The brief life of Baby Boy Perez came to an end on Monday, March 26, 2001, in the city of Inglewood. The newborn child, identified in county coroner records as a Hispanic male who was zero years old, died at or near a residential property located at 433 Edgewood Avenue. The address sits in a dense neighborhood lined with multi-family apartment buildings and single-family houses just north of Manchester Boulevard and west of Centinela Hospital Medical Center.
Emergency responders and investigators from the Inglewood Police Department were called to the scene to handle the report of an unresponsive infant. Medical personnel were unable to revive the newborn, and his death was officially documented by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner. Officials listed his cause of death under the broad category of other, and specific physical trauma or clinical findings regarding the precise manner of his death were not made public.
The year 2001 was marked by widespread violent crime throughout urban communities in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, where homicide detectives were frequently overwhelmed with caseloads driven by street violence, family disputes, and domestic tragedies. Yet cases involving newborn children and abandoned infants posed distinct emotional challenges for law enforcement officers, forensic pathologists, and neighborhood residents alike. Investigating officers were tasked with tracing the origins of the infant, identifying the biological parents, and determining whether the child had been neglected, abandoned, or subjected to fatal abuse.
Despite initial investigative steps taken by the Inglewood Police Department, public details about the inquiry remained virtually nonexistent. Authorities did not release the identities of any suspects or persons of interest, nor did they disclose whether the infant had been born in a medical facility or delivered outside of hospital care. The surname Perez was attached to the coroner case file, but investigators never publicly announced criminal charges, arrests, or convictions related to the child's demise.
Decades after his death on Edgewood Avenue, the case of Baby Boy Perez remains classified as an unsolved homicide. Without surviving family members coming forward with public statements or memorials, the child exists in official archives primarily as a recorded statistic among the region's unsolved fatalities. Detectives with the Inglewood Police Department continue to seek any information from members of the public who may recall the events of late March 2001 or have knowledge regarding the mother and family of the infant.
