A convicted sex offender has been charged with burying an Alabama woman who went missing from a bar after texting a friend that she was in trouble.
Paighton Houston’s body was found wrapped in fabric and buried in a shallow grave behind a dilapidated house in Hueytown, Alabama, days after she went missing from a country music bar.
Convicted sex offender Fredrick Hampton, 50, was charged with abuse of a corpse. A warrant has been issued for his arrest but he has not been charged with her death.
Houston, 29, was last seen on Dec. 20 at Tin Roof live music bar in the 2700 block of Seventh Avenue South in Birmingham’s Lakeview District. She arrived at the bar earlier that night with a co-worker.
After leaving the bar willingly with two Black men, Houston texted her co-worker to say she felt “in trouble.”
According to Houston’s mother, Paighton texted “if I call answer, I don’t know these people and I feel in trouble.”
Trussville police say Houston died the day after she was last seen at the bar.
A tip led investigators to the empty house on Chapel Hill Drive in Hueytown.
After sifting through a mound of trash in a “muddy, nasty” backyard, police discovered the shallow grave and unearthed Houston’s “intact” body.
A coroner has not yet determined the cause and manner of Houston’s death. They are awaiting additional testing, including toxicology results. There was no physical trauma to her body.
A GoFundMe account raised over $18,000 in donations.
