(KTLA) – Authorities continue to investigate the bizarre series of incidents that left a man, an infant and a woman dead at three separate locations in Los Angeles County in what police describe as a double murder-suicide case.
The deaths happened over a several-hour period early Monday morning, Los Angeles Police said. The body of Jaelen Allen Chaney, 29, was found inside an apartment in Woodland Hills, where neighbors reported hearing an argument between a man and a woman at about 3 a.m.
Later that morning, one neighbor said she stepped out of her unit 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 Nexstar's KTLA. “So, I just freaked out and called my dad to immediately come and check it out.”
The neighbor’s father arrived and, after calling 911, found Cheney dead inside the apartment from apparent stab wounds.
Neighbors said Chaney lived in the apartment with his female partner, who police identified as 34-year-old Danielle Johnson. The couple also lived with their two daughters, an 8-month-old infant and a 9-year-old.
Police said Tuesday they believe a fight between the two adults escalated, and Johnson stabbed Chaney before fleeing with the two kids. She had apparently fled the apartment by crashing her car through the parking garage security gate.
At about 4:30 a.m., 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 other girl suffering from minor injuries.
The SUV was driving on the freeway "when the two children were expelled from the vehicle while it was moving," LAPD said.
It remains unclear exactly how the children ended up on the freeway.
Then, at about 5 a.m., investigators say a woman driving "in excess of 100 miles per hour" died when her vehicle slammed into a tree on Pacific Coast Highway at Vincent Street in Redondo Beach.
After an investigation involving multiple law enforcement agencies, LAPD said "homicide detectives determined that the incidents were all related and there was no further threat to the community."