Christopher J. Johnson is accused of raping and kidnapping two young girls.
The picture is of Missy Ward,33, who was slain in 2004. Her bones were found near Cash Canyon Road two months after her disappearance.
Contributed PhotoHamilton County investigators know a lot about Missy Ward.
They know the 33-year-old went missing on Oct. 29, 2004, after she was seen getting into a pickup truck at the old Bi-Lo grocery store on East 23rd Street.
They know she was barefoot and wearing a blue dress when she hopped into the vehicle.
They know her remains were found about one month later by a local defense attorney while he was surveying land on Cash Canyon Road in Hamilton County.
And they know she was a kindhearted mother of two who never knew her father and struggled with meth.
Now they think they know who killed her.
On Thursday, the Hamilton County District Attorney's Office announced that 51-year-old Christopher Johnson was indicted earlier this month on first-degree murder charges in Ward's death. His indictment, bond information and arraignment date were not immediately available.
Ward's case is the fifth unsolved killing to have a major break since Pinkston's cold case unit formed in fall 2014, officials said Thursday.
Johnson, who is serving a 50-year state prison sentence, has been a person of interest in Ward's death since at least 2011, archives show. He pleaded guilty in 2014 to kidnapping, raping and torturing two teenage girls in 2011.
It was likely his guilt over hurting the girls - one of them a relative - that drove Johnson to incriminate himself during a series of four interviews with law enforcement in 2011, Ric Whaley said Thursday.
Whaley, a long-time detective with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, said investigators first searched the rural, unincorporated Cash Canyon Road area for three days after Ward disappeared in 2004. Although they collected forensic evidence, they never made an arrest. It wasn't until Johnson's involvement in the 2011 child rape that investigators tied him to Ward's case.
In the rape case, sheriff's investigators said Johnson took two girls, ages 13 and 14, to a fast-food restaurant on Browns Ferry Road in Lookout Valley, then took them to a wooded area behind a Wilcox Road address. Once they reached the woods, Johnson bound the girls with duct tape and sexually assaulted and raped them numerous times, an affidavit states. Court records show the girls were treated at a rape crisis center soon after Johnson left them go.
Around that time, Johnson's wife told the Times Free Press she thought her husband had killed Ward and other women.
"I just can't believe I'm married to this," Elise Johnson said in July 2011. "I think I'm married to a serial killer. I think there's more than one, and I think that many may never be found."
Johnson was handed 25 years on the rape charges to run consecutive to a 25-year sentence on the kidnapping charge.
Johnson also started talking to law enforcement, and "those interviews led to more information," Whaley said. Days after the first interview, investigators returned to Cash Canyon Road, which boasted a swath of subdvisions after seven years of development.
What did Johnson say that led investigators back to Cash Canyon Road? And what, specifically, were investigators looking for?
Whaley could not comment Thursday. That information will surface in court, he said.
Pinkston said Johnson's indictment was sealed after the grand jury returned an indictment in early January and would be available that afternoon. Pinkston would not say why it was sealed.
Mike Mathis, the cold case unit supervisor, said investigators gather information and prosecute these cases to provide closure for the family members. Ward's and Johnson's family members were unavailable for comment Thursday.
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347 with story ideas or tips. Follow @zackpeterson918.