A woman who was found dead in a Wilkinsburg apartment yesterday afternoon with her abdomen cut open and plastic taped across her face has been tentatively identified as Kia Johnson, 18, of McKeesport, the Allegheny County medical examiner's office.

Ms. Johnson's relatives told authorities that she was pregnant and that she is missing.

The medical examiner is awaiting dental records to confirm positive identification.

The exact cause of death been determined, but Medical Examiner Dr. Karl Williams said today that it has been ruled a homicide.

Wilkinsburg police discovered the dead woman in the Ella street apartment of Andrea Curry-Demus, who had been arrested Thursday after showing up at West Penn Hospital in Bloomfield with a newborn baby and falsely claiming to be the mother.

She later told police that she bought the baby from a woman named "Tina" for $1,000. Ms. Curry-Demus is being held at the Allegheny County Jail on child endangerment charges.

The woman discovered in Ms. Curry-Demus' apartment was in a "state of moderate decomposition" and appeared to have been dead for at least two days, the medical examiner's office said in a press release today.

Her face was covered with "a plastic material" secured by duct tape and her hands and feet were bound with duct tape, the release said. There was evidence of "partial evisceration," in which the woman's abdomen had been sliced open, apparently in order to remove the baby. Investigators also recovered a placenta from the apartment.

The medical examiner's office is working with Allegheny County police homicide investigators to determine the woman's cause of death. Authorities have narrowed the possible victims to two or three women from the area who are missing and were in advanced stages of pregnancy, Dr. Williams said at a press conference this afternoon.

Dr. Williams said that there is a possibility that the woman was drugged, because there were no signs of resistance. He said there were drugs found at the scene, but did not specify what type of drugs.