On Feb. 20, 2011, Janet Marie Hays, 54, was found dead at a convalescent/medical facility in the 200 block of West Badillo Street in Covina. Paramedics were summoned after a call to the facility about 11:30 p.m.; she was pronounced dead at the scene. Preliminary reports and later coroner findings listed strangulation/asphyxia by neck compression as the cause of death, and the death was ultimately ruled a homicide by the coroner's office.
Hays was a 54-year-old white woman who had been at the medical facility since Jan. 5, 2011, recovering from a broken hip. Records note that she had previously attempted to jump in front of a bus 11 days before her death. Covina Police handled the investigation; initial public statements were made by a Covina police sergeant and investigators, who described the investigation as active and ongoing in the weeks after her death.
Investigators asked the public for any information that might assist the case. At the time of the coroner's update in January 2012 the manner was changed from a possible suicide to homicide, confirming that Hays died from asphyxia by neck compression. There is no public record in the sources reviewed of an arrest, charge, conviction, guilty plea, or announcement that the case was closed. As of the most recent reporting available in the case record I reviewed, the homicide remains unsolved.
Anyone with information referenced in the public record was asked to contact the Covina Police Department detective assigned to the case or to call Crime Stoppers; the original public notice listed Det. Dan Regan and Crime Stoppers as contact points for tips.
