KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Four-year-old praised as hero for her actions after double homicide

Four-year-old praised as hero for her actions after double homicide

ZACHARY, LA (WAFB) - The details of the double murder at the BREC park were made public Tuesday. They describe Monday's double murder as a "love triangle gone very wrong."

Investigators say a complicated love triangle led to the killings of a Baker woman and her three-year-old son at a BREC park in Zachary. The victims have been identified as 23-year-old Jessica Johnson Palmer and her son, Juan Palmer, Jr. Her two daughters were also injured, but survived.

Johnson's former boyfriend, Dominique Dantoni Smith of Zachary, and his current girlfriend, Trendall Lashel Matthews of Jackson, Louisiana were arrested overnight. Matthews is a second-cousin of the victim, according to relatives.

Both are charged with two counts of first degree murder and two counts of attempted first degree murder. "They actually lured Jessica to the park along with her children, where the killings took place," said sheriff's department spokeswoman Casey Hicks. 

Detectives believe the killings took place sometime Sunday evening at Doyle's Bayou Park on Pride-Port Hudson Road.

After the killings took place, the two young girls spent the evening in the park. They were discovered Monday afternoon by a BREC working cutting grass in. Johnson and her son were found in wooded area of the park. 

Deputies are praising a four-year-old with saving another life. Four-year-old Lindsay Paige Johnson is being considered a hero. According to investigators, after the murders, the four-year-old, whose own throat had been cut, saved her baby sister.

"If you can imagine a little 4-year-old, who had been cut, pick up her 6-month-old infant sister and carrying her out of those woods and get as far as she did to the front of the park. That's just a miracle," Sheriff Sid Gautreaux says.

Detectives say Smith is the father of the four-year-old but is not the father of any of the victim's other children. Both of the girls are being treated at a Baton Rouge hospital. They are expected to survive, Hicks said.

The sheriff says Smith's vehicle, which was left at the scene, also led them back to him. Sheriff's officials found his keys and matched them to the truck. However, deputies say the story told by that frightened four-year-old girl was the key to the arrests.

"The statements that we got from the four-year-old were consistent with what we found on the scene," the sheriff says.

The park, located at 7801 Pride-Port Hudson Road, is in the northwest part of East Baton Rouge Parish near the East Feliciana Parish line.

The sheriff's office is waiting for the coroner's report to release the exact cause and time of the deaths.

Reporter:  Jim Shannon, WAFB 9NEWS