In the quiet early morning hours of February 2, 2016, a tragedy unfolded in a Fort Washington, Maryland parking lot that would cut short the lives of a young mother and her toddler daughter. Neshante Alesha Davis, a 26-year-old female elementary school teacher, was beginning her day, preparing to take her two-year-old daughter, Chloe Nichole Davis-Green, to daycare before heading to her job at Bradbury Heights Elementary School.
As she was securing Chloe in her car seat outside of her Pinewood Hill Condos home, she was ambushed.
The assailant, 25-year-old Daron Maurice Boswell-Johnson, the father of her child, confronted Neshante. The motive for the horrific events that followed stemmed from a court order for child support. Just months prior, in December 2015, a judge had ordered Boswell-Johnson to pay $600 a month after a paternity test confirmed he was Chloe's father. Unwilling to accept this financial responsibility, he had researched ways to evade the payments online. On that fateful morning, he demanded that Neshante drop the child support petition. When she presumably refused, he produced a gun.
Neighbors reported hearing arguing followed by the sound of three gunshots shortly before 7:00 a.m. Responding to calls, Prince George's County police discovered Neshante in the parking lot, suffering from a fatal gunshot wound; she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her daughter, Chloe, was found still strapped in her car seat, also having been shot. The little girl was rushed to a nearby hospital, but tragically, she too succumbed to her injuries. The brutality of the crime sent shockwaves through the community and galvanized law enforcement to quickly find the person responsible.
The investigation swiftly led to Daron Boswell-Johnson. He was taken into custody later the same day at his workplace. During a lengthy interrogation that stretched over 26 hours, Boswell-Johnson confessed to the murders. He admitted to shooting Neshante and Chloe because of the child support dispute. Following his confession, he was charged with two counts of first and second-degree murder.
In April 2016, a grand jury indicted Boswell-Johnson on two counts of first-degree murder and firearm use during a violent crime. During his trial, prosecutors presented his videotaped confession, cellphone records, and surveillance footage showing his vehicle leaving his apartment complex on the morning of the murders. Despite the lack of a murder weapon or DNA evidence linking him directly to the scene, the weight of his own admission and the circumstantial evidence was damning. In April 2018, a Prince George's County jury convicted Daron Boswell-Johnson on two counts of murder. He was subsequently sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, ensuring he would be held accountable for the devastating loss of Neshante and Chloe.
