D.C. police charged three additional suspects this week in the killing of a 25-year-old woman who went missing in 2023, bringing the total to five people involved in what officials say was a gang-related kidnapping conspiracy.
On Friday, Niquan Odumn, 24, who is already serving a prison sentence for another crime, was charged with first-degree murder, armed carjacking and armed robbery. He joins co-defendants Deionta Person, 28, and Tyjuan McNeal, 29, both of whom are also in prison and face the same charges. All three men have pleaded not guilty in the case surrounding the death of Chyna Crawford, of Southwest Washington.
In court documents filed in D.C. Superior Court in February, officials revealed that Crawford — who was initially believed to have been killed in a kidnapping or robbery — was fatally shot.
Her disappearance in the fall of 2023 was initially investigated as a missing person case before it was reassigned to D.C. police’s major case victims unit, a rare move that pointed to what officials at the time said were “suspicious circumstances” behind her departure.
The 126-count February indictment alleged that Crawford was targeted in a larger conspiracy that also led to luxury goods being stolen.
The indictment did not say whether Crawford knew any of the people charged, including Lashawn Washington, who was the first person arrested in the case and was indicted by a D.C. Superior Court grand jury in 2024. Washington, then 32, of Southeast Washington, was charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and obstruction of justice, among dozens of other charges that were later added. She has pleaded not guilty.
Crawford was confronted then allegedly kidnapped by three individuals at her apartment on Oct. 24, 2023, according to the indictment. She was placed in the front passenger seat of her Mercedes Benz while at a parking lot in Southeast Washington, the indictment alleges, and driven away by Washington. Police say Bjarni Cooper, 31, was also in the car. When the vehicle returned, only he and Washington were inside, prosecutors allege. Cooper has also been charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, armed carjacking and armed robbery.
A juvenile and at least one other person returned to Crawford’s Southeast apartment and burglarized it, the indictment says. They allegedly stole her phone, keys, laptop, designer clothing and jewelry — including Prada shoes, a Rolex watch, a Moose Knuckles jacket and a diamond tennis bracelet.
Authorities said the group returned to a residence in Northeast Washington and divided up the proceeds. They later had the Mercedes cleaned and sold, the indictment says.
After Washington’s arrest, Crawford’s brother, Derrick Crawford, told The Post that he did not know her. But later he said Washington had posted on social media that “I miss my friend” and “I hope she comes home soon.”
The latest three charged in the case were already in prison when prosecutors accused them of being involved with Crawford’s presumed death.
McNeal and Odumn were indicted by a grand jury in March 2024, on charges of conspiracy to commit firearm trafficking stemming from the robbery of a pawn shop outside Baltimore on Dec. 13, 2023. Both men, documents filed in U.S. District Court allege, were part of a group that stole 34 firearms — including assault rifles and high-caliber handguns — and transported them back to the District, where they intended to sell them.
Odumn pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft from a federal firearms licensee and unlawful possession of stolen firearms. He was sentenced to two years in prison last June. McNeal pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit firearms trafficking and is serving an 84-month sentence.
Person has been incarcerated since last July, serving a 28-month sentence for unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition after previously being convicted of a crime.
All five are expected to appear in D.C. Superior Court for a hearing scheduled for April 15.
Peter Hermann contributed to this report.
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