An L.A. family horror: Children pushed out of moving car on 405, mother dead, partner fatally stabbed

Devotional candles stand on a sidewalk beside an orange traffic cone

Published April 8, 2024 Updated April 9, 2024 9:58 PM PT

The first sign of a tragedy that led investigators on a bizarre trail of violence across Los Angeles County began with an infant and her sister abandoned and injured on the 405 Freeway before sunrise.

Around 4:30 a.m. Monday near the Sepulveda Boulevard/Howard Hughes Parkway exit, officers found an 8-month old girl in the middle of the roadway. She had major injuries and died at the scene. A 9-year-old girl, who had moderate injuries, had made it to the side of the freeway after the pair were pushed out of a moving car, authorities said.

Roughly half an hour later, police in Redondo Beach responded to reports that a black Porsche Cayenne crashed into a tree while driving in excess of 100 mph on Pacific Coast Highway near Vincent Street. The driver, identified by police as Danielle Cherakiyah Johnson, 34, was pronounced dead at the scene.

At first, it wasn’t clear that the two incidents were related.

But about two hours later, police arrived at Johnson’s home, an upscale fourth-floor unit in the Montecito Apartments complex in Woodland Hills, where the full scope of the tragedy came into focus.

A trail of blood led from the complex’s elevator to the apartment. Inside, police found 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney stabbed to death.

Investigators believe Johnson killed her partner inside their home before fleeing, pushed her two small daughters out of the car on the 405 and then deliberately rammed her SUV into the tree in Redondo Beach in an apparent suicide.

An LAPD investigator said the 9-year-old “was holding the infant as she was forced from the vehicle” on the freeway.

The girl witnessed the deadly events and told investigators what had happened, according to a law enforcement source.

After the early-morning stabbing, Johnson got into the car with the children and rammed through the security gate to leave the complex, according to the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and requested anonymity.

“You have this poor 9-year-old little girl who has to live with this for the rest of her life,” said Lt. Guy Golan, homicide supervisor for the LAPD Valley Bureau.

Golan said the investigation had been trying even for seasoned detectives. The couple had no documented history of domestic violence or calls to the LAPD. There were no prior indicators of domestic strife, Golan said.

“All we know is there was yelling and then violence,” Golan said. “It does make you wonder, how could this have been prevented?”

Neighbors said they could hear a commotion coming from the couple’s apartment in the middle of the night.

Jody and Richard Berglund’s 26-year-old daughter awoke around 3:40 a.m. Monday to the sound of a child and woman screaming in the apartment next door. When she left for work hours later, she saw the neighbor’s apartment door wide open. There was blood on the floor of the hallway and blood streaked in the elevator.

She was so shocked that she did not go right back to her family’s apartment but took the elevator downstairs, got in her car and called her parents. “You gotta go check. Something bad has happened here,” she told her father on the phone.

Berglund, 61, looked into the neighboring unit. Inside, he said, he saw legs sticking out from the kitchen — and blood everywhere.

“The apartment was in disarray. Everything was knocked over,” he told The Times on Tuesday.

He called 911, and paramedics told him to check on the man. He stepped over the puddles of blood to walk into the kitchen and found his neighbor face down, wearing only socks and underwear. He was dead, Berglund said.

The Berglunds described the family who lived in the apartment as “very private people.” They saw the neighbors only occasionally, such as when Chaney took the 9-year-old to school. She was always well dressed and didn’t have any signs of visible abuse, Berglund said.

“We’re all pretty shook up. You don’t expect that next door,” said Jody Berglund.

A law enforcement source told The Times that Chaney and Johnson lived together for more than three years but were not married. Chaney served in the Air Force as recently as 2020, according to the source.

National Archives and Records Administration photographs indicate that Chaney served as an armament technician in the 31st Munitions Squadron and was stationed in Italy for a period during his service.

Raul Macariegos, 37, who lives on the first floor of the apartment complex, said he knew the family who lived in the unit. Macariegos’ daughter often played with the couple’s older daughter by the pool, he said. The parents were quiet — the type who say hello in passing, but don’t stop to strike up a conversation, he said.

The whole situation was shocking, he said, but he struggled to fathom why the girls were left on the side of the freeway.

“I don’t see how anyone could do that,” Macariegos said.

Times staff writers Jack Dolan and Caroline Petrow-Cohen contributed to this report.