Woman at center of tragic murder-suicide investigation was posting about apocalypse days before spree
Editor's note: an earlier version of the video portion of this story included a photo of a woman who is not connected with this story and is not the suspect in this case. We apologize to that woman, her family, and our users/viewers for this error.
Social media posts are giving us a chilling look into the days before Danielle Cherakiyah Johnson allegedly stabbed her boyfriend and pushed her children onto the freeway before killing herself in a violent crash on Monday.
Johnson made several posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, where she claimed to be an astrologer and R&B recording artist named "Ayoka". In the tweets, she talked about the solar eclipse and "apocalypse" and urged followers to make a "choice for the collective".
Police say that the series of posts are now a focus in their ongoing murder-suicide investigation that left one infant dead and a child injured after they were forced onto the 405 Freeway from Johnson's car after she fatally stabbed her boyfriend. Hours later, she sped into a tree on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach and died.
Johnson, whose profile described herself as an astrologer and energy healer, had a large social media following of more than 100,000 people. She appeared to be obsessed with the coming eclipse, posting about it multiple times and calling it "the epitome of spiritual warfare."
There were also reposted antisemitic images and tropes about Jewish people owning Hollywood and promoting pedophilia.
While Detectives are investigating all of her posts, they aren't saying if they're connecting her views on the eclipse and her online rants to the murders.
Investigators say that it all began early Monday morning at around 3:40 a.m. when Johnson and her boyfriend, 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney, got into an argument that ended with her stabbing him to death.
She then took her two daughters, an 8-month-old baby and a 9-year-old girl and rammed through the gate of the Woodland Hills apartment complex parking garage before speeding down the 405 Freeway.
According to police, while on the freeway, she stopped on the shoulder and pushed the children out of the car. The infant was hit and killed while the other survived with minor injuries. She then drove to Redondo Beach where she crashed into a tree driving about 100 miles per hour, Police are investigating her death as a suicide.
