LOS ANGELES — A woman who authorities say fatally stabbed her partner in their Los Angeles apartment on Monday and then threw her two children from a moving SUV onto a freeway, killing her infant daughter, was an astrologer who called the impending solar eclipse “the epitome of spiritual warfare’. an online message days earlier.
Los Angeles police believe Danielle Cherakiyah Johnson, 34, posted on California, said Lt. Guy Golan.
Although investigators have reviewed Johnson’s messages, police do not consider the eclipse as a precipitating or contributing factor to the slayings “because we just don’t know why she did what she did,” Golan told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“We gathered all the facts we could, but without being able to interview her and without having anything more tangible than a post on attribute it to one of the most gruesome murders we’ve had in LA,” said Golan, head of the homicide unit investigating the case.
Authorities say Johnson and her partner, 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney, were arguing around 3:40 a.m. Monday at their apartment in Woodland Hills, about 26 miles northwest of downtown LA. Johnson stabbed Chaney and fled with her children, an 8-month-old girl and her 9-year-old sister, in a Porsche Cayenne.
Johnson then drove along Interstate 405 in Culver City and threw her daughters from the moving SUV around 4:30 a.m., police said. The baby was pronounced dead en route, but the eldest daughter – who witnessed the stabbing – survived with moderate injuries.
Johnson traveled southwest toward Redondo Beach, where half an hour later she was traveling more than 100 miles per hour and struck a tree. The LAPD is investigating whether the solo crash was an apparent suicide.
The Los Angeles Times first reported Johnson’s social media activities in connection with the killings.
“Make sure you are protected and have your heart in the right place,” she posted on April 4 to more than 105,000 followers on X. “The world is clearly changing right now and if you ever have to choose a side, it’s time to do the right thing. in your life now. Stay strong, you got this.”
On April 5, she posted in all caps: “Wake up, wake up, the apocalypse is here. Everyone who has ears, listen. Now is your time to choose what you believe.”
Her social media also includes a mix of anti-Semitic screeds, conspiracy theories about vaccines and warnings about the end of the world, in addition to astrological predictions and positive affirmations. Also on April 5, she posted the word “LOVE” dozens of times. Her personal website offers a variety of services including ‘zodiac healing work’, ‘alcohol balancing system’ and an ‘aura cleanse’.
Johnson’s internet presence and online following date back many years. The Fader, a music magazine, interviewed her in 2016 as an astrological personality.
“She was very distant,” said Norman Linder, a Woodland Hills neighbor. He saw Johnson and her daughters only a few times before at the apartment complex.
Another neighbor, Anita Mazer, told the AP that when she saw the family, “I just said ‘hello.’ The baby was really cute,” she said on Wednesday. “It’s terrible.”
Golan said there had been no calls for police to respond to the couple’s apartment prior to Monday’s killing, when neighbors called 911 after seeing the door open. Johnson had no criminal record in California and no evidence of reported domestic violence.
Detectives did not immediately connect the Woodland Hills killings to the daughters, Golan said. He was in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood when he received push notifications on his cell phone from news organizations about the child’s death on the roadway in Culver City. Investigators realized there may be a connection between two missing children from the family’s apartment and the highway tragedy.
“I thought, ‘Oh, there are two young girls stranded on the 405 Freeway.’ That’s so random and awful to hear. And we knew there were two young children,” Golan continued. “We were setting up an Amber Alert.”
Golan said detectives discovered candles and cards in the apartment, but he wasn’t sure if they were tarot cards.
“They didn’t look like the standard deck of cards you would play poker with,” he said.
The total path of the eclipse stretched from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Newfoundland, Canada, a strip about 115 miles (185 kilometers) wide. Revelers were engulfed in darkness in state parks, on city rooftops and in small towns as the moon blocked out the sun, although Southern California saw only a partial solar eclipse that peaked at 11:12 a.m.
Around the world, the celestial event spawned fears of the apocalypse and other suspicions rooted in religion and spirituality. But Golan noted that others who posted online about their concerns about the eclipse did not commit violence like Johnson.
“How many people have written about it,” he said, “and not gone out and killed someone?”