Investigators say shell casings and a recent interview helped connect two defendants to the kidnapping and death of Dasia Allen.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — More than four years after Dasia Allen was found shot to death in north St. Louis, investigators say evidence preserved from the scene and information developed later helped lead them to two people now charged with kidnapping and killing the 25-year-old mother. Kristian Haughton and Jamont Ellis, both 30, face first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping charges.
The case illustrates how a homicide investigation can remain active long after its earliest public clues have stopped producing visible developments. When Allen’s body was found in April 2022, police recovered .40-caliber shell casings near the scene, according to later charging allegations. Authorities now say those casings were ultimately connected with two other incidents, one involving Ellis and another involving Haughton. Investigators also say Haughton acknowledged during a recent police interview that she had been involved in the traffic crash that preceded Allen’s disappearance and had aided Ellis and a third person afterward. Those assertions are allegations contained in the prosecution’s case, not findings by a judge or jury.
The shell-casing evidence offers one explanation for how detectives say they were able to connect a violent episode in March 2022 with defendants charged years later. Public reporting has not disclosed a complete laboratory report, the identity of every firearm examined or the dates on which the ballistic comparisons were completed. Police have also not publicly said that any one recovered casing proves which person fired a particular shot. Instead, the charging allegations describe the forensic links as part of a wider investigation that also included the circumstances of a traffic crash, the movement of Allen’s vehicle, the burning of that vehicle and statements obtained by detectives.
Allen’s case had begun with far less information. In spring 2022, relatives knew she had left her home and then stopped communicating with them. Early local reporting said she went out to shop and never returned. Her white 2005 Mercury Montego was later found burned in north St. Louis. Her family offered a reward and appealed publicly for information while police treated her as a missing person. More than a week after she vanished, Allen’s family and friends found her body near Scranton Avenue and Riverview Drive. Police then announced that the search had become a homicide investigation, but the detailed kidnapping scenario now alleged by authorities was not part of the public account at the time.
The version described in the 2026 charging documents begins with an apparently unrelated traffic incident. Investigators say Allen was out buying diapers for her infant daughter when she was involved in a crash near Riverview Drive and Chain of Rocks Drive on March 30, 2022. Haughton allegedly was driving the other vehicle. Ellis and Denzel Williams were passengers, according to authorities. Police say Ellis and Williams got out carrying guns, approached Allen and then entered her Mercury. Authorities allege the men drove away with Allen still inside and held her at gunpoint. No publicly reviewed report identifies any prior relationship between Allen and the three people investigators say were in the other vehicle.
Rather than ending at the crash scene, police say the encounter continued across St. Louis. Haughton allegedly left the vehicle she had been driving and later arranged to meet Ellis and Williams. Investigators say the men were then traveling in Allen’s car and that Allen was believed to remain inside. Authorities contend Haughton joined them and that the vehicles moved through the city before Allen’s car was abandoned and burned about two hours after the original collision. Fire investigators concluded the blaze was arson, according to local reporting. The charging documents do not publicly establish the precise location or time at which Allen was shot, leaving a gap in the chronology prosecutors may have to address as the case advances.
The homicide scene supplied evidence that would remain relevant years later. Allen had been shot multiple times when she was found April 9, 2022. A police officer used the phrase “frenzied execution” in describing the killing in court records. The wording is an officer’s characterization of the shooting and should not be read as a judicial conclusion about how the crime occurred. Investigators recovered the .40-caliber casings nearby and continued working the case. Public reports reviewed for this story do not reveal whether DNA, fingerprints, phone records, surveillance video or other forms of evidence also contributed to the eventual charges. Their absence from the public account does not establish that such evidence does or does not exist.
Another significant development came from Haughton’s contact with detectives, according to authorities. Police say she admitted being part of the crash and helping Ellis and Williams afterward. The reports do not provide the complete wording of what she allegedly said or describe the circumstances of the interview in enough detail to evaluate it independently. Haughton was arrested July 27 with FBI assistance. She was then charged alongside Ellis. At the time the new counts were announced, Ellis was already in custody on separate weapons and narcotics matters. No publicly reviewed record establishes that either defendant has been convicted of any offense arising from Allen’s death.
Williams, the third person named in the police narrative, died in an unrelated homicide in St. Louis County in 2023. Authorities have said potential charges involving him in the Allen case would be abated because he is dead. That leaves prosecutors with two living defendants and a case built around events that occurred more than four years before the charges were filed. The available reports do not assign the fatal gunfire to a specific defendant, and they do not identify a publicly confirmed motive. Prosecutors may not need to prove every participant performed the same act to pursue certain charges, but the exact legal theory to be presented at later proceedings was not fully detailed in the reports reviewed.
The length of the investigation is one of the central facts of the case. Allen was 25 when she died. Her relatives spent the first days after her disappearance searching for her while the public knew little beyond the burned car and the sudden loss of contact. The homicide inquiry then continued for years without the arrests now described by police. By July 2026, authorities were publicly linking evidence from the original scene with incidents involving Ellis and Haughton and pointing to Haughton’s alleged statements as additional support. The charges therefore mark a transition from an investigative theory assembled over time to allegations that prosecutors will have to test in court under the rules of criminal procedure and evidence.
That transition is not the same as a determination of guilt. Police and prosecutors can describe evidence in charging documents, but defense attorneys may challenge the meaning, reliability or admissibility of that evidence. A ballistic association, for example, does not by itself answer every question about possession or use of a firearm, and an alleged statement by a defendant must be considered in its full legal and factual context. The publicly available reporting does not provide those future arguments. It establishes only that authorities now accuse Haughton and Ellis of participating in Allen’s kidnapping, robbery and death and believe the evidence developed during the investigation supports the charges.
Haughton was initially reported as being held without bond, and early coverage listed an Aug. 27 preliminary hearing date. No reliable later report reviewed for this update confirmed the outcome of that scheduled hearing or a final disposition in either case. Allen’s killing therefore remains the subject of pending criminal allegations based on the public information available. Haughton and Ellis are presumed innocent unless and until prosecutors prove the charges against them in court.
Author note: Last updated Sept. 8, 2026.