An arrest has been made in the death of a pregnant woman whose body was found dumped in the woods in Pennsylvania, police said.
Tylydiah Garnett, 21, was busted Saturday by Philadelphia cops with help from the FBI’s Gun Violence Task Force in the shooting death of Dianna Brice, police said.
Garnett, of Philadelphia, was taken into custody on charges including arson, abuse of a corpse and criminal conspiracy after Brice’s body was discovered in a wooded area in southwest Philadelphia on April 5.
The 21-year-old victim was three months pregnant at the time, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Brice’s body was found about a mile away from where the car of her boyfriend, Justin Smith, 23, was discovered engulfed in flames just hours after she vanished on March 30.
Brice’s mother, Betty Cellini, reported her daughter missing to Upper Darby police that day and said the pair was last seen getting into Smith’s gray Ford Fusion outside a laundromat in Yeadon, the Inquirer reported.
Cellini told WPVI the couple had an argument prior to her daughter’s disappearance.
“He goes, ‘She won’t even talk to me,'” Cellini recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t care, she’s pregnant with your child.'”
Investigators then tracked Brice and Smith via a cellphone before discovering her body. An autopsy revealed she died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head, police said.
Smith’s cellphone had been turned off since March 30 and police found his car keys and wallet near the burning Ford Fusion in Philadelphia after Brice went missing, the Inquirer reported.
Smith, who had been previously named as a person of interest in the case, had not been located as of Monday afternoon, police said.
“The investigation is very active and ongoing,” a police spokesman told The Post in a statement.
Sources told CBS Philadelphia that Garnett was seen on video helping dispose of Brice’s body. Investigators also recovered clothing with burn marks, according to the report.
A funeral for Brice, who police say had a last known address in Lansdowne, will be held Thursday in Upper Darby, CBS Philadelphia reported.