Juan Guardado Navarro was 46 years old when he died on Sunday, August 27, 2017, in Van Nuys. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at Friar Street and Van Nuys Boulevard. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Van Nuys Division case.
The coroner's records describe him as a Latino man. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Juan Guardado Navarro has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story, and no news outlet appears to have reported on the death. He surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record. The name Juan Navarro is very common, and searches for it turn up many other men, including one who was arrested in an unrelated federal wildlife case in 2007. None of them is the man who died in Van Nuys.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he was beaten in a fight, attacked by a stranger, assaulted indoors or on the street, or struck by a vehicle, all of which can lead to a finding of blunt force trauma. It does not say what time of day he was hurt, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect. The location given is a street corner rather than a home address, which suggests that he may have been hurt outdoors, on or near one of the busiest streets in the San Fernando Valley.
Van Nuys is one of the oldest communities in the San Fernando Valley and part of the city of Los Angeles. Van Nuys Boulevard runs north and south through its center and has long been its main commercial street, lined with shops, restaurants, auto businesses and offices, and known for decades for its cruising culture. The area around the boulevard also holds the Van Nuys civic center, with city and county government buildings and courthouses.
A street corner near a busy boulevard is a place where people pass at all hours: drivers, bus riders, workers heading home, people waiting outside stores. Someone may have seen an argument or a fight, or a man lying hurt, without knowing that he would die. Businesses along Van Nuys Boulevard commonly have security cameras that may have recorded the street that day. By the mid-2010s Los Angeles was recording roughly 250 to 300 homicides a year, among the lowest totals in decades, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Juan Guardado Navarro 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 was near Friar Street and Van Nuys Boulevard in late August 2017, or who knew Juan and saw him in the days before he died, may hold information that could help detectives. 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.
