Cop: Chad Johnson last man to see escort alive

The Medford man who was the last person to see a North Patchogue woman seemed eager to help find her when she disappeared, detectives testified at the man's murder trial in Suffolk County Court.

Chad Johnson, 23, at first insisted that after paying prostitute Jennifer Papain $80 for a sex act in his car in March 2010, he dropped her off where he had picked her up, outside the Bay Shore Inn, said Suffolk Det. Sgt. Mark Pulaski of the missing persons squad.

Johnson talked freely outside his home, Pulaski said during questioning by Assistant District Attorney Todd Pettigrew, concerned only that his girlfriend didn't hear.

But after two months, when Papain, 26, still hadn't been found, police worried that perhaps she was part of a human trafficking ring. Detectives had interviewed both her pimps and several of her clients from craigslist.org, where she advertised as sexykatie23. But they kept coming back to Johnson, said Det. Sean McQuaid.

"The last john who was with Jennifer Papain before she went missing was Chad Johnson," McQuaid testified. And the day after she disappeared, the phone she used was making contact with a cell tower near Johnson's home, he said.

Johnson later told police he dropped her off in a different part of Bay Shore. McQuaid said the inconsistencies led them to arrest Johnson for patronizing a prostitute, in the hope that he would give them better information.

Six hours after his arrest, McQuaid said, Johnson led detectives to woods off the Long Island Expressway, just west of Bellport Avenue in Medford. A police dog pointed to a spot in the woods, McQuaid said.

"I looked down and saw what appeared to be toes protruding from the ground," he said. Johnson, who's charged with second-degree murder, said he'd strangled Papain after trying to get a refund, police said.

Earlier in the trial, Papain's father, James, and a man he identified as one of her pimps, Jorge Gonzalez, testified about her last day. James Papain said his daughter and Gonzalez drove him to work the day she disappeared.

"She was discussing money with a client" in the car on a phone, he told defense attorney William Ferris. "I was getting a little upset. But it was what it was."