WILLIAMSPORT — A former Montoursville man who state police say confessed to killing his then girlfriend in 2003, hiding her body and 15 years later cutting off her legs, is jailed without bail on criminal homicide and related counts.

Jade G. Babcock, 49, at his arraignment Tuesday told Lycoming County District Judge Gary Whiteman that he is single, unemployed, bipolar, suffers from anxiety and depression and is addicted to crystal methamphetamine and alcohol.

A state police affidavit states Babcock confessed to killing Brenda Lee Jacobs in Dec. 26, 2003, in a house they shared on Jordan Avenue in Montoursville.

He told investigators he cut off her legs last November with a hacksaw so her remains would fit into a wooden box.

Just before he moved to Philadelphia in April with another woman, he said he threw the legs into the Susquehanna River from the Maynard Street bridge in Williamsport, the affidavit states.

Investigators said he told them he had hoped water would fill the bag and carry away the legs, but fishermen found them May 11 about a half-mile downstream. A black plastic bag and a white sheet were found nearby, police said.

Babcock, who has a ninth-grade education, is also charged with tampering with evidence, obstructing the administration of law and abuse of corpse. He is accused of repeatedly punching Jacobs in the head.

Babcock’s arrest brings some closure, said Randy Jacobs, the deceased’s brother-in-law. “It answers one big question - where she was,” he said.

He disputes the police claim that Jacobs was not reported missing until 2013. He claims a report was made in 2003 but police never did anything with it.

Babcock had been held in Philadelphia without bail since his arrest Sept. 16, charged with abuse of corpse, obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence.

Those charges are likely to be dropped or consolidated with those in Lycoming County, authorities said.

In the affidavit, state police say Babcock told them he kept Jacobs’ body wrapped in a comforter in a closet for several months before moving it to a coal bin in a structure at the rear of the property on Jordan Avenue in Montoursville.

This is Babcock’s version of how he killed Jacobs, as recounted by state police in the affidavit:

Jacobs and he had been together about six months, primarily staying at his grandmother’s house in the 300 block of Jordan Avenue.

Both had lost their jobs around Christmas 2003, were unable to purchase their children any gifts and were drinking heavily through the holidays, he told police.

They got into an argument and he punched Jacobs several times, at least once in the head, the affidavit said. “The last time I hit her, I hit her hard. I blasted her," he’s quoted as saying. "She didn’t get back up after that.”

He told police saw blood coming from her and she started to get cold. But he said he was too scared to call 911, the affidavit said.

He said he had the phone in his hand for about 20 hours.

“It was right there and I didn’t call,” he told police, according the affidavit.

As part of the investigation, police said they learned that Montoursville police on Aug. 8, 2003, had investigated a report that Babcock had assaulted Jacobs, grabbing her hair, pulling her back and hitting her in the head and face.

Babcock’s most recent girlfriend went to state police in Philadelphia on Sept. 16 and provided them a written statement. She told police she and Babcock had lived together for about four years, and that after the Jordan Avenue property was sold in November 2018 he removed the body from the coal bin, the affidavit said.

She saw him try to “break the body” to fit it into a wood box with handles, she told police.

The box containing the body was kept in a storage unit in Williamsport until April when they moved it to Philadelphia using a rented truck, the woman said. The box was placed in the storage unit where police discovered the body – without legs – on Sept. 16.

The remains have yet to be identified, and a spokesman in the medical examiner’s office said that could take some time.

Tests also are being conducted to confirm the legs found in the river are linked to the remains, investigators said.