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Man charged with murder of Tamaqua woman

Angela Steigerwalt left her job at Kraft Foods in Lower Macungie at 11 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31.

Within three hours, she was strangled to death with an electrical cord in the Allentown bedroom of  Anthony Darrell Heath.Heath admitted to killing Steigerwalt and burning and dumping her body down a steep embankment along Flagstaff Road in Jim Thorpe, where it was found by firefighters later that morning.Heath, 25, was charged on Friday, Feb. 7, with homicide, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, receiving stolen property, access device fraud, abuse of a corpse and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.He was arraigned Friday afternoon and jailed without bail in Lehigh County Prison.According to court documents, at 5:44 a.m. Saturday, two hours after he killed Steigerwalt, Heath, police say, took her credit card, driver's license and car, and went to a Wal-Mart in Lower Macungie, using the card to buy a large plastic tote, a lighter and lighter fluid to burn and dispose of her body.At about 8:35 a.m., a jogger in Jim Thorpe saw a man speeding along Broadway, the town's main street. He abruptly turned up Flagstaff Road.At 9:01 a.m., Robert Romancheck, who was driving along Flagstaff Road, spotted a brush fire and called 911.Firefighters extinguished the two-foot tall flames; as they raked the debris, they uncovered the charred torso.State police investigated the body, observing a wire around the neck, and wire under the area where the legs would have been, had they not been burned.Nearby, they found a plastic Wal-Mart shopping bag containing a receipt dated Feb. 1, 2014, for the items Heath had bought.Troopers went to the store, and watched a surveillance recording showing a man later identified as Heath buying the items.An exterior recording showed Heath loading the items into what looked like Steigerwalt's car.The car was equipped with an OnStar system, enabling police to track it to Kinston, N.C., on Feb. 2. There, police arrested Heath on theft charges, and jailed him.Heath was returned to Carbon County, where at 9 a.m. Friday he was arraigned on the theft charge and jailed under $1 million bail.Hours later, he was taken to Lehigh County, arraigned on the homicide charges, and jailed without bail.Steigerwalt was identified through dental records.Heath's roommate, Dwight McCurry, told police Heath and Steigerwalt, who were Facebook friends, had been engaged in a sexual relationship. He also identified Heath in the Wal-Mart surveillance video.