Dasia Allen vanished during a shopping trip in 2022, leaving relatives to search before investigators uncovered an alleged kidnapping.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Before police accused anyone of kidnapping Dasia Allen, her family knew only that the 25-year-old mother had gone out to shop, stopped answering calls and never came home. They searched for her, offered a reward and asked strangers for help. Four years later, authorities say they can explain much more of what happened: Allen was allegedly taken at gunpoint after a traffic crash and killed, and two people now face charges in her death.
The new case against Kristian Haughton and Jamont Ellis changes the public understanding of Allen’s disappearance from the one her family confronted in spring 2022. Haughton and Ellis, both 30, have been charged with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping. Investigators allege that Allen’s ordinary trip to buy diapers for her infant daughter put her on the road near Riverview Drive and Chain of Rocks Drive, where she collided with another vehicle on March 30, 2022. What followed, police now say, was not simply a crash or unexplained disappearance but a forced abduction involving Haughton, Ellis and another man, Denzel Williams.
In the first days, Allen’s relatives did not have that account. Local reporting said she had left her home in north St. Louis and failed to return. She did not contact family or friends. Her 2005 Mercury Montego was found burned in the 700 block of Thrush Avenue, creating an alarming clue but providing no public answer about where Allen herself had gone. Her relatives offered $5,000 for information. Her mother made an emotional appeal for her daughter’s return. Police released information about Allen’s appearance and vehicle as detectives and loved ones tried to retrace a trip that should have been brief.
Those early reports preserve how little was known at the time. There was no public allegation that armed men had entered Allen’s car. There was no announced theory involving another vehicle or a group traveling through St. Louis. The focus was simply on finding Allen alive. Her family, friends and police continued looking for more than a week. On April 9, relatives and friends searching near Scranton Avenue and Riverview Drive found her body. Police Chief John Hayden said the discovery had turned the missing-person case into an active homicide investigation. Later records would say Allen had been shot multiple times. The search for a missing mother had become a search for whoever was responsible for her death.
Years later, charging documents supplied the detailed scenario that investigators now believe explains the crucial hours after Allen left home. Police say Haughton was driving the vehicle involved in the crash with Allen and that Ellis and Williams were passengers. After the collision, Ellis and Williams allegedly got out armed with guns and approached Allen. They then entered Allen’s Mercury and drove away with her still inside, authorities allege. Police say she was being held at gunpoint. Haughton allegedly abandoned the other vehicle and later arranged to meet the men. Investigators contend that Allen remained captive while the group moved around St. Louis.
About two hours after the original crash, Allen’s Mercury was discovered on fire, according to the charging account. Fire investigators concluded the blaze was arson. The burning of the car, which had been one of the most troubling facts available to Allen’s family during the initial search, now forms part of a broader prosecution theory. Authorities allege the car was not merely abandoned after Allen vanished but was burned after the kidnapping. Police have not publicly identified a motive for taking Allen, and the reports reviewed do not describe any established prior relationship between her and the people charged. Investigators also have not publicly fixed the exact time when Allen was killed.
Allen’s body was found in a vacant or wooded area near Scranton Avenue and Riverview Drive. Court records say she had been shot multiple times, and an officer characterized the shooting as a “frenzied execution.” The phrase appeared in the official account but does not resolve which person prosecutors contend fired the fatal shots. Investigators recovered .40-caliber cartridge casings near the scene. Authorities later said those casings could be associated with two separate incidents, one involving Ellis and another involving Haughton. The public reports do not disclose enough forensic detail to establish how those comparisons were made or what additional evidence may have supported the charging decisions.
Police say another piece of the case came from Haughton herself. During a recent interview, investigators allege, Haughton admitted being involved in the crash and helping Ellis and Williams afterward. A complete transcript of that interview was not available in the reporting reviewed, and the allegation has not been tested at trial. Haughton was arrested July 27 with assistance from the FBI. Ellis was already incarcerated on unrelated weapons and narcotics violations when authorities announced the new case. Their charges represent the prosecution’s allegations about the events surrounding Allen’s death; neither defendant has been convicted in connection with the killing.
Williams will never face a court proceeding in the case. Police say he was killed in an unrelated incident in St. Louis County in 2023. Authorities said charges connected to Allen’s death would be abated because Williams is dead. His death leaves unanswered questions about what evidence he might have provided or contested and focuses the prosecution on Haughton and Ellis. The public account does not say whether investigators believe one defendant, both defendants or Williams fired the shots. It also does not explain why an alleged confrontation following a traffic crash escalated into kidnapping and homicide. Those remain important gaps in the publicly established narrative.
For Allen’s family, the charges came years after the most visible phase of their search had ended. In 2022, they were asking the public for information about a missing woman. By 2026, police were presenting a chronology that placed Allen in a crash, then in her own car under armed control, followed by the burning of that vehicle and the discovery of her body. The four-year interval between those moments is not explained in full by the released reports. Authorities have not publicly laid out when they identified each suspect, when the ballistic links were established or what development caused the case to reach the charging stage in July.
The distinction between those allegations and proven facts will now be central. Charging documents can describe what police and prosecutors believe occurred, but the government must prove its case through the legal process. Defense lawyers can contest the evidence, challenge witness accounts and question whether prosecutors can establish each element of each charge. The available coverage does not document those arguments yet. What it does establish is that a disappearance once defined by uncertainty now has a formal prosecution attached to it, one that accuses Haughton and Ellis of participating in the abduction and killing of a mother whose relatives initially had no idea why she had not returned home.
Early reports said Haughton was being held without bond and that a preliminary hearing had been scheduled for Aug. 27. The reliable material reviewed for this update did not confirm the result of that scheduled proceeding or identify a later final disposition. No trial outcome has been publicly verified in the sources reviewed. Haughton and Ellis therefore remain accused, not convicted, in Allen’s death, and the unresolved questions surrounding the final hours of her life are now matters for the continuing criminal process.
Author note: Last updated Sept. 8, 2026.