Thursday, October 25, 2012

Vallejo police offer reward in slaying of man, pregnant woman

Vallejo police announced a $10,000 reward Tuesday for information on last month's slayings of a Vallejo couple and the couple's unborn twins. "They have to be caught. They have to be found and punished to the fullest. ... They don't deserve to be walking around on this earth freely. They don't have that right," said Felecia Johnson, whose son Dashoun Ramon Jones, 31, and his fiancée Ashley Shari Mills, 28, were gunned down Sept. 6 in the 100 block of Atherton Street. Mills was six months pregnant with twins -- a boy and a girl -- when she was killed. They would have been born in December. "We're following up on every lead we have ... but we need more leads," Vallejo Police Lt. Jim O'Connell said Tuesday as he was flanked Ashley Mills, 28 (Lanz Christian Ba es) by members of Jones' and Mills' families at a press conference. Family members took turns describing the night of the shootings. Many appeared on the small Atherton Street block that night as word spread of the deaths. Jones' sister Ashley Johnson, 17, recalled getting a call from her father that her mother had been hospitalized after fainting in front of the crime scene. Then her father told her that Jones was "gone." "I didn't know what he meant by that. ... I was just screaming and crying and begging for it not to be true," the teenager said. Meanwhile, Mills' parents received their phone call as they drove on Interstate 80 toward their daughter's home. "She's a beautiful person. I miss her," father Wilson Mills said of his daughter, who was studying psychology at Solano Community College. While Mills doesn't believe in the death penalty, he hopes the person or people who killed his daughter and her family have a "miserable life in jail." "I know sooner or later, down in my heart, the police department will apprehend these people," Mills said. Two black men wearing hoodies were seen by witnesses running from the scene after shots were fired, police said. "These two people were targeted Deshoun Jones, 28 (Lanz Christian Banes / Times-Herald) in this crime. Very specifically they were targeted," O'Connell said. Family members said they don't know why the couple was attacked. Jones and Mills left behind three children. Jones' 12-year-old daughter is staying with her mother, while the Mills are caring for Ashley Mills' 8-year-old son and the 2-year-old son she and Jones had together. The reward money is being funded by the city. The quadruple homicide has been hard on the officers working the case as well, O'Connell said. "We're human. We have families ourselves. I have twins myself," O'Connell said. O'Connell declined to give too many specifics on the case, citing a sensitive investigation. Jones' mother appealed to the community to help quell the violence in Vallejo. "We all need to reach out to each other. The youth need to stop the killing. We need to come together as a community," Johnson said. Anyone with information on the case can call the Vallejo Police Department at 1 (800) 488-9383. Contact Lanz Christian Bañes at (707) 553-6833 or lbanes@timesheraldonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @LanzTimesH.

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