In a shocking series of events that unfolded across various Los Angeles neighborhoods, a mother is alleged to have committed a horrific murder-suicide. The woman is accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death, throwing her two daughters from a moving vehicle, and subsequently crashing her car into a tree at high speed, resulting in her own death.
The incident came to light when police discovered an 8-month-old infant and a 9-year-old girl on the 405 Freeway around 4:30 a.m. on Monday. Tragically, the infant was declared dead at the scene, while the older child survived the ordeal with moderate injuries, as reported by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Approximately 30 minutes later, the mother, identified as 34-year-old Danielle Johnson, was found deceased in her wrecked car several miles away in Redondo Beach. Johnson had been driving her SUV at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour before colliding with a tree. It remains unclear whether the crash was intentional.
In a subsequent development, investigators discovered the body of 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney nearly three hours later. Chaney, who was found in the upscale Woodland Hills apartment he shared with Johnson and her children, had been stabbed to death. The apartment complex, where a single-bedroom unit can cost up to $5,000 per month, was the scene of a gruesome discovery by neighbors who noticed a trail of blood leading to the couple’s open door.
A neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous, described the chilling scene to ABC 7, recounting the sight of an open door, blood on the floor leading into the apartment, and a trail of it in the hallway leading up to the elevator. Following the advice of an EMT, the neighbor’s father entered the unit to check on Chaney, who was found dead and facedown on the floor.
According to police, Johnson stabbed Chaney to death following a verbal argument around 3:40 a.m. Johnson then allegedly attacked Chaney with a knife, loaded her two daughters into a dark-colored Porsche SUV, and drove through the apartment complex security gate. She then headed towards the highway, where her daughters were either thrown or fell out of the moving vehicle, as stated by the California Highway Patrol.
The 9-year-old child, the sole survivor of the horrifying attack, reportedly witnessed her mother kill Chaney. Johnson ended her own life more than 30 miles south of the site of Chaney’s murder. The motive for the murder-suicide remains unclear, and investigators are still working to determine if the baby had died before being thrown from the car.