TOLEDO, Ohio (TCN) — A 33-year-old man wanted for allegedly killing his missing daughter and leaving her body in a burned house was shot by a SWAT team in Columbus following days of surveillance.
Keimani Latigue was reported missing to the Toledo Police Department on March 18. Missing People in America said in a bulletin that Latigue lived with her grandmother, and on March 18, the grandmother came home to find the house “in complete disarray.” The door was reportedly unlocked, the stove smelled like gas, and Latigue’s clothes were found in different rooms. Her glasses were also left at the house, and she cannot see well without them. Latigue reportedly contacted her father not long before her disappearance and said she was “afraid to be home alone because it seemed like somebody was trying to break into the house.”
According to the Toledo Blade, Latigue’s grandmother reported the teen missing because she failed to show up to school, and her phone went straight to voicemail. Her grandmother told police that the “behavior is out of the norm for her.”
On Monday, March 24, Toledo Police discovered Latigue’s body in a vacant, burned-out house in the 1100 block of Miami Street. Police filed a warrant for her father Darnell Jones’ arrest for abduction, but on Tuesday, March 25, there was an additional warrant for murder.
WTVG-TV reports the Lucas County Coroner determined Latigue’s cause of death was “incised wounds of the neck.”
Police said in the warrant that Jones “gave officers inconsistent statements about his activity with the victim, and their whereabouts.” Investigators were searching for him following the issuance of the warrants.
Columbus Division of Police Sgt. James Fuqua said in a news briefing March 25 that SWAT learned that a “dangerous individual” was in the area, so once they confirmed his identity, they made contact with Jones. One of the officers discharged his weapon at Jones during their interaction, and Jones was hospitalized in stable condition. Officials reportedly discovered a firearm that did not belong to any of the SWAT officers at the scene. They had reportedly been surveilling Jones for about two days.
He is expected to survive his injuries.
Fraternal Order of Police City Lodge #9 President Brian Steel told reporters Latigue’s death was “one of the most horrific” cases he had ever heard of. He said, “This is a 14-year-old that was murdered, raped, had her hands cut off, and her throat almost cut off.”
She was just days away from turning 14.
Steel added, “We sent a message: You murder someone, do not come to this town.”
