‘We will never be the same;’ Mother of teen killed in double homicide speaks out on son’s killing

DAYTON — The mother of a 16-year-old boy killed in a double shooting in Dayton last month is speaking out for the first time about his death.

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Deante Johnson was shot and killed on May 22 in a shooting on Shaftesbury Road. The shooting also killed 32-year-old Precious Taste, who was four months pregnant at the time.

Nearly two weeks after the shooting, Johnson’s mother still has questions that she wants answered.

“Why go after a 16-year-old that you didn’t even know?” Jennifer Louis asked.

As reported on News Center 7 at 6:00, Louis said it wasn’t unusual for her son to be at Taste’s home.

“He’s friends with the family. We all go back and forth to each other’s houses, go visit,” Louis said.

She emphasized her son did not know Nicole “Nico” Cunigan, Jr., whom police have accused of the killings.

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“He didn’t know Nico at all,” she said. “Nico had just got out of jail. I don’t even know Nico.”

Louis believes her 16-year-old son should never have been killed. He had just wrapped up his freshman year at Trotwood High School, a school he loved.

“He liked fashion. He liked clothes. That was a school he could go to and dress to a 10,” Louis recalled.

She said Deante, who she called “Day-Day,” was someone people, especially kids, gravitated to. Louis said Cunigan didn’t care about any of that when he allegedly shot and killed her son.

“I’m 100 percent sure Nico was on rage, he was enraged,” she said.

Louis said Nico spent the overnight before going around town trying to track Taste, who he shared 4-year-old twins with, down. When he broke into a side window of Taste’s home, he killed her and her unborn son, as well as Johnson, with no explanation.

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“He needs to be in a cage somewhere,” she said about Cunigan, who remains on the run.

Now, Johnson’s family and friends are left to deal with his loss.

“People will never be the same anymore, we won’t. We can try to make it better, but we will never be the same,” she said.

News Center 7′s Mike Campbell reached out to Dayton Police about their efforts to arrest Cunigan. They could not confirm rumors that searches had been carried out in Dayton and Springfield. They also declined to comment on if the U.S. Marshals are helping in the search.

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