Marva Howard

Marva Denise Howard, police said yesterday, "led a lifestyle that would put her in dangerous situations."

The Greensburg woman used drugs and had been convicted repeatedly for prostitution in Allegheny County.

But Maurita Bryant, assistant Pittsburgh police chief, said she did nothing in her hard life to justify her gruesome end.

The Allegheny County medical examiner's office yesterday identified Ms. Howard as the woman whose body was discovered Tuesday cut in half, wrapped in plastic garbage bags and left in a wooded area off Simonton Street in North Point Breeze.

A woman walking her dog discovered the body parts.

Police believe Ms. Howard, 39, was killed somewhere else and dumped along Simonton. She had been cut in half at the waist, with her upper and lower body double-wrapped and stuffed in separate bags.

Medical examiners identified her through fingerprints on file from previous arrests. The cause and manner of death, however, are pending further investigation by the medical examiner and the city homicide squad.

Police don't know what weapon was used to sever her body. Lt. Daniel Herrmann, head of Major Crimes, said detectives found no other obvious wounds on the body suggesting how she died.

Police declined to provide more specifics that only the perpetrators would know about the scene.

"There are certain details that we want to withhold," said Assistant Chief Bryant.

She said Ms. Howard, whose court records list two dates of birth and several aliases, had "challenges" with drugs.

The chief would not describe her history further and family members in Greensburg, who told police they had last seen her a week ago, could not be located yesterday.

Court records show Ms. Howard had convictions for prostitution in Allegheny County in 2006, 2001 and 1998 following arrests by city and county police.

The lawyer who represented her in her last prostitution case, Arnold Klein, said he remembered her as an almost jovial person who was genuine in trying to get her life together.

"I think she was doing better," he said, although he wasn't sure if she had entered a post-conviction program to help women in her position.

Police were at a loss to explain why someone would cut her in half but not dispose of the parts or otherwise try to hide them more thoroughly.

"There is no reason I can think of for doing something like this," said Assistant Chief Bryant in characterizing the culprit as "sick."

A woman walking her dog on Monday noticed the fly-covered bags under a small log but thought they contained dead animals. When she walked by again on Tuesday morning, she poked one of the bags with a stick and saw a hand protruding.

The woman flagged down a PennDOT employee at a nearby garage and asked him to call 911.

Police believe that more than one person was involved in the crime because each bag weighed at least 100 pounds. Ms. Howard stood a little over 5 feet tall but weighed more than 200 pounds.

Ms. Howard, whose last known address was an apartment on College Avenue in Greensburg, had been known to travel back and forth from Westmoreland County to Homewood and East Liberty.

Police are asking anyone who saw her in the last few days to contact them.