Judge denies request to overturn verdict for man convicted of leaving NKY teen in woods

The man convicted of leaving the body of Northern Kentucky teenager Paige Johnson in the woods of rural Clermont County in September 2010 lost a bid to overturn the verdict rendered during his trial.

A Clermont County jury, after listening to three days of witness testimony, found 35-year-old Jacob Bumpass guilty on July 24 of tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.

On Wednesday, Common Pleas Judge Kevin T. Miles overruled Bumpass’ request for an acquittal or new trial.

Bumpass’ attorney, Louis Sirkin, said in court filings that the jury’s verdict was based on “circumstantial evidence, inferences, and stacking of inferences upon inference," adding there's no direct evidence tying his client to the area where Paige's remains were ultimately discovered.

Sirkin also argued that “repeated emotional outbursts” by Paige’s mom, Donna Johnson, during her testimony improperly influenced the jury and former Covington police Detective Bryan Frodge’s testimony that Bumpass tried to flee when police first confronted him at home days after Paige’s disappearance was inaccurate.

"I felt that it tarnished the trial," Sirkin said, referring to comments that Johnson directed toward Bumpass.

In making his ruling, Miles said most of the issues raised by Bumpass in asking for his conviction to be overturned were dealt with appropriately during the trial.

The judge added that Sirkin neglected to address Frodge’s statements during cross examination about Bumpass trying to avoid police, and there’s nothing to indicate the detective’s testimony wasn’t truthful.

Paige died while with Bumpass early on Sept. 23, 2010, and rather than seek help, Bumpass left her body unburied in a wooded area near State Route 276 and Mathis Road in Williamsburg Township, prosecutors said during the trial.

The last time Paige’s mom, or anyone else in her family, ever saw the teen was on the night of Sept. 22, 2010, according to trial testimony. The 17-year-old had asked her mother if she could go to her sister’s apartment in Covington.

Over the next decade, Paige’s disappearance would set off public vigils, exhaustive investigative searches, national headlines, true crime podcasts and a flurry of social media posts, all seeking clues about what happened to her.

Authorities long pointed to Bumpass, then 22, as being the last person to see Paige alive.

Bumpass has maintained that he picked Paige up from her mother’s Florence home and dropped her off around 1 a.m. on Sept. 23, 2010, at 15th and Scott streets, just blocks from her sister’s apartment in Covington.

It wasn't until March 2020 that a Williamsburg resident stumbled across Paige's skull while walking through the woods on the hunt for deer antlers.

What happened to NKY teen Paige Johnson? We may never know. Testimony offers some answers

Law enforcement and volunteers from Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit search and recovery organization, conducted additional searches of the woods in the days after Paige’s remains were discovered and recovered a human jawbone and rib bone, according to the testimony.

Dental records were used to identify the skull and jawbone as belonging to Paige. Though the rib bone was never positively identified as Paige, forensic anthropologist Elizabeth Murray testified that it's "a very logical assumption" the bone is hers.

Bumpass has not been accused of causing Paige's death and the circumstances surrounding how she died remain unknown.

Without evidence of trauma, nor any organs or tissues to undergo toxicology tests, investigators can’t point to what might have killed her, or whether her death was accidental or intentional.

Investigators used phone records to track the movements of Bumpass’ cellphone on the morning of Sept. 23, 2010. Those records placed his cell near Paige's home just before 1 a.m., then around his house in Taylor Mill.

The investigators also found texts between Paige and Bumpass, which seemingly corroborated Bumpass' movements that night.

Later, his phone pinged cell towers at Filager and Half-Acre roads in Clermont County between 4:13 a.m. and 4:18 a.m. The Half-Acre Road tower is just over a mile from where the teen’s remains were found a decade later.

Prosecutors also pointed to testimony from John Schneider, a friend of Bumpass' at the time, who said that he was at Bumpass' house for just a few minutes that night and saw Paige there as late as 1:50 a.m., well after Bumpass said he dropped the teen off in Covington.

Bumpass was indicted and arrested in July 2020. He has long maintained his innocence, though he hasn’t offered an explanation for what he was doing in Clermont County early on Sept. 23, 2010.

During the trial, Sirkin cast doubt as to whether Paige's remains were in the same location the entire decade she'd been missing. He noted the presence of billboards and a farm nearby, adding that workers would likely have come across Paige's remains at some point.

He also pointed to the presence of debris piled near the scene as an indication that people would at least sometimes use the area as an illegal dumping site.

Sirkin argued that someone may have even taken advantage of the publicity surrounding the case, specifically a 2010 search of East Fork State Park conducted after Covington police received Bumpass’ phone records, to dispose of Paige’s remains there in hopes of framing Bumpass.

Bumpass is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 7.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Paige Johnson disappearance: Judge denies request to reverse verdict