A Los Angeles mother murdered her partner in their apartment, leaving a trail of blood that led to the front door, before killing her young daughter and dumping her on the side of a road in a horrific murder-suicide that ended with her driving from facing a tree.
The strange and tragic chain of events began to unravel at 4:30 a.m. Monday when police were called to Highway 405 in Culver City.
There they found the body of a five-month-old baby lying next to her injured older sister, on the right shoulder of the road. The baby was pronounced dead at the scene and the nine-year-old girl was rushed to a hospital.
It is still unclear how the baby died or what the older girl’s injuries were.
Fifteen kilometers away, police found his mother’s body in her car. She had crashed into a tree and committed suicide.
The mother, who DailyMail.com can identify as Danielle Johnson, was fleeing an even more gruesome scene: the family home where she had murdered her partner, the baby’s father, Jaelen Allan Chaney, 29.
Jaelen Allan Chaney, 29, was found dead in his Woodland Hills, California, apartment on Monday morning. Neighbors said they heard Chaney arguing with the woman he lived with just hours before he was killed.
California Highway Patrol officials said a baby who was abandoned on Highway 405 in the Culver City area died at the scene, but her 9-year-old son was rushed to a hospital. Upstairs, the police respond to the children.
Apartments in the elegant building cost up to $5,600 a month.
He was found in the family’s apartment by a neighbor who saw blood “spilling” under the door.
After killing Chaney and leaving the girls on the road, he met his death in the head-on accident.
The cause and manner of death for Chaney and the baby have not yet been determined, and Chaney’s grieving family is trying to make sense of the tragedy.
His brother Matthew Chiricas told DailyMail.com how he “accepted” eldest son Johnson from a previous relationship as his own.
“I had never seen him as a child, but I know he absolutely adored her.”
What drove the woman to kill remains a mystery.
Neighbors said Chaney and the woman lived in the posh apartment for a little more than a year with the two children.
a neighbor told him ABC7 he heard Chaney and a woman arguing in the middle of the night.
The next morning, he saw a trail of blood leading from the apartment.
LAPD officials said Jaelen Allan Chaney, 29, was killed in his Woodland Hills apartment, which had some damage possibly related to the murder.
Police are still investigating whether the woman who was driving the vehicle and fatally crashed into a tree was connected to the murder of Jaelen Allan Chaney.
Chaney, who loved to travel and play video games, was in the U.S. Air Force for about four years, family members said.
“His door was wide open, there was blood on the floor leading to his apartment, and then a trail of blood in the hallway leading to the elevator, and I saw some blood on the walls,” he said.
The woman’s father called 911.
“I called the police and told them something wasn’t right,” the neighbor said.
“And they told me, when I spoke to the paramedic, to go in and check the body. So I did.
‘And he had already died, he was face down on the ground. And there was a lot of blood.’
The woman then drove to Redondo Beach, where she fatally crashed her car into a tree.
Family members said Chaney was a mechanic in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in Europe.
Chiricas said his brother spoke to him sporadically, but never shared details of their relationship.
In a concerning text message from November 2022, he said: “I’ve been dealing with a lot personally with my girlfriend and I don’t mind sharing it now because it’s not appropriate.
Chiricas said his brother and his girlfriend had traveled through Europe when he was stationed in Italy.
“The last message he sent me was to say happy birthday,” Chiricas said.
‘He was in the Air Force, but he dreamed of becoming a meteorologist. He was like the rest of us, he was trying to have fun and start a family.
Police have not yet revealed the motive or cause of the woman’s death.
The older girl was placed in the care of CPS.