COVINGTON — Police have logged at least 5,271 hours of investigatory work in the two years since Northern Kentucky teen Paige Johnson vanished, eliciting an outpouring of public interest and empathy.
“This is a very conservative estimate,” said Covington Police Chief Spike Jones.
“This has probably been the most publicized missing persons case we’ve had in Covington,” Jones said. “Probably because she was a young girl, and we haven’t located her yet.”
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Even now, police chase down leads almost weekly, but they have not named a suspect.
No one has seen or heard from Paige Johnson since Sept. 23, 2010. Her story played locally and nationally, prompting even people who’d never met her or her family to reach out to try to help find her.
Case will remain open
“This is an open case and it’s not going to ever be a closed case until we find Paige and bring her back to her family,” Jones said. “We haven’t forgotten.”
The unwavering interest in the community about the disappearance of the 17-year-old girl still plays out nearly daily on websites created to find Paige.
Detective Bryan Frodge, lead investigator on the case, said it isn’t uncommon for him to get tips about Paige. He checks social networking websites regularly. The leads gleaned from websites and phone calls frequently circle around to old information that has led to dead ends, but everything new is thoroughly checked, he said.
A Norwood resident, Charles Jones, has arranged a vigil for the second anniversary of Paige’s disappearance at 5 p.m. Sunday, at 15th Street and Scott Boulevard, where Jacob T. Bumpass said he dropped her off that date two years ago.
Shortly after Paige disappeared, police began to focus on Bumpass, then 22 and a friend of Paige, as a person of interest.
“He is still a person of interest,” said Frodge. “He is the last person that we know of that saw her. He was with her that night.”
Person of interest keeps mum
Bumpass is a convicted felon who was released from prison in 2009 after serving more than two years for thefts. Questioned the day Paige disappeared, Bumpass said he picked up Paige near her mother’s home in Florence, police said. He told police he dropped her off at the Covington intersection.
Police began to doubt Bumpass’ initial statements while zeroing in on his activity in the hours after Paige vanished.
While Bumpass said he dropped off Paige at about 1 a.m. in Covington, phone records place him near Paige’s Florence home at that time.
“He admittedly is the last person to have seen or spoken with Paige,” Jones said. “We would welcome having a conversation with Mr. Bumpass about what actually happened. However, he has chosen not to.”
When authorities questioned his account, Bumpass got a lawyer and stopped talking to them. He still won’t talk to police, on the advice of his attorney, Bob Lotz.
Lotz did not return calls seeking comment for this story. Bumpass declined to comment through his mother, Linda Bumpass. She also declined to comment.
Bumpass, now 24, was released Aug. 1 from prison after being re-incarcerated for parole violations discovered within days of Paige’s disappearance.
He told Boone County sheriff’s deputies that a man struck him with a tire iron Aug. 14, his first day of work following his release. Deputies arrested an Elsmere man on two charges of second-degree assault, on Bumpass and his brother, Caleb Bumpass.
When deputies asked Jacob Bumpass why he thought he was targeted, he responded, “Maybe because of the Paige Johnson thing.”
The news prompted a flurry of comments on social networking sites created to find Paige.
“Rot in Hell!” reads one post on Paige Johnson Justice, a Facebook page.
Posts range from imploring Bumpass to tell police what he knows to disparaging remarks about him and his family.
The Bumpass family has contacted the Northern Kentucky satellite office of the FBI in Fort Mitchell alleging online harassment.
“We’ve taken it as a complaint,” said Craig Donnachie, senior supervisory agent of the FBI office. As of now, the posts “don’t cross the line” that would prompt the FBI to investigate further, he said.
Paige’s mother, Donna Johnson, an administrator of Real Supporters! Brainstorming for Paige Johnson, on Facebook, said she does not welcome negative posts.
When the Sept. 8 Enquirer story of the attack on Bumpass was posted on that site, administrators stated, “We by no means support such actions.”
Police search for Paige
Paige’s last public text message was sent to her sister at 12:12 a.m. Sept. 23, 2010. It read:
“GIRL. I need To Talk To You IMMEDIATELY!”
Brittney Haywood called police later that day to report Paige missing.
Even now, police will not release the report Haywood filed, based on an opinion from the Kenton County Commonwealth’s attorney Rob Sanders.
“There are statements in the report that are considered to be evidentiary,” Jones said.
Police have followed Paige’s trail through her phone records, Bumpass’ phone records and tips, searching two states in two years.
They searched East Fork Lake State Park in Clermont County with cadaver dogs in 2010 after they discovered that Bumpass’ phone accessed a cell tower near the park.
A scene late in July in Knox County was eerily similar.
Norwood police received an anonymous tip that prompted a search of a wooded area near Barbourville, Ky., where they dug up ground searching for Paige’s remains – to no avail.
Family, friends, police hold out hope for Paige
Charles Jones, the Norwood resident who organized the upcoming vigil for Paige and two others in the past two years, said he wants to remind people that the teen is still missing.
“I want to find this young girl,” Charles Jones said. He asked that people wear pink to the vigil.
Charles Jones lived in the 1500 block of Scott Boulevard in 2010. He said became interested in the case when he met Paige’s mother crying in a Kroger in 2010.
Investigators and Paige’s mother say they hope Paige is alive somewhere, but judging from police expertise and a mother’s instinct, that hope is thin.
“I felt from that very first day that something terrible happened. I don’t feel that she’s alive,” Johnson said from her Walton home. “I have hope, of course, that that feeling was wrong.”
Johnson said she fills her days with her other children and grandchildren. Paige’s daughter, Makenzie, now 4, lives with her father and grandparents.
Paige’s birthday, Aug. 29 was difficult for her mother.
“She would’ve been 19,” Johnson said quietly.
She was comforted by a visit with Makenzie.
“We went and got balloons,” Johnson said, “and sent them up to heaven for mommy.”
