On the morning of May 22, 2024, a home on Shaffsbury Road in Dayton became the scene of a tragedy that would leave two families shattered and raise painful questions about how many warning signs can be documented before a system finally acts in time. When police arrived just after 6:20 a.m., they found 32-year-old Precious Taste dead inside the house. She was four months pregnant. They also found 16-year-old Deontay Johnson, a teenager who had spent the night there and, according to his family, had nothing to do with the conflict that erupted that morning. Precious’s unborn child was also lost. Three lives were gone. The suspect, police said, was Nicole Cunningham Jr., known as Nico, the father of Precious’s twin four-year-olds and the unborn baby she was carrying. He had already been convicted in connection with stabbing Precious in 2022 while she was pregnant. He had been released on parole in January 2024. Four months later, Dayton was once again confronting the consequences.

For the people who knew Precious Taste, the headlines never captured the full weight of who she was. She was a Dayton mother of seven children, and in May 2024 she was preparing for an eighth. Friends and loved ones described her as generous, warm, and deeply loyal, the kind of woman who opened her home to people when they needed somewhere to go. She was the person who checked on others, hosted gatherings, and made herself available to friends going through hard times. In the year before her death, those closest to her said she had been focused on rebuilding. She had made major changes in her life, including a remarkable health journey in which she lost more than 200 pounds. She was trying to move forward, trying to center her children and her future, and trying to build stability after years of turbulence.

That turbulence had a name. Nico Cunningham Jr. had been in and out of her life for years. Their relationship was marked by conflict and violence, according to prosecutors and records later laid out in court. He had a long criminal history before the May 2024 killings ever took place, including prior charges and convictions involving weapons, assault, child endangering, abduction, and felonious assault. In 2022, he attacked Precious with a knife while she was pregnant. She survived that assault, but not without serious injury. She later wrote publicly about what she had endured, referencing broken ribs and the reality that her daughter had nearly been taken from her before she had even had the chance to breathe. It was the kind of post that read like survival in real time, a woman trying to name what she had lived through while still finding strength in the child she had carried through it.

That case ended with Nico going to prison, but not for as long as many people would later believe he should have. He was convicted and incarcerated, yet by January 2024 he had been released on parole. To Precious’s family and to many in the community, that release would become one of the hardest parts of the story to accept. Here was a man with an established history of violence, including violence toward the very woman he would later be accused of killing, back on the street and back in her orbit. It was not merely a tragic coincidence. It was a sequence of events that, in hindsight, looked like a catastrophe building in plain view.

By the spring of 2024, Precious was pregnant again. The timing strongly suggested she had become pregnant around January or February, shortly after Nico’s release. Somehow, despite what had happened in 2022, the two had become involved again. Experts and advocates who later spoke publicly about the case noted that return to an abusive partner is far more common than outsiders often understand. It is not a simple matter of weakness or bad judgment. It is a cycle shaped by fear, dependency, hope, manipulation, history, and the constant pressure of trying to manage shared children. Precious and Nico had twin four-year-olds together, and by all accounts he continued showing up in connection with them. He was also still trying to exert control, especially over her car.

Text messages later introduced at trial painted a picture of a relationship still shadowed by fear. There were more than 50 pages of exchanges between the two. In Precious’s phone, his contact was saved as “baby,” though in the messages she often referred to him as Nico. At one point, she told him she knew he had a gun and that she was worried he might hurt her. He replied that someone had given him the gun to protect his family. In another message, he told her, “I would never kill you.” It was a chilling statement in retrospect, especially coming from a man who had already stabbed her while she was pregnant two years earlier.

The house on Shaffsbury Road was not empty that night. In addition to Precious and her four-year-old twins, a friend named Joanne Lauren Washington was there, sleeping on the couch. Deontay Johnson, a 16-year-old freshman at Trotwood High School, had also spent the night. He was close to the family. His mother, Jennifer Lewis, later said the Johnsons and Precious had visited each other often. Deontay was just a teenager sleeping over at a family friend’s house, not a participant in adult conflict, not someone entangled in their relationship. He loved fashion and music and making people laugh. His mother said younger kids gravitated toward him and that his two younger brothers looked up to him. He should never have been part of this story, yet his family would soon be pulled into its center.

According to testimony later presented in court, Precious and Nico had argued the evening before about her car. She told him she was keeping it, and that she was moving on. He did not take that well. Sometime around 6:20 the next morning, Joanne Washington woke up to the sound of arguing. From the couch, she could hear voices coming from the bedroom. It was Precious and Nico. Precious was demanding that he return her car. The argument escalated. Nico left the bedroom. Then came the sound of breaking glass. Joanne later testified that she heard him say he had left his bag and did not mean to damage the window. Then came gunfire.

