PACIFIC — After quarrels with her boyfriend, Stephanie M. Fields sometimes walked to Nicole Bosely's nearby home and talked of being abused.

"He pretty much had her life controlled," Bosely said Wednesday, reeling from news that Fields had been stabbed to death and cut into pieces.

Prosecutors charged that boyfriend, Vernell J. Loggins Jr., 37, on Wednesday with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. Bail was set at $1 million in cash.

Police said that Fields, who would have turned 26 on Wednesday, lived with Loggins for several months at the Monroe Woods Apartments, just north of Interstate 44 near the Pacific exit.

A worker there found parts of her body about noon Tuesday in a trash can left next to a Dumpster. She was identified by tattoos.

Investigators said that Fields apparently was slain Sunday or Monday, and that some parts of her body remained missing.

"It was a very violent, gruesome crime," said Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Bob Parks.

Court documents say parts of the body were under ice cubes in a trash can with the lid glued shut. Bags recovered from the Dumpster contained a label from a new trash can, empty ice bags and a Walmart receipt for the can and glue. Video from a nearby Walmart shows a man purchasing such a can, detergent and carpet cleaner about 9:30 p.m. Monday and leaving in an SUV registered to Loggins, the documents say.

He was arrested at home Tuesday night by police who said they found blood and tissue there.

Court databases show Loggins twice pleaded guilty in Franklin County to a misdemeanor charge of frightening or disturbing another person, in 2004 and 2005, and had three orders of protection filed against him for alleged stalking about eight years ago.

Bosely said she once gave Fields a ride to her mother's home in House Springs. "I told her the obvious. I told her, 'You need to get away from him.'" Bosely said.

"Obviously, she didn't."

E. J. Rotert, a Post-Dispatch special correspondent, contributed to this report.