Paula Torres, a 44-year-old Latina woman, was found dead on January 1, 2010, at a home in the 1600 block of East 108th Street in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Los Angeles County coroner’s officials listed the cause of death as strangulation. Her body and the body of her husband, Jose Torres, 44, were discovered shortly after 1 p.m. by their daughter, who called 911 after finding them.
Initial accounts to police included a statement from the daughter that her father had shot her mother and then himself, but the coroner’s report indicates Paula Torres died of strangulation. The Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau Homicide handled the investigation. Media accounts from the time reported authorities were investigating the circumstances and motive for the deaths, but did not detail arrests, charges, or a confirmed perpetrator other than those initial statements.
Publicly available records and contemporary news coverage do not show any arrest, charge, conviction, or formal closing of the investigation in Paula Torres’s death. The case was recorded by the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report as a death by strangulation and noted the LAPD South Bureau Homicide as the investigating agency. Contemporary local reporting described the incident as an apparent murder-suicide based on family statements, but the coroner’s finding and police investigation details left key questions about the events and motive publicly unresolved.
As of the sources reviewed, the death of Paula Torres remains unsolved in the public record with no reported arrest or conviction; anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Los Angeles Police Department South Bureau Homicide.
