would not say if marijuana was found in Stein’s apartment.

Detectives first questioned Ms. Lowery on October 31, the day after the murder. However, she was not questioned again until yesterday after she called police to complain about reporters staking out her Brooklyn home.

The lead detectives on the case, Detective Antonio Rivera and Mr. Walla, drove to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn to meet with Ms. Lowery at a diner yesterday afternoon. She was then taken to the seventh precinct house in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and later arrested.

The investigators would not discuss details of how Ms. Lowery so quickly became the prime suspect after more than week of investigation that had yielded no leads. Detectives had interviewed between 60 and 70 people, as well as pored through security footage of Stein’s 965 Fifth Ave. apartment building and collected forensic evidence, such as parts of Stein’s bathtub.

On the day of the murder, Ms. Lowery, who left the state at some point during the last week, was seen on security tapes leaving Stein’s home carrying a large bag, Mr. Kelly said.

Ms. Lowery had at least one prior encounter with law enforcement. She was arrested last December on identity theft charges after stealing a high school friend’s personal information to obtain a credit card, Mr. Kelly said. Friends and colleagues said Stein, for whom Ms. Lowery had only worked for four months, had no knowledge of her criminal record.

Detective Walla, who informed Stein’s family of Lowery’s confession yesterday, said the victim’s daughter, Samantha Wells, was devastated by the news.

Ms. Lowery is set to be arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of second-degree murder, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Barbara Thompson, said.