Makayla Keanna Prenatt was 3 years old when she died on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Huntington Park Police Department case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded her as a Black girl, 3 years old. Unlike most entries in the database, hers lists no street address, no neighborhood and no details of how she was hurt. The only clue to where the case began is the agency that handled it, the police department of the small city of Huntington Park.
A memorial page on Find a Grave records that Makayla was born on November 13, 2014, in Los Angeles, and that she died on December 20, 2017. She was barely three years and one month old. The memorial gives no further details about her family or her short life.
No obituary, news story or family fundraiser could be found. A child of that age would have had parents or caregivers, perhaps relatives, a babysitter or a preschool, and people who remember her laughter and her favorite things, but none of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances of her death remain unknown to the public. The record does not say where she was hurt, who was caring for her at the time, whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect. The death of a young child from blunt force trauma is among the hardest cases a detective can handle. A child cannot describe what happened, and injuries may not be visible at first. Doctors and the medical examiner often must work out when an injury happened, and detectives must then establish who was with the child at that time.
Huntington Park is a small, densely populated city a few miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is known for Pacific Boulevard, a busy shopping street lined with clothing stores, bridal shops and restaurants, and for its blocks of older homes and apartment buildings. Unlike the unincorporated areas around it, the city has its own police department, which investigates homicides within its borders.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Makayla Keanna Prenatt could be found in news archives or public records. More than eight years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Makayla or her family, who cared for her, or who saw anything that worried them in Huntington Park in the weeks before December 20, 2017, may hold information that could help. 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 contact the Huntington Park Police Department, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
