Jontae Powell recalled that in the days before his family was found dead in their DeKalb County apartment, he and his siblings kept calling their phones.
No one answered.
“To me, it’s world-ending,” Powell said in an interview Monday afternoon with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “My mother, my children, the mother of my children — everything is gone.”
Officials identified the five people killed in Saturday night’s suspected murder-suicide as 1-year-old Jontavious Powell, 5-year-old Jedorah Powell, 43-year-old Mollian Johnson and 25-year-old Kaylyn Samuel.
Jonathan Darden, 42, is suspected of shooting them before taking his own life, authorities said. He was dating Johnson, who was the children’s grandmother. Samuel was their mother, and all five of them lived in the apartment, police said.
Officers arrived for a wellness check at around 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Vineyards at Flat Shoals apartment complex and found them all dead from gunshot wounds, officials said. Police did not say when they believe the shooting took place.
Neighbors said it was eerie how Christmas lights from the apartment continued to shine a glow into the parking lot after the killing. Two days later, they remained visible.
Nearby, a brightly colored doormat in front of their apartment listed cheery holiday greetings, celebrating hope, joy and family. Stuffed toys, a decorative bow and crime scene tape sat outside the door.
A grieving Powell, who shared the children with Samuel, said his son had turned 1 in August. He was just learning to walk.
He said his daughter, who had autism, loved going to school and had just begun Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy. She was learning to speak more with her teachers, and her parents hoped she could soon carry on conversations.
“My daughter was just a light to this world that nobody even got to know about,” Powell said from his home in Milwaukee. “Her first word was ‘dada.’”
Johnson, who was Powell’s mother, had been dating Darden for nearly a year, he said.
Neighbors interviewed by the AJC said police visited the complex on Vineyard Walk on multiple occasions, most recently about a month ago.
“It seems like the only time trouble came around was when (Darden) showed up,” Corey McBurrows said. “Other than that, they was fine. A quiet, nice family.”
But those neighbors heard no commotion last week to indicate the family had been killed.
Credit: David Aaro
Credit: David Aaro
“We hadn’t heard anything — no gunshots or nothing,” said Shontarian Byrd, who has lived there for nearly three years. “If I hear commotion or something, and it’s uncontrollable, I call the police, but I didn’t hear anything at all. No kind of commotion.”
Police have not released details about what led to the killing or a potential motive. Powell said his mother had never mentioned any domestic disputes to him.
Johnson was a caring mother who “never let us go without anything,” Powell said.
“She worked so hard to make sure that we had the best things, and like even when she didn’t have it all figured out herself, or have it all for herself, she made sure that her kids did,” he said.
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Johnson had heart surgery the prior week and received good news that the diagnosis wasn’t as severe as doctors thought, Powell said.
Latasha Bradley started a fundraising campaign through GoFundMe on behalf of the family. She is hoping to raise enough funds to take the four victims home to Milwaukee “so that we can have a proper funeral and burial for our loved ones.”
Powell and Samuel were high school sweethearts who had been in a previous relationship but were not dating at the time of the killings. But the connection they shared was strong, he said.
Losing all of them at once was unimaginable, Powell said.
“It was, to me, beyond the worst-case scenario — something that I would not have fathomed,” Powell said. “The more and more I talk about them, the more and more it hurts.”
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