On the evening of November 12, 2013, 45-year-old Jinmei Chen was found dead inside a home in the 500 block of East Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel. According to coroner and law-enforcement records, friends who had not heard from her checked on Chen and located her body in a bedroom; she was pronounced dead at 5:39 p.m. Reports from the Los Angeles County coroner and investigators indicate Chen appeared to have been assaulted and died of asphyxiation/strangulation.
Chen was a 45-year-old Chinese woman who lived alone in the residence where she was found. Investigators with the San Gabriel Police Department were assisted by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau in the death investigation. Detectives noted there was no obvious sign of forced entry into the home, a detail that led police to suggest the possibility she may have known her attacker. A search warrant was obtained and investigators processed the scene as part of the homicide probe.
Local news outlets reported the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau handling the case and appealed to the public for information. Law-enforcement contact information released in initial reports asked anyone with information to call the Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 890-5500, and Crime Stoppers at 222-8477. Chinese-language outlets also covered the case and noted Chen had been in the U.S. for a short time prior to her death.
As of the most recent contemporaneous reporting, the killing remains an active unsolved homicide with no public announcement of an arrest or charges. Anyone with information was asked to contact the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau or Crime Stoppers as listed above.