What happened next was described in detail during trial and became central to the prosecution’s case. Joanne said Precious began screaming. Joanne ran to the basement for safety. Even from there, she could hear shots continuing throughout the house. She then saw Precious coming down the basement stairs, begging for her life, apologizing, pleading for him to stop. According to Joanne’s testimony, the more Precious begged, the more he kept firing. When Dayton police arrived, they found Precious at the bottom of the basement stairs. Deontay was upstairs, still under the covers. Investigators later determined that both had died from multiple gunshot wounds.

The evidence, prosecutors argued, told a clear and brutal story. Surveillance footage from a nearby home showed a man identified as Nico outside a bedroom window, looking in and appearing to speak with someone inside. The video then showed him leaving and later returning with a firearm in his right hand. Detectives testified that the footage captured him pointing the weapon into the bedroom and firing. The same footage also indicated he entered the home through that window. Ballistics evidence later showed that all of the rounds recovered came from the same gun. Four bullets in total were tied to the attack: two recovered from the scene, one from Deontay, and one from Precious. The coroner testified that the trajectory of the shot that struck Precious showed the shooter had been positioned above her, firing downward. The coroner also confirmed that she had been 14 weeks pregnant at the time of her death.

Police quickly launched a manhunt. Major Brian Johns of the Dayton Police Department spoke publicly and warned residents not to approach Nico under any circumstances. He said plainly that if the suspect would kill the mother of his children and their unborn baby, he would kill anybody. It was a blunt statement, but it matched the urgency of the search. Nico had fled the scene in a white Chevy Malibu taken from Precious. That car was later found abandoned in Trotwood. By then, he was gone.

For two months, authorities chased tips and partial sightings across Ohio and beyond. The U.S. Marshals Service joined the search, along with Dayton homicide detectives and the Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team. His image circulated widely. At the time of the killings, he was recognizable by bright red and white on the ends of his hair. Police emphasized that he was armed, extremely dangerous, and not someone the public should ever try to confront. Tips placed him in Richmond, Indiana, and later in northern Ohio, but investigators could not pin him down.

While that search played out, both grieving families were left to absorb the reality of what had happened. Jennifer Lewis, Deontay Johnson’s mother, spoke openly about the pain of watching the coverage focus heavily on the domestic violence angle while feeling that her son’s life was being treated as secondary. She wanted the public to understand that Deontay was not a footnote. He was not collateral in a story that belonged only to adults. He was her 16-year-old son. He had his own life, his own future, his own value, and he had nothing to do with Nico and Precious’s relationship. He did not even know Nico, she said. He was simply in the wrong house on the wrong morning, sleeping when violence came through the window.

Her grief was sharpened by the senselessness of it. She said she believed Nico had spent the hours before the attack searching for Precious, driving around until he found her. Once he did, she believed, he was enraged. There was no ambiguity in what she wanted for him. He needed to be locked away, she said, because people would never be the same again. Her family would not. Precious’s family would not. The children left behind would not.

Meanwhile, Dayton was also grappling with the larger issue beneath the case: domestic violence and the many ways it can continue even after a conviction, even after prison, even after a victim tries to rebuild. Community advocates pointed out that it is common for survivors to return to abusive partners multiple times before breaking free, and that the danger often escalates during attempts to separate. Experts asked publicly how someone with Nico’s criminal record and parole status could have had access to a firearm at all. They also questioned whether the criminal justice system had adequately supervised him after his release. Precious had already survived one serious assault by this same man. That history was known. Yet by May 2024, she was once again in danger.

The search ended on July 23, 2024, nearly two months after the killings. Ohio State Highway Patrol spotted a silver Chevrolet Equinox driving recklessly near Kinsman Avenue in Cleveland. The vehicle had been linked to a recent armed robbery, and the driver matched Nico’s description. When troopers attempted a stop, he refused to pull over, leading officers on a high-speed chase through the city. The patrol’s aviation unit tracked the vehicle from above. Eventually, Nico abandoned the SUV near Lake View Avenue and ran into a wooded area. Officers followed, sealing off possible escape routes. By approximately 3:20 p.m., they found him hiding inside an abandoned house. He surrendered without incident.

When he was booked into the Cuyahoga County Jail, one detail stood out immediately. The distinctive red-and-white dreadlocks that had appeared in so many wanted notices were gone. He had cut them off. Within days, he was extradited back to Montgomery County to face charges. Prosecutors ultimately filed a sweeping case: four counts of murder related to Precious Taste, her unborn child, and Deontay Johnson; felonious assault; involuntary manslaughter; domestic violence; tampering with evidence; weapons charges; and unauthorized use of a vehicle. Bond was set at $1 million.

