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ME's Office Tentatively ID's Woman As Kia Johnson

ME To Use Dental Records To Confirm ID

POSTED: 11:10 am EDT July 19, 2008
UPDATED: 12:02 am EDT July 20, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's office has tentatively identified the woman who hands and legs were bound with duct tape in a Pittsburgh apartment as 18-year-old Kia Johnson. The medical examiner will compare dental records Sunday to confirm the identity of the body.

Friends of Johnson's told Channel 4 that she is from the McKeesport area. They also said Johnson did not frequent Wilkinsburg.

Johnson was last seen Tuesday while visitng her boyfriend in jail.

The family of Johnson said they believe she may be the victim because she was pregnant with a baby boy.

An autopsy completed on an unidentified woman Saturday revealed cuts to the victim's lower body.

Authorities spent Saturday trying to learn the identity of a woman whose body was found on Friday face down and bound with duct tape in a third-floor apartment on Ella Street belonging to Andrea Curry-Demus.

Watch The Report From The Saturday Press Conference, as reported by WTAE Channel 4's Tara Edwards

Raw Video: Medical Examiner Press Conference

Dr. Karl Williams, Allegheny County's medical examiner, said Saturday afternoon that his office was closer to identifying the woman, whom he described as black, petite and possibly in her 20s. Authorities said it appears she died within two days of her discovery.

Flies could be seen circling around the apartment all day and an odor was noticeable from the sidewalk below, but police said they didn't find the body earlier because Curry-Demus' sister led them to the wrong apartment at first, police said.

Channel 4 Action News asked Chief Ophelia Coleman if the police were misled and she said, "I think that to be true, yes sir."

An autopsy completed Saturday morning indicated that the medical examiner found "moderate decomposition" of the body.

"Her abdomen had been opened with a sharp weapon. The uterus had been opened. The uterus appeared gravid, which means that there had been a baby there," Williams said.

Speculation circulated that the body belonged to Tina Carter, a pregnant woman who was an acquaintance of the Curry-Demus, but police have ruled that out.

The families of two missing pregnant women waited outside the apartment Friday night in hopes of learning their loved one was not the dead woman inside.

Authorities Await Dental Records

A precise cause of death of the woman found on Thursday remains under investigation. Authorities are awaiting dental records to confirm Johnson's identity.

"We're working with the coroner's office continually on this if it takes all weekend into all of next week," said James Morton, assistant superintendent of the Allegheny County police.

The medical examiner said they are also investigating whether the woman was drugged because they found no sign of a struggle.

On Thursday, Curry-Demus, 38, arrived at West Penn Hospital with a newborn who still had his umbilical cord attached. Police said the baby is doing well at the hospital and will remain there until they figure out who and where his mother is.

Wilkinsburg police said Curry-Demus faked her pregnancy and claimed the infant boy was hers before admitting to investigators that she had not given birth and had bought the infant for $1,000. Curry-Demus had told friends for months that she was expecting a child.

According to police reports, Curry-Demus said she had a miscarriage in June, and then agreed to purchase an infant from a woman named Tina for $500.

While leaving the Wilkinsburg Police Department on Thursday, Curry-Demus said, "I didn't do nothing." She was arraigned early Friday and remains at the Allegheny County Jail on charges of endangering the welfare of a child.

Records show that Curry-Demus was arrested in 1990 on suspicion of stabbing a Wilkinsburg mother while allegedly plotting to kidnap the woman's baby. She pleaded guilty in 1991 to aggravated assault and was sentenced to 10 years of probation.

"After coming to our attention the fact of who this person is, and that she does have a history of doing this sort of thing before, we are concerned about the (baby's) parent," Coleman said.

Curry-Demus remains held on $10,000 bond.

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