Missouri Man Accused Of Murder In 2004 Headless Torso Case

A Missouri man has been charged in connection with a 2004 case of a headless torso being found at a rest stop on a highway.

Mike Anthony Clardy, 63, of Maryland Heights, was charged with second-degree murder one count of abandonment of a corpse Wednesday in the cold case murder of Deanna Denise Howland, the St. Louis Dispatch reported.

Howland's headless torso, with the limbs and legs missing, was found along westbound Interstate 70, two days after she was murdered on June 26, 2004, KSDK-TV reported.

Her torso was first spotted by maintenance workers, and a knife was also recovered from a sewer nearby. Clardy's arrest was made after his DNA matched with the DNA fragments left on the victim's dismembered body, and the knife recovered from the crime scene.

The suspect said in an interview with the cops Tuesday he killed Howland at his residence in the 3500 block of Dixie Drive in St. Ann, dismembered her body, and disposed of the pieces in both St. Louis County and Warren Counties, the KPVI-TV report said.

Since her body hadn't decomposed at the time it was found, the cops believed she died only hours earlier. The positive identification of her remains was done by scars from an appendectomy and a cesarean section on her body and a DNA sample matching with her family members. Howland, 35, was an Alton resident and struggled with drug addiction, as per KPVI-TV.

Howland, who was divorced multiple times, reportedly became estranged from some of her children due to her drug addiction and supported herself through prostitution at times.

"This has been haunting me for the last 12 years," former Warren County Coroner Roger Mauzy had told the St. Louis Dispatch after authorities identified Howland's body in 2016 by using DNA samples from her family. "It's the only body I've never been able to identify, and it's cost me a lot of sleep."

Clardy is being held against a $1 million bond in the Warren County Jail.

The Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, which was investigating the cold case murder, scheduled a news conference for Thursday at 3 p.m. where cops are expected to reveal more details regarding the case.