Missing teen ‘friends’ with jailed man

COVINGTON, Ky. - The last words that Paige Johnson’s big sister would read from the missing teen would be: “GIRL. I need To Talk To You IMMEDIATELY!”

To Brittany Haywood, that was just her sister being her sister. She said the Facebook message posted to her wall the night Johnson disappeared was something her sister would say casually like, “Hey, girl I need to talk…” That usually meant she had learned her boyfriend was cheating on her or she just was trying to find where big sis was.

Instead it would be the last word she would receive from her sister, who has been missing since Sept. 23, when she reported the teen missing to Covington Police.

The 20-year-old Haywood, who described her little sister as a sweet, outgoing girl, said the last time she spoke to Johnson on the phone was around midnight that night. She’s heard nothing since and that it isn’t like her sister not to call since they talk every day.

“Something is wrong, something is not right. Something is going on. Either she is hiding out somewhere or something happened,” Haywood said.

It was shortly after midnight on Sept. 23 – at 12:12 a.m. to be exact – when Johnson posted the message on her sister’s Facebook wall. That was the last time that the missing 17-year-old reached out to anyone on the social networking website.

About 45 minutes after her 12:12 a.m. posting, Jacob Thomas Bumpass, the Taylor Mill man currently being held in jail on a parole violation, told police he dropped Johnson off in Covington at 15th and Scott streets. Police said Bumpass told them that was at about 1 a.m. He was the last person to have seen her, according to court documents.

However, those same documents show that Bumpass' cell phone records show a different location at the time he said he was dropping Johnson off.

At approximately 1:03 a.m. Sept. 23, Bumpass' phone pinged on cell phone tower near Tanner's Lane in Florence, Ky., say court documents. According to Det. Bryan Frodge in an affidavit in support of a search warrant returned in the investigation, Johnson lived on Cantebury in Florence, which would be served by the tower on Tanner's Lane.

Cell phones ping off of cell phone towers as they constantly search for signal whether or not the phone is in use.
Facebook chatter reveals that the Bumpass, Johnson and Haywood had tentative plans to meet up on the evening of Sept. 22.

It also indicates that they had first planned to get together the night before.

On Sept. 21 Johnson chatted with Bumpass on Facebook. Just after 2 a.m. she posted on his wall to come and get her, her sister and her friend to “party ASAP!” He declined because, as he posted, he had a job interview the following morning and needed to get some sleep.

Haywood continued the chat, asking Bumpass if he was going to “chill with us tomorrow?” Bumpass’ post: “I’ll make an openin[g] for you!”

She did not “chill” with him the night Johnson disappeared, Haywood said.

Haywood said as far as she knew Johnson was hanging out with Bumpass on the evening of Sept. 22 and into the early-morning hours of Sept. 23 at his house. According to the affidavit for a search warrant, Bumpass, 22, gave Johnson alcohol that night.

Court documents said Bumpass’ phone next pinged at 1:32 a.m. on Sept. 23 near Wilder, Ky., which police say is near Bumpass’ residence on Decoursey Pike.

About an hour and a half later, it pinged at 2:58 a.m. off a tower near Dudley Pike in Edgewood, Ky. and at 4:13 a.m. off a tower near Filager Road in Batavia, Ohio.

At 4:18 a.m. Bumpass' phone pinged off a tower near Half-Acre Road in Batavia which is near the entrance to East Fork Lake, an Ohio State Park in Clermont County.

Later in the evening on Sept. 23, Bumpass posted to his Facebook two pleas to his ‘friends’ about Johnson’s disappearance.

“If anyone has seen Paige Johnson please let me kno[w] if you have seen her she is missing and if you look in my photos you will see what she looks like. Her friends and family really need to find her and no ones heard from her,” Bumpass’ post at 7:05 p.m. read.

“OK really if anyone has seen Paige Johnson please let me know because the cops are looking for her now. If anyone has any information on where she would be at message me,” Bumpass posted at 8:22 p.m.

Johnson and Bumpass also used the social networking site MySpace. There she and Bumpass shared an online friendship. Bumpass has photos posted on his page of the missing teenager posing with him, as well as with other friends.

Police say Johnson has been inactive online, including e-mail, Facebook and MySpace, since her disappearance. However, one website shows that someone has logged on to her page since her disappearance.

On MySpace, next to the profile photo is a timestamp that shows the last time a person logged into the MySpace page. On Johnson’s page, it reads that the last log on was Oct. 2.

Covington Police Capt. Teal Nally said that while the police are looking at Johnson’s social networks, like MySpace and Facebook, they are “reasonably