A couple killed and butchered their landlord in order to steal his identity, and then scattered his body parts in locations across two counties, a court heard today.

Stephen Marshall, 38, and his partner Sarah Bush, 21, carried out a "clearly thought out" and "quite sophisticated" plot to kill kitchen salesman Jeffrey Howe, 49, who became known as the "jigsaw man" when bits of his body were found at five different sites last year.

The couple then assumed his identity while emptying his bank account and making his house their own, St Albans crown court heard.

The body was so skilfully cut up that the murder was "clearly carried out by someone who had experience of such activity," said the prosecuting barrister, Stuart Trimmer, QC.

He told the jury there was evidence that Marshall had "a mindset which includes murder and dismemberment as a reaction to conflict."

Some time before the murder in March last year, Marshall threatened to take Bush's previous partner to Epping Forest in east London and "get rid of him", said Trimmer.

"The purpose behind the dismembering of the body of Jeffrey Howe was to prevent discovery of the murder and identification of the body and presumably detection of the offenders."

Marshall had also threatened to "dispose of" another woman, to whom he also boasted he had "considerable experience of disposing of bodies", the court heard.

Marshall denies murder but admits being party to the dismembering and dumping of Howe's body. He blames Bush for the murder, and claims she confessed to him that she was the killer.

Bush, who the jury heard was a sex worker at the time of the murder, denies all the charges against her. But while drunk one night she confessed to friends that she helped Marshall kill Howe, the court heard. "She said Marshall stabbed him in the back and she put a pillow over his face to stop the noise," Trimmer told the jury.

Forensic evidence indicated that Howe was killed between 8 and 9 March 2009 in his flat in Southgate, north London, which he reluctantly shared with the two defendants, the jury heard. His severed legs, left arm, torso and head were all discovered in separate locations across Hertfordshire and Leicestershire between 22 March and 11 April last year.

Howe's hands remain missing - though in her drunken outburst, Bush claimed the hands had been buried in Epping Forest, the court was told.

The prosecution alleges that Marshall and Bush hatched an elaborate plot to kill Howe, who Marshall knew from his work in kitchen sales. Their motive, say the Crown, was to take over Howe's flat, where they had been living, rent-free, on a blow-up mattress, since late 2008.

"A plan appears to have evolved before the murder," said Trimmer. "The plan was to adopt the identity of Mr Howe insofar as that allowed the seizure of all his finances and possessions. The flat was to be seized by the device of the 'disappearance' of Jeffrey Howe."

In the days after the murder, the pair used Howe's bank account to buy a string of consumer items and takeaway meals, and posed as him while selling his belongings.

They also forged his signature in order to claim housing benefit, claiming that he was leasing the property to the couple, and at one point Marshall accompanied Bush to the Benefits Agency posing as her "uncle".

On 9 March, the morning after the murder is alleged to have taken place, Marshall asked for the day off work - in order to carry out the "considerable clean up following the murder", the prosecution alleged. Later that afternoon, Marshall sold Howe's mobile phone at a branch of Cash Converters.

Over the next few days, Bush used Howe's bank details to buy a new mobile phone and a subscription to Cineworld cinemas, as well as to start up an account with Littlewoods online.

Marshall created an email account pretending to be Howe, using an address apparently copied from Howe's personalised number plates. On 11 March, Marshall joined the internet auction site eBay and on 13 March, Howe's car, a Saab, was listed for sale. When the car was recovered after the couple's arrest, Howe's blood was found in the boot. The case continues.