Dhante Jackson has been arrested for the murder of eight year old Sophia Mason. According to police reports Dhante Jackson has been wanted since the police found the body of Sophia Mason on March 11 2022. Police who already had Sophia Mason mother, Samantha Johnson, in custody on previous child abuse charges issued a warrant for Dhante Jackson arrest. According to Samantha Johnson the eight year old girl was physically and sexually abused and was forced to live in a shed. Both Samantha Johnson and Dhante Jackson face child abuse and murder charges.
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A man wanted for the abuse and murder of a Hayward child has been arrested, officials said Saturday.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with the Merced Police Department said that Dhante Jackson was arrested in connection to the killing of 8-year-old Sophia Mason of Hayward in Newark Saturday afternoon.
Jackson’s arrest happened after a months-long search and an investigation led by Merced police with assistance by the Merced Area Gang and Narcotic Enforcement Team and the Department of Justice’s Special Operations Unit.
“The pain of losing a child is unimaginable, especially when that child was a victim of abuse. We grieve with Sophia’s family and loved ones, and acknowledge that she should be here with us now, playing, learning, and growing up,” Bonta said. “Our children should be protected from violence and we must do everything we can to safeguard them. I want to thank the members of my team and our law enforcement partners in Merced for their work on this very difficult case, and hope it brings some measure of comfort to those who loved this young girl to know that those accused of her murder will now have to face these allegations.”
Investigators found Sophia’s body in Jackson’s home on March 11 after the Merced police received a request for assistance from the Hayward Police Department as part of an investigation into the reported disappearance of Mason. On March 12, the victim’s mother, Samantha Johnson — who was in custody in Dublin for prior child abuse charges from 2021 — provided information to investigators about the cruelty inflicted upon Mason leading up to her death, including being forced to live in a shed in Jackson’s yard and suffering sexual and physical abuse.
The Merced County District Attorney’s Office charged Johnson with child abuse and homicide and issued a warrant for Jackson’s arrest for Mason’s murder.
After months of searching for the suspect, investigators located Jackson in hiding in Newark and arrested him. Jackson will be charged by the Merced County District Attorney’s Office with homicide.
Officers also charged four other suspects, one located in Merced and three in the Bay Area, suspected of aiding Jackson in evading arrest.
Bonta and Merced police will hold a 9 a.m. news conference Sunday at the Merced Police Department building.
Anyone with any information regarding the case is asked to contact Merced Police Department Detective John Pinnegar at 209-388-7712 or by email at [email protected]
Samantha Johnson has been officially charged with the murder of her eight year old daughter Sophia Mason. According to police reports Sophia Mason had not been seen from family members since December 2021. Police in Merced California became involved and when they interviewed Samantha Johnson she would lead them to the home of her boyfriend Dhante Jackson. When police searched the home of Dhante Johnson they would find the body of eight year old Sophia Mason. Dhante Jackson who would flee before police search the home is currently wanted for murder of Sophia Mason. Now Samantha Johnson who was arrested on an old child abuse warrant has been charged with the murder of her daughter Sophia Mason. Other family members have been warning authorities for some time that Sophia Brown was not safe in her mother’s care and talked about how Sophia was in and out of her daughters life and would take her to random hotel rooms in the Merced California area.
According to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office jail booking website, 30-year-old Samantha Johnson was booked into the main jail on a charge of first-degree murder on Tuesday.
On Friday, Johnson’s 8-year-old daughter Sophia Mason was reported missing to the Hayward Police Department
Hayward police reached out to the Merced Police Department about Mason’s disappearance, prompting detectives to meet with Johnson for an interview.
During the interview, officers say Johnson provided them with the address of the home in Merced where Mason’s body was later discovered.
A short time later, a state-wide manhunt began for Johnson’s boyfriend, 34-year-old Dhante Jackson, who officials say lives at the home where Mason was found.
Officers say Jackson ‘went on the run’ shortly after learning his home had been searched and a warrant had been issued for his arrest. Jackson is reportedly known to frequent the Bay Area.
Anyone who has seen Jackson or knows his whereabouts is asked to call the Merced Police Department at 209-385-4725.
Authorities have identified the body discovered in a Merced home last week as Sophia Mason, an 8-year-old girl from Hayward, who was reported missing March 8.
The confirmation, announced by the Merced County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau Tuesday afternoon, comes four days after Sophia’s mother, Samantha Johnson, was arrested on murder charges by Merced police. A manhunt is underway for Johnson’s boyfriend, Dhante Jackson, 34, who lived in the home where Mason’s body was found.
The coroner’s bureau has not released a cause of death for Sophia, citing a pending autopsy.
“We’re broken,” Melissa Harris, a cousin of Sophia’s, said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “I think we all knew but we wanted to hold onto a tiny shred of hope that it wasn’t her of course.”
Sophia was last seen with her 30-year-old mother, Samantha Johnson, in the Merced area. Her aunt, Emerald Johnson, told this news organization that she reported Sophia missing to the Hayward Police Department on March 8 after what she described as a “disturbing” phone call between Samantha Johnson and her mother, in which Samantha said that she was planning to travel from Merced to the Bay Area without Sophia because she “gave her away.”
Hayward police arrested Samantha Johnson on March 10 on a warrant stemming from a 2021 case of child abuse in Alameda County. Cassondra Fovel, a spokesperson for the Hayward Police Department, said Tuesday that the child abuse case was referred to the department by Alameda County’s Children and Family Services in October 2021 but that the county agency determined it to be “unfounded” at that time. During the investigation into the disappearance of Sophia, however, police said they were given new information to pursue charges.
