She was fully clothed, wearing a red tie-dyed shirt and black shorts, minus her black flip flops. No purse was found A cell phone was in the vicinity, but Fairfield Police Chief Mike Dickey said they do not know who the phone belongs to.
Neighbor Tim Childs was one of the last people to see Johnson alive when she left her apartment about 11:30 a.m. Sunday on a trip to the store. Dickey said Childs and others have been interviewed.
“Yes, we have talked to Mr. Childs along with a number of other people,” Dickey said. He said detectives are focused on a group of people who were a part of Johnson’s life.
Muo Salh, a manager at the AmeriStop on Nilles Road near Johnson’s residence, said Johnson had stopped in the store at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday, the last day she was seen.
Salh said she was with “her neighbor,” whom he had seen before, although he could not identify the man. That neighbor bought a prepaid phone card, and then he and Johnson left, heading west on Nilles Road.
Salh said he relayed this information to police.
The Butler County Coroner’s Office determined Johnson was stabbed to death, but are awaiting lab tests to determine the presence of drugs or alcohol in her body. Coroner’s Investigator Andy Willis said there are no visible signs that Johnson was sexually assaulted, but further testing is also needed.
Detectives are also working to determine where Johnson was killed .
“We don’t know if it was there (where she was found) or somewhere else,” Dickey said. He declined to disclose how many times she was stabbed or if a weapon was found at the scene.
This was Fairfield’s second homicide in recent weeks after a fatal shooting at a Winton Road apartment complex on March 15. That case remains under investigation.
An emotional scene took place Wednesday morning as Johnson’s mother visited with classmates mourning the death of their friend, who was a freshman at Fairfield’s Options Academy, an alternative school.
The mother, Vicky Fible, visited the school, said Principal Bob Polson.
“The kids were meeting in groups (with counselors), Chelsea’s mother stopped by. She saw the kids there and they all gave her hugs and talked to the kids, who were crying with her,” Polson said. “Hopefully, they are doing better today.”
Counselors from the agency Companions on a Journey were on hand to help the students Wednesday, the principal said.
A Facebook post from Fairfield City Schools says counselors will be made available as long as they are needed.
Friends of Johnson have organized a candlelight vigil for Friday.
A Facebook page entitled “Candle lit vigil for Chelsea Marie Johnson” states that the vigil will take place at 8 p.m. at the former location of Lincoln Elementary School at North F Street and Gray Avenue in Hamilton. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 250 people had confirmed on Facebook that they would attend.
Krissy Lainhart, a student at Hamilton Freshmen School, donned a Fairfield sweatshirt in honor of her friend Wednesday afternoon. She and Shayla Bauer are hosting the vigil.
“We are asking everyone to wear purple, it was her favorite color,” Lainhart said.
Lainhart and Johnson were fast friends when the homicide victim moved to Hamilton two years ago. They kept in touch through Facebook since the family moved to Fairfield.
“We would just hang together, go to the movies,” Lainhart said.
When Lainhart had stars tattooed on both shoulders, Johnson was there for support.
“She said it looked painful,” Lainhart said with a laugh. “But she did have her lip ring like me.”
Lainhart described her friend as “a sweet girl.”
“It is so hard to understand,” Lainhart said. “Her life ended way too soon.”
Shayla Bauer, 15, an eighth-grader who is currently home schooled, is another organizer of the vigil. She said that she had known Johnson for one or two years. They met at Fairfield Middle School and they would get together at Village Green.
“She was a very outgoing person - just really sweet and happy, it seems like to me. She was very caring; she gave good advice,” Bauer said.
That’s why the past two days have been especially difficult for Bauer.
“It’s really hard. Every time I get on Facebook, I see something about her and I start to cry,” she said.
Carissa Barger, 14, a student at Hamilton Freshman School, had known Johnson for seven or eight years, having attended Buchanan Elementary and Garfield Middle School together. She is also helping to organize the vigil and had distributed handbills around the school about it.
“She was a really good person,” she said, adding that she had not seen Johnson for about a year but had kept in touch with her.
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