Paighton Houston, the Trussville woman who disappeared from a Birmingham bar and was later found buried in the backyard of a Hueytown home, died of drug overdose, authorities announced Thursday morning.

The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office on Thursday listed the cause of death as morphine and methamphetamine toxicity. The manner of death is accidental. "This represents an overdose and is classified as a drug-opioid death,'' Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Yates wrote in his early-morning news release.

The announcement comes less than 12 hours after Fredrick Hampton was captured in Ohio by U.S. Marshals. The 50-year-old man is charged with abuse of corpse in her death, meaning he buried her following her accidental overdose.

Similar abuse of corpse cases have happened around the state.

In 2014, a Pinson woman’s body was found burning behind an abandoned Fairfield home. Kenneth Lamar Childers and Nathaniel Fortune were charged with abuse of corpse following the death of 22-year-old Megan Elizabeth Monroe.

Monroe’s remains were discovered April 19, 2014 behind an empty house in the 500 block of 40th Street. Authorities determined Monroe was already dead from an alleged drug overdose when the two men put Monroe’s body behind the house and set it on fire, according to the indictments against Childers and Fortune. Childers went to police nine days later and confessed what he had done and identified Fortune as the second suspect. Police also obtained video of the two men buying gas.

Both men eventually pleaded guilty to the felony charge. Childers was sentenced to six years in prison; Fortune to 10 years in prison. Fortune had previous convictions for attempted murder, possession of cocaine and carrying a pistol without a license.

In November 2017, the body of 27-year-old Melissa Ann Cleckler was found on Egg and Butter Road near Oak Drive in Columbiana. Her body had been at the location for a couple of days before the discovery. The cause and manner of her death was never determined.

Allen Dion Jones, 44, of Jemison, and Anthony Scott Germany, 42, were charged with abuse of corpse. Both men pleaded guilty to the charge in 2018 and received nine-year suspended sentences.

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.

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.”

Full coverage of Paighton Houston disappearance

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