Police say Chyna Crawford was kidnapped in 2023, shot to death and robbed, but her body still has not been found.
WASHINGTON D.C. — police have now charged five people in the killing of Chyna Crawford, a 25-year-old Southwest woman who disappeared in October 2023, closing a long stretch of public uncertainty in a case that began as a missing-person investigation and grew into a homicide case.
The latest charges were announced this week after investigators added three more suspects to a case that had already produced two arrests over the past two years. Police say Crawford was last seen about 10 p.m. on Oct. 23, 2023, in the 4000 block of South Capitol Street in Southwest. She was reported missing three days later. Authorities now say she was kidnapped, robbed and killed, and prosecutors have laid out a broader conspiracy that they say involved multiple adults, stolen property and Crawford’s Mercedes-Benz.
The newest defendant, 24-year-old Niquan Odumn of Southeast Washington, was charged Friday with first-degree murder while armed under a felony-murder theory, armed carjacking and armed robbery. Police said he was charged at the D.C. jail and then remanded back to the custody of the Department of Corrections. A day earlier, homicide detectives charged Deionta Person, 28, and Tyjuan McNeal, 29, both of Southeast, with the same offenses. Those charges followed the earlier arrests of Lashawn Washington in March 2024 and Bjarni Cooper in January 2026. Together, the five defendants now form the core of what police and prosecutors describe as the group responsible for Crawford’s disappearance and death.
Police first announced the case as a suspicious disappearance. Crawford, who lived in Southwest, was reported missing on Oct. 26, 2023, after relatives and friends could not find her. Detectives in the Missing Persons Unit found enough troubling evidence early on that the case was shifted to homicide investigators, a move that signaled police believed something more serious had happened. Court records unsealed later said Crawford was kidnapped from her apartment area, forced into her own Mercedes and driven away. Prosecutors say Washington drove the vehicle with Crawford inside, and Cooper was also in the car. When the vehicle returned, prosecutors allege, Crawford was no longer with them. Authorities later said she had been fatally shot. Her remains have not been recovered.
Investigators say the killing did not end with Crawford’s disappearance. According to court records described by prosecutors, members of the group returned to her apartment and stole property that included her phone, keys, laptop, jewelry, designer clothing and other luxury items. The allegations describe the theft as organized rather than random. Prosecutors say the stolen goods were later divided up at another residence in the District and that Crawford’s Mercedes was cleaned and sold. The charging documents also describe the killing as part of a wider criminal conspiracy. Reporting on the case has cited prosecutors as saying the violence may have been connected to an ongoing neighborhood feud or gang-related conflict, though police have also said the precise motive remains unclear. “We’re unsure of the motivation or the motive,” D.C. police Cmdr. Kevin Kentish told NBC Washington, adding that investigators believe the killing appeared planned.
The case unfolded in stages, and for Crawford’s relatives it became a public search for answers as months passed without a body and with only limited details released by authorities. Washington, 32, of Southeast, was the first person arrested, on March 26, 2024, after being indicted on charges including first-degree felony murder, kidnapping and obstruction of justice. For many months, that was the only public arrest. Then the case accelerated this year. Cooper, 31, of Northeast, was arrested Jan. 29 and charged with first-degree felony murder, conspiracy, armed carjacking and armed robbery. This week brought the addition of Person, McNeal and Odumn, giving investigators five charged defendants in all. Washington, Cooper, McNeal, Person and Odumn have all pleaded not guilty, according to published reports on the case.
The arrests also drew attention because several of the newly charged men were already in custody on unrelated cases when homicide investigators moved against them. Reporting on the indictments said McNeal and Odumn had been implicated in a federal firearms case tied to a December 2023 pawn shop robbery outside Baltimore in which 34 guns were stolen. Odumn later pleaded guilty to theft and stolen-firearms charges and received a two-year prison sentence. McNeal pleaded guilty in the firearms-trafficking case and is serving an 84-month sentence. Person, according to reporting on the new charges, has been incarcerated since last summer on a firearms conviction. Those overlapping cases gave investigators access to records, jail locations and, potentially, witnesses as the Crawford investigation continued to develop.
For Crawford’s family, the new charges have brought a measure of relief without ending the case’s deepest pain. “On behalf of my family, I can honestly say that we are happy that evil people are now in custody,” her aunt, Nakeshia Arrington, told NBC Washington. But the family has also said the lack of a recovered body leaves a major wound. Without Crawford’s remains, many of the details of her final moments are still known only through records, testimony and whatever evidence investigators gathered from phones, surveillance video and witness interviews. Kentish said investigators relied on cellphone evidence, video evidence and information presented to a grand jury. Police have not publicly detailed where Crawford was shot, where her body may have been taken, or whether additional charges could follow for other people mentioned in the broader conspiracy.
The legal case is now moving from arrests to court proceedings. Police said the latest charges were brought through a D.C. Superior Court indictment and booking orders, showing that prosecutors had already put substantial evidence before a grand jury before the newest defendants were formally charged. A hearing for all five defendants is scheduled in D.C. Superior Court on April 15. That proceeding is expected to be the next major public step in a case that has stretched from a missing-person report to a murder prosecution spanning nearly 2½ years. Investigators have said the case remains active, which leaves open the possibility of more evidence becoming public later, especially on motive, the location of Crawford’s remains and whether any juvenile suspects or uncharged adults will face additional consequences.
For now, the case stands at a stark point: five people have been charged, prosecutors say Crawford was killed, and the woman at the center of the case is still missing. The next milestone is the April 15 court hearing, where the status of the charges and the path toward trial are expected to come into clearer view.
Author note: Last updated April 4, 2026.