Dietrich Emiehl Volkland was 51 years old when he died on Wednesday, January 11, 2017, in Quartz Hill, in the Antelope Valley of northern Los Angeles County. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 4817 West Avenue L6. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report listed him as a white man. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Dietrich Emiehl Volkland 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. His name is a rare one. A handful of older public records carry the name Dietrich Volkland, but none of them can be tied with confidence to the man who died in Quartz Hill, so they are left out of this account.
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 coroner's records give a specific house number, which suggests the death was connected to a residence on Avenue L6. That is an inference only. The record does not say whether he lived at that address, whether he was visiting, or whether he was hurt somewhere else.
Quartz Hill is an unincorporated community in the high desert, west of Lancaster and Palmdale. Like the rest of the Antelope Valley, it is laid out on a grid of lettered avenues running east and west and numbered streets running north and south, and much of it is made up of single-family homes on large lots, with open desert and the foothills of the mountains nearby.
At 51, Dietrich Emiehl Volkland would have been known to someone, whether neighbors on his street, coworkers, old friends or relatives. In a community the size of Quartz Hill, people often notice when someone is missing from his usual places, and someone may remember what was happening at that home in the days before January 11, 2017.
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 Dietrich Emiehl Volkland 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 Dietrich Emiehl Volkland, or who was near the 4800 block of West Avenue L6 in Quartz Hill in January 2017, may hold information that could help investigators. 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 Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
