LOS ANGELES — A lady who government say fatally stabbed her spouse at their Los Angeles rental Monday then threw her two youngsters from a shifting SUV onto the highway, killing her toddler daughter, used to be an astrologer who known as the impending sun eclipse “the epitome of spiritual warfare” in a web based post days previous.
Los Angeles police imagine Danielle Cherakiyah Johnson, 34, posted on X as an astrology influencer and recording artist with the moniker “Ayoka” within the days main as much as the violence, which started hours earlier than the eclipse peaked in Southern California, stated Lt. Guy Golan.
While detectives have reviewed Johnson’s posts, police don’t seem to be taking into consideration the eclipse to be a precipitating or contributing issue to the slayings “because we just don’t know why she did what she did,” Golan advised The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“We’ve taken all the facts we can, but without being able to interview her and without having something more tangible than a post on X, I don’t know how much weight you can give to somebody (saying) there’s an apocalypse and attribute it to one of the most horrific murders we’ve had in L.A.,” Golan, who is head of the murder unit investigating the case, stated.
Authorities say Johnson and her spouse, 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney, had a controversy round 3:40 a.m. Monday of their rental in Woodland Hills, about 25 miles northwest of downtown L.A. Johnson stabbed Chaney and fled with her kids, an 8-month-old lady and her 9-year-old sister, in a Porsche Cayenne.
Johnson then drove alongside Interstate 405 in Culver City and threw her daughters out of the shifting SUV round 4:30 a.m., police stated. The child used to be pronounced lifeless at the street, however the older daughter — who witnessed the stabbing — survived with average accidents.
Johnson traveled southwest to Redondo Beach, the place a 30 minutes later she used to be riding over 100 miles according to hour and crashed right into a tree. The LAPD is investigating whether or not the solo crash used to be an obvious suicide.
The Los Angeles Times first reported on Johnson’s social media actions in reference to the killings.
“Get your protection on and your heart in the right place,” she posted April 4 to greater than 105,000 fans on X. “The world is very obviously changing right now and if you ever needed to pick a side, the time to do right in your life is 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. Your time to choose what you believe is now.”
Her social media additionally incorporated a mixture of antisemitic screeds, conspiracy theories about vaccines and warnings in regards to the finish of the arena along astrological predictions and certain affirmations. Also on April 5, she posted the phrase “LOVE” dozens of instances. Her private web page gives quite a lot of products and services together with “zodiac healing work,” “alcohol balancing system” and an “aura cleanse.”
Johnson’s web presence and on-line following dates again years. The Fader, a track mag, interviewed her in 2016 as an astrology persona.
“She was very standoffish,” stated Norman Linder, a Woodland Hills neighbor. He simplest noticed Johnson and her daughters a couple of instances earlier than within the rental complicated.
Another neighbor, Anita Mazer, advised the AP that after she noticed the circle of relatives, “I just said ‘hello.’ The baby was really cute,” she stated Wednesday. “It’s horrible.”
Golan stated there have been no requires police to answer the couple’s rental previous to Monday’s killing, when neighbors known as 911 after seeing the door open. Johnson didn’t have a criminal prison report in California and there have been no indications of reported home violence.
Detectives didn’t right away link the Woodland Hills slaying to the daughters, Golan stated. He used to be within the San Fernando Valley community when he began getting push signals from news organizations on his cellular phone in regards to the toddler’s dying at the roadway in Culver City. Investigators learned there could be a connection between two lacking youngsters from the circle of relatives’s rental and the tragedy at the interstate.
“I was like ‘Oh, there’s two young girls who were stranded on the 405 Freeway.’ That is such a random and terrible thing to hear about. And we knew there were two young children,” Golan persevered. “We were setting up an Amber Alert.”
Golan stated detectives came upon candles and playing cards throughout the rental, however he used to be now not positive whether or not they have been tarot playing cards.
“They didn’t look like your standard deck of cards that you would play poker with,” he stated.
The sun eclipse’s trail of totality stretched from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Newfoundland, Canada, a swath roughly 115 miles large. Revelers have been engulfed in darkness at state parks, on town rooftops and in small cities when the moon blocked out the solar, although Southern California simplest noticed a partial eclipse that peaked at 11:12 a.m.
Across the globe, the celestial tournament spawned fears of the apocalypse and different suspicions rooted in faith and spirituality. But Golan famous that others who posted on-line about their eclipse-related worries didn’t dedicate violence like Johnson.
“How many people wrote about it,” he stated, “and didn’t go out and murder somebody?”