The case moved quickly into the court system. By August 2024, Nico was indicted by a grand jury, and the matter shifted to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court. He appeared by video at arraignment and pleaded not guilty to all charges. For the families, that denial only deepened the pain. Jennifer Lewis sat through the proceedings watching the man accused of taking her son’s life deny everything. She also worried that if he could post a fraction of his bond, he might end up eligible for monitored release. To her, and to others in the gallery, that possibility felt unbearable. He did not give their loved ones a chance, she said. He did not need another one.

Trial began later that month and lasted four days. Prosecutors laid out a case built on eyewitness testimony, physical evidence, surveillance video, ballistics, text messages, and the timeline of abuse that preceded the killings. They argued this was not a chaotic accident or a moment of mutual confrontation. It was a continuation of violence and control by a man who had already stabbed Precious while she was pregnant, had returned to her life after release, and then came back armed when she tried to move on.

The defense reserved its opening statement, waiting to hear the state’s evidence. One issue it appeared to focus on was the fact that Deontay was found with a gun in his hand under the covers. Could that support some claim of self-defense? Prosecutors addressed that question directly before the defense could fully build it. They told jurors they intended to disprove self-defense, and the evidence they introduced sought to do exactly that. Joanne Washington’s testimony about Precious begging for her life in the basement. The video showing Nico outside the window, then returning with a gun. The forensic evidence placing the shooter above Precious. The text messages showing Precious’s fear. The testimony of Nico’s own father, who said he discovered his .45-caliber handgun missing five days after the killings. All of it pointed away from self-defense and toward intentional violence.

On August 28, 2024, after closing arguments, the case went to the jury. Deliberations began around 1:00 p.m. There were 10 charges to consider. About five hours later, jurors returned with their verdicts: guilty on all 10 counts. Family members broke down in tears, hugged one another, and told reporters they had known he would be convicted. It was not joy exactly, because nothing about the day was joyful. It was relief. It was validation. It was the formal acknowledgment that what had happened in that house had been seen clearly and judged accordingly.

Sentencing followed on August 29, 2024. Before the court imposed punishment, Precious’s brother Thomas addressed Nico directly. His words were not polished, but they were powerful because they came from the place grief lives. He told Nico that all the talk and anger he carried had never made him strong enough to do the one thing that could have prevented all of this: walk away. Precious had asked to be left alone. Nico could have just gone. There were countless other paths still open to him in that moment, Thomas said, but instead he ended not only Precious’s life, but his own as well. He also told him that forgiveness was not something he owed.

Nico spoke too, insisting he was innocent and thanking his family for supporting him. He said he loved his children and that they would be taken care of regardless of what happened. Then the judge imposed sentence: 39 years to life.

For the families of Precious Taste and Deontay Johnson, the sentence closed a legal chapter but not the emotional one. Seven children now had to grow up without their mother. Among them were the four-year-old twins who had been inside the home when the shooting started and who survived only because they hid. Deontay’s younger brothers had to grow up without the older sibling they looked up to. Precious’s unborn child never had a chance to be born. Three lives were gone, and dozens more were permanently altered.

The community honored both victims in the weeks and months that followed. Neighbors held balloon releases, sending purple balloons into the sky for Precious, whose favorite color it was. Her funeral drew a crowd so large that cars lined the area for blocks. Friends and family wore purple, shared stories, laughed through tears, and tried to remember her as she had been before the violence overtook her story. Deontay’s service was filled with classmates, teammates, teachers, and the people who had known him as a bright teenager with a contagious smile. Two families, two funerals, one case that fused their losses together forever.

In the end, the case of Precious Taste and Deontay Johnson became more than a local double homicide. It became a brutal reminder of what can happen when escalating violence is not stopped in time, when a man already known to be dangerous returns to the same life he once nearly destroyed, and when children and bystanders end up paying the price for someone else’s control and rage. Precious had already survived one attack. She had already tried to rebuild. She had already warned through her own life what danger looked like. Deontay was just a teenager sleeping over at a family friend’s house. Neither one should have died that morning.

Now the legal system has spoken. Nico Cunningham Jr. will spend the rest of his life in prison. But the harder truth remains for the people left behind. Precious’s children still wake up without their mother. Deontay’s family still carries the shock of a boy taken for no reason at all. And for many in Dayton, the question that lingered from the beginning still has no comforting answer: how did so many warning signs lead to so little protection before it was too late?