Woman posted about eclipse, apocalypse on social media in days leading up to murder-suicide
In a post days before the murder, she called Monday's eclipse "the epitome of spiritual warfare."
WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. (KABC) -- Days before a woman stabbed her boyfriend to death in Woodland Hills and pushed her children out of a moving vehicle on the 405 Freeway, Danielle Cherakiyah Johnson was posting on social media concerns about the eclipse and the apocalypse.
Johnson was apparently a popular astrology influencer with more than 100,000 followers on X, Eyewitness News has learned. She went by @MysticxLipstick and described herself as a "divine healer" and astrologer.
In a post days before the murder, she called Monday's eclipse "the epitome of spiritual warfare" and said, "If you ever needed to pick a side, the time to do right in your life is now."
According to law enforcement sources who spoke with ABC News, a motive for the murder spree and suicide remains unclear, but police said they are looking at Johnson's social media posts.
Investigators said they may never really know what prompted her to kill her partner and child, but said they are interviewing her friends and family for more information.
Disturbing new details
According to authorities, Johnson is suspected of fatally stabbing 29-year-old Jaelen Chaney, her live-in boyfriend, inside the couple's Woodland Hills apartment early Monday morning. Her 9-year-old daughter witnessed the homicide, sources told Eyewitness News.
She stabbed Chaney in the chest while he was on the couch. According to the Los Angeles Times, she reportedly tried to drag his bloody body out of the apartment, but at some point, gave up and dragged the body back into the apartment kitchen, the newspaper reported.
She then fled with her two young daughters in a dark-colored Porsche Cayenne. The mother and the two children were in the SUV on the 405 Freeway in the Westchester area when Johnson slowed the moving vehicle, opened the passenger door and then told her daughter "to get out of the car, and when the daughter didn't do that she then forcibly pushed her out of the vehicle, in the middle of the freeway, while moving, while the 9-year-old was holding the 8-month-old baby," Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Guy Nolan said.
The infant fell to the pavement and was fatally struck by a passing vehicle, authorities said.
Good Samaritans found the children on the freeway and called 911. Emergency responders pronounced the baby dead at the scene, and her older sister was transported to a hospital. The surviving child was later placed in the custody of Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.
After Johnson allegedly forced the children out of the car, sources said she headed south to Redondo Beach, where she reached speeds of more than 100 mph. The SUV slammed into a tree on the corner of an intersection and Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.
A 26-year-old woman, a neighbor of Chaney and Johnson who lives in the same building, discovered a bloody scene. According to police, tarot cards were found in the apartment.
"Their 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 walls," the woman said.
Her father "called the police and told them that something was not right. And they told me, when I spoke to the EMT, to go in and check on the body. So I did," he said, adding that Chaney "was deceased, he was face-down on the floor. And there was a lot of blood."
Aftermath
The search for the motive in the horrific incidents is ongoing.
"The only witness we have for this crime now is the 9-year-old girl," Nolan said. "There's just very little information we have, other than: there was a verbal altercation that turned violent and it ended in tragedy."
