Maurlan Janet Mcfield was 61 years old when she died on Monday, June 11, 2018, in the Exposition Park area of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 3947 S. Western Avenue. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department South Bureau Homicide case.
The coroner's records describe her as a Black woman in her early 60s. Few details of her life have been made public. No obituary, family fundraiser or news story about her death could be found. A local news website later listed her among people who died in a hospital, which suggests she may have been taken for treatment before she died, but it gives no further details.
Her death did not go unnoticed at City Hall. In August 2018, Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mitchell Englander introduced a motion for a city reward "for information leading to the identification, apprehension, and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the death of Maurlan McField on June 11, 2018." The Public Safety Committee recommended it, and on September 12, 2018, the full City Council adopted the reward. In doing so, the council made a formal finding that the death "was caused by the willful misconduct of one or more persons." A reward of this kind is generally meant to persuade a reluctant witness to come forward. The council documents do not say how the attack happened.
Western Avenue is one of the longest streets in Los Angeles, running north and south for miles through Hollywood, Koreatown and South Los Angeles. In this stretch it is a busy commercial corridor lined with small businesses, churches, gas stations and apartment buildings. The Exposition Park neighborhood takes its name from the park a short distance to the east, home to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Natural History Museum and the California Science Center. The address in the record is a street number on Western Avenue, which suggests that she may have been hurt at or near a business or building on that block, but that is only an inference.
Los Angeles recorded about 260 homicides a year in 2018 and 2019, among the lowest yearly totals in more than half a century, yet many of those killings still went unsolved. The reward offered in her case shows that detectives were looking for help from the public within weeks of her death.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Maurlan Janet Mcfield could be found in news archives or public records. More than seven years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Maurlan, or who was on Western Avenue near the 3900 block in South Los Angeles around June 11, 2018, may hold information that could help, and a city reward was offered for information leading to a conviction. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
