Background: Nicole Cunigan Jr. after his guilty verdict in his murder trial (WHIO). Insets, left to right: Precious Taste (Thomas Funeral Home) and Deante Johnson (WHIO).
A jury in Ohio convicted a 33-year-old man for murdering his pregnant ex-girlfriend and a 16-year-old boy because he was jealous that she may be seeing another man.
Nicole “Nico” Cunigan was found guilty of 10 counts, including murder and felonious assault in the deaths of 32-year-old Precious Taste, their unborn child and 16-year-old Deante Johnson.
Cunigan around 6 a.m. on May 22, 2024, busted into Taste”s Dayton home with her children inside and opened fire, gunning down Taste and Johnson, who was a family friend. Prosecutors said Cunigan shot Taste to death as she ran down the stairs while Johnson was found dead in a bed under some covers, according to a courtroom report from local CBS affiliate WHIO. An adult and Taste’s then-4-year-old twins were in the home at the time but not physically injured.
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The suspect went on the run until he was arrested some two months later in Cleveland.
Taste was about four months pregnant but the relationship with Cunigan had soured. After they broke up, Cunigan became obsessive, prosecutors said, WHIO reported.
The now-convicted murderer sent a slew of texts to Taste that were threatening in nature.
“There’s a text message, ‘I’m watching your every movement. You better not touch anyone else,'” Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Anthony Schoen said during closing arguments.
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Johnson’s family was left devastated, especially since he had nothing to do with the beef between Cunigan and Taste.
“Why go after a 16-year-old that you didn’t even know?” his mother Jennifer Louis said in an interview with WHIO about two weeks after the shooting. “… People will never be the same anymore, we won’t. We can try to make it better, but we will never be the same.”
After the verdict, Taste’s mother had tears streaming down her face. She said she was happy she received justice, but it doesn’t bring her daughter back.
“The kids still don’t have a mother so it’s been very rough,” she told the TV station.
Cunigan is slated to be sentenced on Aug. 29.
