A Los Angeles mother murdered her partner in their posh apartment before murdering their infant daughter and dumping her along the highway with her nine-year-old half-sister in a gruesome murder-suicide.
The shocking series of events began at 4:30 a.m. Monday when police were called to the 405 Freeway in Culver City, where they discovered the body of a five-month-old baby lying next to her nine-year-old sister on the shoulder of the road. .
The child was pronounced dead at the scene and the nine-year-old girl was rushed to a hospital.
It is unclear how the baby died and what her older sister’s injuries were.
Police found their mother’s body 15 miles away. She had crashed into a tree and committed suicide.
The mother, who DailyMail.com can call Danielle Johnson, had left a gruesome scene in the $5,600 home where she murdered her partner, Jaelen Allen Chaney, 29.
Jaelen Allen Chaney, 29, was found dead Monday morning in his apartment in Woodland Hills, California. Neighbors said they heard Chaney arguing with the woman he lived with just hours before he was killed
California Highway Patrol officials said an infant abandoned on the 405 Freeway in the Culver City area died at the scene, but her 9-year-old was rushed to a hospital. Above, the officers respond to the children
He was found in the family’s apartment by a neighbor who saw blood ‘streaming’ under the door.
Chaney’s grieving brother, Matthew Chiricas told DailyMail.com that his sibling had “embraced” Johnson’s older child from a previous relationship as his own.
“I never saw him as children, but I know he absolutely adored her.”
What prompted the woman to kill remains a mystery.
Neighbors said the couple had lived in the posh apartment with their two children for just over a year.
A neighbor told me ABC7 she heard the couple arguing in the middle of the night.
The next morning she saw a trail of blood coming from the apartment.
LAPD officials said Jaelen Allen 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 driving the vehicle that fatally crashed into a tree was connected to the murder of Jaelen Allen Chaney
Chaney, who loved to travel and play video games, served in the U.S. Air Force for about four years, family members said
“Their door was wide open, there was blood on the floor leading to their apartment, and then a trail of it in the hallway leading to the elevator, and I saw some blood on the walls,” she said.
The woman’s father called 911.
“I called the police and told them something was wrong,” the neighbor said.
“And when I talked to the EMT, they told me to go in and check the body. So I did.
“And he had died, he was face down on the ground. And there was a lot of blood.”
The woman then drove to Redondo Beach, where her car fatally crashed into a tree.
Family members said Chaney was a mechanic for the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in Europe
Chiricas said his brother contacted him sporadically but never shared details about his relationship.
In a concerning text message from November 2022, he said: “I’ve had a lot of personal dealings with my girlfriend, but I don’t really want to share it right now because it’s not appropriate.
Chiricas said his brother and his girlfriend had traveled through Europe while he was stationed in Italy.
“The last message he sent to me was happy birthday,” Chiricas said.
‘He was in the air force, but dreamed of becoming a weatherman. He was just like all of us, trying to have fun and have a family.”
The police do not yet want to reveal anything about the woman’s motive or cause of death.
The older girl was taken into the care of CPS.