Photo: Facebook
"Today's the day," he told his ex.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Dec 15, 2021
44-year-old, Rajaee Shareef Black, went on Facebook Live Saturday afternoon to talk about his struggles with depression and the custody battle he’s going through with his ex-wife.
Things flew south when he admited to shooting his 41-year-old ex-girlfriend, Tara Labang, and then talked about how his ex-wife, 42-year-old Wendy Natalie Black, is next before he planned to turn the gun on himself.
Jay Black admitted to murdering his ex-girlfriend while on Facebook live.
The Maryland man filmed the clip in front of his ex-wife’s apartment in Columbia, venting his emotions and explaining what led him to these actions — a heated custody battle with his ex-wife.
“Started dating somebody new and she got pregnant,” Jay said, referring to his ex-girlfriend Labang. “You know, we got in a fight and the first thing she does is threatening that she was gonna do the same thing. ‘You’re never gonna see your kids, blah blah blah.”
“I just did something crazy, man,” the Hanover man says on the video. “I just shot my ex-girlfriend in the head, yo. Um, felt like a dream. I never thought I would be that guy.”
He said he didn’t have a lot of time and wanted to make the video quick, saying that he couldn’t go to prison.
Jay Black blamed his ex-wife for his depression.
“The person that really started my depression and all of this is my ex-wife,” Black continued.
“So, she next. And then I’m going to do myself, too. But I just wanted to say this to people: Don’t play with people’s emotions, man. Don’t lie on these men.”
He pauses for mere moments before his ex-wife appears in her doorway, hears him say “Oh, here’s my ex-wife right now,” before quickly rushing back inside as he pans over to her.
The video cuts out when he chases her back inside her housing complex and says “No no no, today’s the day.”
Police said that moments after the video cut out, he murdered his ex-wife and then turned the gun on himself. Authorities said they found his two younger children unhurt in his gray BMW outside.
“Investigators believe Rajaee Black came to Columbia after having just committed a domestic homicide a short time earlier in Baltimore,” Howard County Police Department reported.
According to court records that were obtained by The Baltimore Sun, the Blacks have been tangled in a custody battle since July 2018 with filings nearly every moths since the start of the battle — the most recent one being last Tuesday.
Both Wendy and Jay Black worked as certified registered nurse anesthetists.
Jay has several domestic violence cases listed in online records with the latest one being filed in April of 2020, before being dismissed by a judge who also dismissed a peace order in March 2019.
The two other domestic violence cases were filed in July and September of 2018 but were quickly dropped by the person who filed them — records do not say who filed them.
Court records also show that Wendy had a domestic violence case of her own in October of 2018 but was similarly dropped, and it is unknown who filed it.
Fortunately, the police say that the children did not witness the shooting and have been placed in a “safe environment.”
“This is a terrible, terrible tragedy,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison told reporters near the crime scene. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of these victims.”
Dorothy Lennig, director of the Marjorie Cook Legal Clinic at House of Ruth Maryland, raises questions about how to create better systems that should be used to prevent these domestic violence cases from occurring in the first place.
“People always talk about what she should have done differently. And lots of times the victim did everything she was supposed to do,” Lennig said. “We really need to then look at the abuser for what he did and how do we keep him from abusing.”
She wonders how Jay was able to acquire a gun, or if the people who were handling the custody battle case noticed any abuse coming from Jay’s end — verbal or otherwise.
“It’s just very important that we stay focused on that domestic violence really is dangerous and lethal,” Lennig said. “We have not solved that problem. And not only do we need to look at the physical abuse, we really need to look at coercive control.”
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.