Paige Johnson was 17 and a young mother when she vanished after a night out in Covington, Kentucky on the late hours of September 23, 2010. She was last seen with a friend, Jacob Bumpass, who said he dropped her at a street corner. Cell phone records later showed his phone pinged near East Fork State Park in Ohio, miles from where he claimed to have left her.

For years the family organized searches and vigils. In March 2020 a hiker found human remains in a wooded area of Clermont County, Ohio; the remains were identified as Paige’s. A cause of death could not be determined from the remains, and investigators focused on Bumpass because of his conflicting statements and the phone data placing him near the discovery site.

In July 2020 Bumpass was arrested and indicted on charges of tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse; he pleaded not guilty. At trial prosecutors relied on the cell phone data, his inconsistent statements, and witness testimony about his behavior after Paige’s disappearance, while the defense argued the evidence was circumstantial.