November 29, 2018
City News Service
The Los Angeles Police Department plans to reveal today details about the arrest of a man and a woman on suspicion of murder in the slaying of a 35-year-old woman found beaten and shot in a vehicle in South Los Angeles more than 12 years ago.
Detectives plan to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. to announce developments in the investigation of the killing of Taja Jones. The suspects were identified Tuesday as Nicole Chapple, 42, and Tyranda McDaniels, 49.
On April 20, 2006, Jones left her job at a mortgage company in the 3200 block of Ocean Park Boulevard in Santa Monica, but failed to pick up her 14-year-old son later in the day as expected.
Her body was found five days later in a bluish-green four-dour 1995 Oldsmobile 88 that had been parked in a South Los Angeles neighborhood since around the time Jones went missing. The front windshield had been bashed in, and her body was found in the back seat. She had been beaten and shot, according to the coroner's office.
Jones and her brother had inherited about $1 million from their mother, who had died the previous September. Co-workers said the last time they saw Jones, she was heading to a bank after discovering that much of her share of the inheritance had disappeared from her account.
Chapple was arrested Nov. 15 and was being held without bail at the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, according to sheriff’s inmate records.
McDaniels’ current custody information was not immediately available, but records show he was at WASCO State Prison earlier this year.
A $50,000 reward had been offered by the Los Angeles City Council for information leading to whoever killed Jones, and in October 2006, detectives and the woman's brother, Woodrow Hart, passed out flyers seeking clues from the public.
Hart told KCAL9 at the time that it had “been very difficult to live without” his sister.
“She’s all I got,” he told the station. “There must be somebody or someone who can help, because 174 days without this lady in my life is kind of difficult.”