Police Tuesday were continuing to explore what appears to have been a tragic series of events that left a man fatally stabbed in Woodland Hills, an infant girl dead on the San Diego (405) Freeway in Culver City and a woman killed in a single-car crash in Redondo Beach.
At about 4:30 a.m. Monday, the California Highway Patrol responded to the northbound 405 Freeway near the Sepulveda Boulevard/Howard Hughes Parkway exit, where they found a baby girl believed to be 5 or 6 months old on the roadway and a girl between 7 and 9 years old on the right shoulder.
The infant was pronounced dead at the scene, while the young girl was taken to a hospital with “moderate” injuries, according to the CHP, which said a witness reported seeing a black sedan in the area where the girls were found.
On Monday afternoon, the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed it was investigating a possible link between the discovery of the girls, an overnight slaying in Woodland Hills and a subsequent fatal crash in Redondo Beach.
The LAPD responded to a Woodland Hills apartment building in the 6200 block of Variel Avenue around 7:35 a.m. Monday in response to a report of an unresponsive man in his 30s. Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene.
On Tuesday morning, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner identified him as 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney of Woodland Hills.
“While conducting their investigation, homicide detectives learned of two additional incidents that occurred earlier in the morning, one on the 405 Freeway involving two young children and a second in Redondo Beach involving a traffic collision,” according to the LAPD. “At this time, Valley Bureau Homicide detectives are working with the California Highway Patrol on the incident involving the two children and believe it is connected to the Topanga (Woodland Hills) homicide scene.
“They are also collaborating with the Redondo Beach Police Department and the Los Angeles County (Medical Examiner) to determine if that scene is related to the homicide on Variel.”
The Redondo Beach accident involved a black sedan that crashed into a tree, killing the female driver, around 5 a.m. Monday on Pacific Coast Highway and Vincent Street.
The Los Angeles Times, citing an unnamed law enforcement source not authorized to publicly speak about the investigation, reported that a woman fatally stabbed her male partner inside the Woodland Hills apartment at roughly 3:30 a.m. Monday, then fled the bloody crime scene with her two children — the two girls who were later found on the freeway. The woman rammed through the apartment building security gate to hasten her exit from the scene, The Times reported.
According to The Times, the two young girls were later pushed out of the woman’s car on the 405 Freeway, leaving the 8-month-old girl dead and the 9-year-old girl standing on the freeway shoulder. The older girl witnessed the Woodland Hills slaying earlier in the morning and told investigators what had happened, The Times reported.
Although she has not yet been identified, the woman who died in the subsequent crash in Redondo Beach is suspected of being the girls’ mother and the suspect in the Woodland Hills killing.
Richard Berglund, who lives in the Montecito Apartments in Woodland Hills where the killing took place, said he was the one who found his neighbor’s body. He told The Times his daughter had left for work that morning and seen blood in a hallway and an elevator. Berglund then went to the neighbor’s unit, where the door was open, and looked inside to see blood splattered around the unit and a man’s legs sticking out from the kitchen, the paper reported.
“The apartment was in disarray. Everything was knocked over,” he told The Times.
Berglund said he called 911 and the dispatcher told him to check on the man in the unit, who was lying face down wearing only socks and underwear. The man was dead, he said.