An apparent murder-suicide that ended in the death of a woman, her live-in boyfriend and one of her two children happened in the early hours of Monday morning in Los Angeles, according to local cops.
Danielle Cherakiyah Johnson, 34 allegedly stabbed and killed her partner, 29-year-old Jaelen Chaney, at their apartment around 3:40 a.m. local time before fleeing the scene with her two daughters in a dark-colored Porsche SUV, police said.
While driving on the 405 Freeway near Howard Hughes Parkway at around 4:30 a.m., Johnson allegedly forced her 9-year-old and 8-month-old out of the car while it was moving.
The infant sustained fatal injuries in the incident and was pronounced dead on the scene by responding officers. The 9-year-old “sustained moderate injuries” and was taken to a nearby hospital, according to the release.
Around 5 a.m., Johnson was driving at over 100 mph when she suffered a fatal crash in the city of Redondo Beach, slamming into a tree in what investigators said appeared to be a suicide.
It’s unclear exactly what prompted the string of fatal events, but police say that an argument between Johnson, of Woodland Hills, Cal., and Chaney escalated in the early morning hours before becoming violent and leading to the alleged stabbing.
Los Angeles cops discovered a “knife with biological evidence” at the apartment where the attack occurred.
A neighbor who noticed the couple’s front door on Variel Ave. had been left open said she saw Chaney’s body and witnessed the bloody scene before calling police around 7:30 a.m., after the series of incidents had unfolded.
“Their door was wide open, there was blood on the floor leading into their apartment, and then a trail of it in the hallway leading up to the elevator, and I saw some blood on the walls,” she told ABC News Los Angeles.
“He was deceased, he was facedown on the floor. And there was a lot of blood,” the neighbor added.
With News Wire Services
