With Michael Sangiacomo / Plain Dealer Reporter

PARMA, Ohio -- A 60-year-old Parma man was arrested early Wednesday after police found him driving around Lakewood with a woman's corpse in the back seat.

Authorities said the body was that of Elaine Wynn-Pickett, 60, who lived with the man in Parma and had been missing since before Christmas.

An autopsy Wednesday showed Wynn-Pickett died from stab wounds, said Cuyahoga County coroner's office spokesman Powell Caesar. He said further testing is needed to determine how long she had been dead.

When police stopped the man's 'car, officers asked him what he could tell them about the missing woman, said Parma Detective Marty Compton.

"He said, 'She's in the back seat,' " Compton said. "And there was a body wrapped in a blanket under boxes in the back seat."

The man was being held in Parma jail on Wednesday. He had not been charged, but Compton said the case is now being treated as a homicide.

The investigation started after the woman's niece called police about 9 p.m. Tuesday, Compton said. She said she had not seen her aunt, who had recently undergone open-heart surgery, since before Christmas, Compton said.

Officers interviewed the woman and learned that her aunt was living with a man on Knollwood Drive.

Investigators learned the man frequented a certain area of Lakewood. They contacted Lakewood police and asked them to watch for the man.

Lakewood police stopped the man at West 117th Street and Edgewater Drive, Compton said, and Parma officers went to the scene.

Parma police put the vehicle on a flatbed truck and took it to the coroner's office with the body inside. Coroner's officials began the autopsy Wednesday afternoon.

Neighbors in the Parma Woods apartment complex remember the woman as pleasant. But tenants said she could often be heard arguing with her male friend.

"It seems like they were always yelling at each other," said Adam Libbey-Tipton, 23.