BATAVIA, Ohio — After deliberation that spanned over two days, the jury has found Jacob Bumpass guilty of tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse in connection to the death of 17-year-old Paige Johnson.
The trial took place 13 years after Johnson disappeared; her remains were found in 2020 by a hiker off of State Route 276 — just 2 miles from a spot in East Fork State Park where investigators originally searched for Paige's body following her disappearance.
After three years of litigation outside of court, Bumpass' trial began on July 17.
Bumpass was never charged with Johnson's murder. That's because prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to file homicide charges, in part because coroners were unable to determine a cause of death for the 17-year-old mother.
Instead, he faced two charges: One count of tampering with evidence and one count of abuse of a corpse.
More than a dozen witnesses took the stand over three days of testimony including Johnson's family, investigators, the man who found her remains and a retired FBI cell phone data expert.
First to take the stand was Johnson's mother, Donna, who has been vocal since her daughter's disappearance.
The still-grieving mother was almost instantly in tears as prosecutor Clay Tharp began asking questions.
Tharp asked her to describe Paige, at one point asking if the teen was trusting.
"Clearly," Donna said. "I would say naive, young."
He then asked her to detail the night of September 22, 2010.
She said she was laying in her bed that night and Paige walked in around 10:30 p.m. to ask if she could go to her older sister, Brittany's, apartment, which was in Covington. She thought she said her friend Jason was going to give her a ride over there, she said.
Donna said Paige didn't have a car nor a license and that she knew and trusted Jason. But it was Bumpass who picked her up, not Jason.
He was the last person to see her alive, investigators said.
The defense argued that there were multiple searches around East Fork State Park that led to nothing. Bumpass's attorney, Louis Sirkin, asked several detectives throughout the trial if there was a possibility the remains simply were not there during the original searches.
But testimony from David Rader, director of EquuSearch Midwest, said the area where the remains were found never peaked law enforcement's radar. Rader worked with police during their searches, noting that her remains were found off a small path that was easy to miss off State Route 32.
Covington Det. Austin Ross, the last investigator on Johnson's case, told the jury the cell tower Bumpass's phone pinged off in 2010 was just over a mile away from East Fork State Park. AT&T only keeps records for seven years, but from 2014 to 2020, there were no other pings in that area from Bumpass's phone.
Kevin Horan, a retired FBI agent and current cell phone data expert who reviewed phone records in this case explained how cell towers work.
While they send and receive signals to cell phones within a 360-degree radius, typically extending a mile out, those signals are also pinpointed within certain zones of that radius.
Horan explained Bumpass' phone records put him on S. R. 32 heading east toward the location Johnson's remains were found in the early morning of September 23, or at least his phone was moving that way.
He said the phone pings suggested he was in the area between 4:13 and 4:18 a.m. and then heading west back to his home in Taylor Mill at 5 a.m.
"Until somebody convinces me that this was not a homicide, I will always be a little disappointed that there will not be more justice available for the Johnson family," said Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders in 2020.
Dental records helped identify Johnson and DNA evidence allowed prosecutors to file the charges against Bumpass.
Prior to the trial's start, Johnson's sister, Brittany Haywood, said she's been looking forward to laying her sister to rest regardless of the trial's outcome.
Johnson's remains have been kept in evidence since they were recovered, and Haywood said she plans to finally bury her sister once they're released.
Bumpass will be back in court for sentencing on September 7 at 10 a.m.
Bumpass' defense attorney said he plans on filing an appeal.
READ MORE:
Detective: Jacob Bumpass's phone pinged in radius where Paige Johnson's remains were found
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