Tears and Hope at Birthday Vigil for Missing Woman

By Erica Williams
Staff Writer

Feb. 28 -- Strong, vivacious, friendly and outgoing. Those were some of the adjectives used by friends and relatives of Kristine "Kristi" Louise Johnson who gathered Thursday night for a candlelight birthday vigil for the missing Santa Monica woman.

Those who attended the hour-long vigil at a Downtown Santa Monica church tried to remain hopeful, as a flurry of activity earlier in the day suggested police are getting closer to finding out what happened to the 22-year-old and to identifying the man who may have abducted her.

Santa Monica police fanned out across the county Thursday, issuing ten search warrants at several locations in Los Angeles, including the Westside. Police were following up on numerous tips that have come in since the release Tuesday of a composite sketch of man wanted for questioning in Johnson's disappearance.

Police Chief James T. Butts, Jr. said detectives have identified the man in the sketch.

"We have a name," Butts said, but he declined to elaborate any further on who the man might be, where police had searched or what may have been found. Butts had said earlier that police considered at least one or two of the tips to be "very viable and very strong."

Butts acknowledged that the longer Johnson remained missing, the less likely it is that she would be found safely.

Butts lent his support to Johnson's mother throughout the night, escorting an at times visibly shaken Terry Wark to and from the subdued vigil service at St. Augustine by the Sea Episcopal Church on Fourth Street.

The hour-long service culminated in a candlelight procession through the south doors of the church into the courtyard, where about 75 friends, family and supporters staked candles into the ground at the base of a huge sycamore tree as they strained to sing "Amazing Grace."

"Kristi knows now that she has the God within her to give her the strength to endure whatever she has to endure at this moment," Wark said during the service, choking back tears.

"Everyone who knows Kristi knows what a special spirit she is. She has such a joyous life."

As much as Johnson's mother strove to speak of her daughter in the present tense throughout the evening, Kathryn Johnson, her paternal grandmother, made no such attempt.

"She was a beautiful lovely girl," said Kathryn, who made the 170 mile-trip from Santa Maria to attend her granddaughter's birthday vigil. "We had a beautiful relationship."

Kathryn recalled how happy Kritsti was during her last visit to her grandmother's northern California home nearly two weekends ago. They celebrated Kristi's birthday then.

"She said, 'I love California, I love my job. I like my new apartment,'" Kathryn said, composed but continually dabbing at her eyes.

Johnson lived on 29th Street with two roommates. One of them reported her missing when she did not return from a meeting February 15 with a man who said he was a photographer and lured her to a supposed audition for a movie photo shoot.

"I'm on my way." Kristi told her grandmother.

"She told me somebody had approached her about this," Kathryn said. "I said, 'Oh my God honey, that's the oldest ploy in the world,'" her grandmother said, shaking her head.

Johnson moved to California about two years ago after a year at Michigan State, her grandmother said. She lived with Kathryn for about a year and a half before moving to the Los Angeles area nine months ago.

Kathryn said she'd had a long discussion with Kristi then, warning her to "know where you are, know who you're with."

Jarrod Dennis, 24, recalled his friend as "really outgoing" and "always willing to talk to anybody. She's a real good person and that's what I respected about her," he said.

Dennis said he met Johnson about a year ago through friends at a party. They liked the same music, he said, and had hung out New Year's Eve. He and his girlfriend saw her at a party four weeks ago.

Johnson had never expressed any interest in modeling or acting, Dennis said. "She always wanted to become a makeup artist," he said. "This thing about modeling, I've never heard her say anything about that. She wanted to be behind the scenes."

Indeed, it seemed that Johnson was on her way to realizing her dreams. Last June, Cordelia Culver, a line producer, hired her as a makeup artist on "The Utopian Society," an independent feature film that's presently making the rounds on the film festival circuit and seeking distribution.

"That was her first feature film," Culver said, adding that Johnson had just finished her training. Culver and Samia Doumit, an actress on the film, said they'd spent nearly four weeks working with Johnson, long enough, they agreed, to develop a bond.

"It's like brothers and sisters on a film," Doumit said. "You're family. You argue and fight and bicker and laugh and have great times."

Doumit said Johnson was about the same age as the rest of the cast and crew and was "so eager, so willing to work, so positive and wanting to do this -- happy to do this."

Culver agreed, adding that Johnson was stubborn, "but in a good way."

Johnson's meeting with the purported photographer was not all that unusual in their business, Culver said.

"It's completely within the realm of possibilities that I could go have a meeting with somebody I've never met and only talked to on the phone and not think anything about it," Culver said.

Doumit agreed. Unlike films shot on movie studio lots, on independent projects there is no production office to go to, she said.

Doumit said she shared Johnson's disposition and eagerness to work. "This could happen to me," she said.

Many of Johnson's colleagues at her current job at CNCG Cellular in Marina del Rey, attended the vigil. Johnson was a full-time employee of the New York-based company since November in a "tight-knit office" of about 20, said her boss, Edwin Ortiz.

Ortiz said he and coworkers had been working during the last few days distributing flyers in Santa Monica near where Johnson lived and at the Century City Mall, where she is thought to have encountered the purported photographer.

"I think the emotional part of this struck tonight here," Ortiz said, acknowledging that the reality of the situation finally hit home as several of his employees broke into tears when they planted their candles around the tree.

Ortiz said that a couple of vendors Wednesday night recognized the man in the composite sketch as a regular at the mall on the Westside.

CNCG is about to throw its full weight behind the search for Johnson, said Ortiz, an operations manger there. His company recently bought a building on Washington Boulevard in Marina del Rey from which the West Coast office will be based.

When his office moves into its new quarters this weekend, it will set up a command center there to help continue the search for Johnson, Ortiz said. It will serve as a base from which volunteers can pick up pamphlets and people can call or come in to get information, he said.

Johnson spent her early years in Northern California, just outside of San Francisco, her grandmother, Kathryn, said. But she mostly grew up in Saugatuck, Mich., a tiny resort town of about 1,000 just outside of Chicago.

Maria Brooks, 20, who was a junior at Saugatuck High School when Johnson was a senior, attended the vigil. Brooks now lives in Downtown Los Angeles and will soon complete her studies at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.

She said her boyfriend back home alerted her that the missing woman here was from their school.

"When I realized it was her, I wanted to do as much as I could to help," Brooks said. "But you can hardly do anything except pray and hope.

"It's hard to believe that she'd be okay at this point," she added, "but I still am praying that she is. I'm still shocked and dreaming of the possibility that she'll be here in a couple of days (and that) she'll be alright."

Doumit and Dennis were more optimistic.

"I'm always positive," the bright-eyed, bubbly Doumit said. "I think that if everybody thinks positively, then all of that positive energy can help bring her home safely."

"She's a strong person," Dennis said. "She'll get out of this. She'll be back."

Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Office of Criminal Investigations Tip Line at (310) 458-8449.