DAYTON — The Montgomery County Coroner’s Office has identified the woman and girl found dead in a home on Burleigh Avenue last Thursday.
Aisha Nelson, 31, and Harper Monroe, 6, both of Dayton, were identified Wednesday morning. Their cause and manner of death have not been determined by the coroner’s office.
>>PHOTOS: Homicide investigation on Burleigh Ave.
About 11 a.m. Thursday, police were dispatched to the 300 block of Burleigh Avenue on a call from a woman asking police to check on a person who lives in the home, dispatch records indicate.
“I need somebody to come do a wellness check. My son dropped my granddaughter off last night, and I just came over here and he’s not here. My granddaughter said they were fighting,” the caller said in a 911 call obtained in a News Center 7 public records request.
Once officers arrived, they found the mother and daughter on the floor in the basement, deceased. They had been shot. Maj. Jason Hall said that discovery prompted police to launch a double homicide investigation.
Hall said police did respond to the home earlier that day, around midnight, on reports of a domestic dispute that according to police was over a Play Station 5. A report was not filed and no arrests were made, according to Hall.
Police believed the homicide occurred sometime between 3 and 4 a.m.
Police were investigating Waverly Dante Rashad Hawes, 32, as the suspect. Hawes was identified as Nelson’s boyfriend for more than a year.
Sometime Thursday, Hawes was found dead in Falkville, Alabama, suffering from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Morgan County Coroner Jeff Chunn told The Decatur Daily in Falkville. Police in Falkville and Morgan County sheriff’s deputies located Hawes and his vehicle, through pings to his mobile phone GPS, the newspaper reported.
Hawes, who did not have a lengthy criminal history, also had a 9-year-old daughter who was also in the house during the domestic dispute. She was not injured, Hall said. According to Dayton police, Hawes, the Nelson and the children lived together.
Hall told News Center 7 police had not responded to any other domestic disputes at the Burleigh Avenue address.
Dayton police tell News Center 7 the case is not yet closed because detectives are continuing their follow-up investigation.
If you have information that can help Dayton police, you are asked to call the department at 937-333-COPS or Miami Valley Crime Stoppers at 937-222-STOP.
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