Children were thrown from moving car in L.A. double murder-suicide, police say

Investigators say the deaths of an infant and two adults at three separate locations in metro Los Angeles on Monday were the result of a “family dispute” that turned into a double murder-suicide.

The bizarre and gruesome sequence of events began inside a unit at the upscale Montecito Apartments on Variel Avenue in Woodland Hills at about 3:30 a.m. when, according to police, neighbors heard an argument involving a man and a woman.

Later that morning, one neighbor said she stepped out of her apartment and saw blood everywhere.

“The 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 wall,” the neighbor, who did not want her name released, told KTLA’s Mary Beth McDade. “So, I just freaked out and called my dad immediately to come and check it out.”

The neighbor’s father arrived and, after calling 911, found Jaelen Chaney, 29, dead inside the apartment from multiple stab wounds, police said.

“They told me, when I spoke to the EMT, to go in and check on the body. So, I did,” her father said. “He was deceased. He was face down on the floor.”

Another neighbor, Richard Berglund, also discovered the gruesome scene.

“Their front door was wide open, like propped open,” Berglund recalled. “It was in disarray. Then I saw a pair of legs sticking out from the kitchen area. There was knocked-over furniture and blood.”

According to investigators, Chaney and Danielle Johnson, 34, lived in the apartment with Johnson’s two children, aged eight months and 9 years old, and were involved in a verbal altercation that led to the fatal stabbing.

“Johnson then fled the scene with her two children in a dark-colored Porsche SUV,” LAPD said in an update Tuesday afternoon.

Infant’s death tied to 2 other deadly scenes in Southern California

Johnson crashed her SUV through a parking garage security gate at the apartment complex, news video showed.

At about 4:30 a.m., still hours before Chaney’s body was discovered, the California Highway Patrol responded to the northbound 405 Freeway in Culver City, where they found the infant girl dead on the roadway and the 9-year-old girl suffering from minor injuries.

“The dark-colored SUV was observed driving on the 405 Freeway when the two children were expelled from the vehicle while it was moving,” police said.

Then at about 5 a.m., investigators say Johnson died when her SUV slammed into a tree on Pacific Coast Highway at Vincent Street in Redondo Beach, going more than 100 miles per hour.

No other vehicles were involved, and police believe the crash was deliberate.

“After a thorough investigation and collaboration with [other] agencies, homicide detectives determined that the incidents were all related and there was no further threat to the community,” said LAPD.

The infant’s name was not immediately released.

Chaney was an Air Force mechanic and his brother told KTLA that he aspired to be a meteorologist before he was killed. Although he said he wasn’t privy to the details of Chaney’s relationship with Johnson, he said Chaney loved his daughters and was a great father.

Anyone with information was urged to contact LAPD homicide detectives at 818-374-9550.

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