Melissa Manhart, a 42-year-old White female from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had only just moved into her new home when her life ended violently in the Larimer neighborhood. On the evening of August 11, 2017, Pittsburgh police and medical personnel were called to the 1200 block of Paulson Avenue after a passerby spotted her lying on the rear porch of an apartment building. She was found in a pool of blood and pronounced dead at the scene.
At first, authorities treated the death as suspicious while they waited for the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office to determine exactly what had happened. The scene offered few immediate answers, and early reports said there was no obvious explanation at the location for how she had died. Soon after, the medical examiner ruled her death a homicide. Police later said Manhart had been shot in the face or head, turning what began as a grim discovery on a porch into a murder investigation.
The timing made the case especially unsettling. Reports said Manhart had moved into the residence only about two days before she was killed. She was found at or near the back porch of the home, a place that should have represented a new start, not the place where her body would be discovered by strangers passing by. Police asked the public for help and the department’s violent crime investigators continued looking for information about who killed her.
No public reports located identify an arrest, named suspect, criminal charges, trial, or conviction in connection with Melissa Manhart’s murder. Available accounts describe the case as unresolved, with police still seeking information after her death. The public record leaves the central questions unanswered: who approached her at that Larimer residence, why she was shot so soon after moving in, and what led to her being left dead on the rear porch.