The following day, Hayward police contacted the Merced Police Department about an “at-risk missing juvenile” and provided the agency with a possible address where Sophia was last seen, in the 500 block of Barclay Way in Merced. While executing a search warrant, officers discovered the body of a young girl in the home.
Johnson was initially booked into Alameda County’s Santa Rita Jail but is being transferred to Merced County Jail, where she will be arraigned on her charges.
The Merced Police Department has also issued a murder warrant for Jackson, who is believed to be on the run after hearing that police were searching his home, where Sophia’s body was found. Jackson is reportedly known to frequent the Bay Area and police are asking for assistance in locating him.
For most of her life, Sophia had been raised primarily in Hayward by her aunt Emerald and her grandmother, although neither of them had formal custody of her. Her mother, meanwhile, bounced around between homes, hotels and homeless shelters in the Bay Area and Southern California, according to relatives.
In January 2021, however, Samantha Johnson removed Sophia from her grandmother’s home and began taking Sophia with her as she moved between the Bay Area and Southern California, according to Emerald Johnson, who said Sophia was unexcused from school for nearly two months. The Hayward Unified School District, where Sophia attended school, did not immediately return requests for comment.
Since her sister took Sophia under her care, Emerald Johnson said that she filed several reports with Alameda County’s Children and Family Services and the Hayward Police Department, including the most recent missing person report, regarding concerns about Sophia’s health and welfare under the supervision of her sister, Samantha Johnson.
Sophia’s aunt Emerald described the 8-year-old girl as “very sweet, very caring and very nurturing.”
“She loved to play with almost anything and loved to dance,” she said. “She’d always want us to watch her sing and dance.”
After Sophia spent an extended period of time with her mom, Emerald Johnson said relatives noticed a decline in her energy level and general demeanor, as well as bruising and scabs on her body.
“She was always such a joy and was so sweet, but there was a huge difference from when she left and when we saw her again,” she said.
Before getting official confirmation on Monday, Sophia’s relatives started a GoFundMe over the weekend for her funeral expenses, as they said they were already “operating under the assumption” that the body found in Merced was Sophia’s.
In addition to mourning and planning services, Harris said the family is also working to ensure that her cousin’s alleged accomplice, Jackson, is apprehended.
“I know this won’t make it right,” Harris said. “Sophia’s gone, but we do want police to find him and bring him to justice.”
Dhante Jackson is wanted in the missing child Sophia Mason case after investigators searched his home and found the body of a child. According to police reports Sophia Mason, who has not been seen since December 2021, mother was arrested on a old charge of child abuse. The mother, Samantha Johnson, would then lead investigators to search the home of Dhante Jackson where a child’s body was found. Police are determining whether or not the body found is that of Sophia Mason. Dhante Jackson is wanted by Merced California police and Samantha Johnson was being held for investigation of murder with murder charges pending.
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A manhunt was under way Saturday for a man wanted in the death of a child whose body was found inside a central California home during the search for a missing 8-year-old girl.
The body was discovered at a home in Merced on Friday, several days after relatives of Sophia Mason told police in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Hayward that they had not had contact with the girl since December, and that she was known to stay at different locations between Hayward and Southern California.
The missing person report led Hayward police to arrest the girl’s mother, Samantha Johnson, 30, on a warrant stemming from a case of child abuse in Alameda County last year, the Merced police department said in a statement Saturday.
Her statements led police to serve a search warrant at the house in Merced, where her 34-year-old boyfriend Dhante Jackson resides, the statement said.
Investigators said they believe Jackson went on the run after news spread about the search of his home.
Merced police said investigators were working to identify the body. They did not release the cause of death.
Johnson was being held for investigation of murder. She will be transferred to the Merced County Jail to face charges, police said.
A warrant was issued for Jackson’s arrest. Police said he is known to frequent the Bay Area
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A 30-year-old Hayward woman, being held for child abuse in Santa Rita jail, was charged with murder along with her boyfriend Saturday hours after she led police to a Merced home where a child’s body was discovered.
Merced police said Samantha Johnson now faces a murder charge along with her boyfriend, 34-year-old Dhante Jackson of Merced, who has Bay Area connections. He remains at large and is the focus of a statewide manhunt.
“Jackson resides at the home where the deceased child was found,” police posted on Facebook. “Soon after news spread about Jackson’s home being searched, he went on the run.”
Meanwhile, the Merced County Coroner’s Office was trying to determine if the child’s body was that of Johnson’s missing 8-year-old daughter, Sophia Mason
Since Tuesday, Hayward police have been searching for Sophia. Johnson was arrested Thursday evening after giving investigators suspicious information regarding her daughter’s whereabouts. She eventually gave Hayward police enough information to have them ask Merced police to check out a home on Barclay Way.
Once inside the home, detectives discovered the body.
“Detectives interviewed Johnson about the deceased child found in the residence that she led police to in the city of Merced,” police posted on Facebook. “Johnson was ultimately arrested for the charge of murder and remains in custody at the Santa Rita Jail. Johnson will be transferred to the Merced County Jail.”
Merced police were asking anyone with any information regarding this incident to contact Detective John Pinnegar at (209)388-7712 or by email at [email protected].
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