Paighton Houston Update: Suspect charged with abuse of corpse captured in Ohio by U.S. Marshals - AL.com

The man sought in connection with the disappearance of a Trussville woman is now in custody.

Fredrick Hampton, a 50-year-old man charged with abuse of corpse after Paighton Houston’s body was found in a shallow Hueytown grave, was taken into custody Wednesday night in Cleveland, Ohio.

The U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force has been searching for the Brighton man since shortly after the warrant against him was issued earlier this month. The U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force captured Hampton. He was taken into custody at 7:30 p.m., said Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Cliff LaBarge.

Hampton was arrested at a residence on Eastwood Boulevard in Garfield Heights. Authorities had to breach the door at which point they held their position and called for Hampton to exit. A short time later, Hampton gave up and was taken into custody. He is being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail awaiting extradition to Alabama. Authorities said he is also under investigation for possible federal violations, but did not elaborate.

Hampton, a convicted sex offender, is not charged in Houston’s death, only with actions authorities say he took following her death, which in this case would be burying her. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office on Jan. 16 announced the felony warrant against Hampton and, along with U.S. Marshals, have been searching for him since the warrant was obtained.

Early Thursday morning, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office released the cause and manner of Houston’s death as an accidental drug overdose of morphine and methamphetamine toxicity. Authorities previously said there was no physical trauma to Houston’s body that would have led to her death.

Houston vanished Dec. 20. She was last seen at Tin Roof in the 2700 block of Seventh Avenue South in Birmingham’s Lakeview District.. According to Birmingham police, she left the bar about 10:45 p.m. with two heavy-set black males. Sgt. Johnny Williams said it was reported that Houston left the location willingly with the two men.

She had reportedly gone to the Birmingham bar with co-workers. Friends on Facebook said Houston didn’t know the men and that the last text message from her to a coworker – about two hours after she left Tin Roof - stated she didn’t know where she was, and she felt she might be in trouble. She had sent multiple messages to her co-worker, the last one reading, “Idk who im with so if I call please answer. I feel in trouble.” That text was sent at 12:15 a.m. Dec. 21 but not seen by her coworker until nearly two hours later.

“We have evidence the victim and the offender were together the night of Dec. 20, 2019,'' said Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief David Agee in an earlier press conference. “We have evidence the victim died the next day at a house on McClain Street in Brighton. We have evidence that after the victim died, her body was disposed of in a criminal manner by Fredrick Hampton.”

The body of the 29-year-old Houston was found Friday, Jan. 3, wrapped in sheets and buried in a shallow grave behind the house at 215 Chapel Drive. That house belongs to relatives of Hampton.

According to Alabama law, a person commits the crime of abuse of a corpse if he or she knowingly treats a human corpse in a way that would “outrage ordinary family sensibilities.” It is a Class C felony.

Hampton was initially held in the Birmingham City Jail on a 48-hour extension on suspicion of kidnapping beginning Saturday, Dec. 28, but was released two days later because investigators did not have enough to charge him with any crime.

Agee said investigators have determined Houston was with Hampton on Dec. 20, 2019 and Dec. 21, 2019. She died on Dec. 21 at a house on McClain Street in Brighton, he said. Asked if Houston was with Hampton willingly and voluntarily, Agee said, “We are saying they were together. There is no evidence there was any force.”

Hampton was previously convicted in 1992 on first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy charges out of Jefferson County. He served 20 years, five months and 26 days in prison before his release on March 22, 2012. He was also charged with kidnapping, but that charge was dismissed.

Details about those March 5, 1991 crimes weren’t immediately available but a sex offender notification states “the offender, along with seven other men, committed rape Rape 1st and Sodomy 1st on an adult female.”

Shortly after the completion of his prison sentence, Hampton was arrested again for failure to provide authorities with his new address, which is required by law for convicted sex offenders. He pleaded guilty to that charge in September 2012 and received a two-year suspended sentence.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

2020-01-30 02:32:00Z
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