New Yorker Philip Ward is being charged with the 1989 murder of his pregnant girlfriend Veronica Bowen after confessing to the crime. Ward, who is currently serving 20 years for the murder of another girlfriend, admitted to authorities that he killed Bowen and decapitated her.

According to CBS, the cold case was reopened during a routine review of old cases. Police and prosecutors hoped to use new DNA techniques to solve the case, but instead received a confession from Ward, now 45. I killed Veronica Bowen, he told investigators.

Bowen was 21 years old and pregnant at the time of her death in February 1989. She met Ward in a group foster home as a teenager, and their relationship evolved into a violent one, reported CBS.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office said the victim had moved out the Manhattan apartment she shared with Ward before her death. Ward had discovered that Bowen was pregnant with another man's child, and lured her to the rooftop of the apartment building where he proceeded to beat her with a pipe, stabbed her with a dagger and ultimately cut off her head with a kitchen knife, according to the D.A.

Almost two decades later, police have yet to find Bowen's head. According to CBS, Ward had bagged the head and buried it in a hole. Investigators are currently hoping to unearth the head with new information acquired from Ward.

Ward is currently in jail for the 1994 fatal shooting of his girlfriend Sheila Jackson. The man shot Jackson at their North Salem, N.Y., home in front of her 11-year-old daughter.

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