According to the Marie Claire account of how Carlina made her initial NCMEC contact in December 2010, Pettway’s sister helped Carlina make that call. The nature of this assistance — whether Johnson actively believed Carlina might be a missing child, whether she simply helped with a phone call whose implications she did not fully understand, or whether she was taking a conscious step toward exposing what her sister had done — is not detailed in the available sources.
But the structural fact of Johnson’s involvement is worth noting. The woman who helped initiate the chain of events that led to Pettway’s arrest and conviction was Pettway’s own sister. Whatever Johnson understood about what she was facilitating — and whatever her motivations — she was, in effect, the family member who helped bring to light a secret that had been held for twenty-three years.
This is not unusual in the resolution of long-concealed crimes. Family members who have suspected, known in part, or simply been troubled without knowing exactly why sometimes take actions that expose the truth. Johnson’s precise state of knowledge and intention is not something that can be established from sources available for this article. But her practical role is documented.
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## The Investigation After the Identification
Once Carlina’s DNA match was confirmed by the OCME on January 18, 2011, the investigation moved on two tracks: the process of publicly acknowledging and documenting Carlina’s identification, and the investigation into Annugetta Pettway’s whereabouts and actions.
Pettway had not been living in Connecticut at the time of the identification. She was in North Carolina, where she was on probation for an attempted embezzlement conviction. The FBI, which had jurisdiction over the federal kidnapping charge, located her in North Carolina and coordinated the surrender.