Melvin Odir Flores Vasquez was 37 years old when he died on Wednesday, December 28, 2016. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case assigned to its Mission Hills division. Unlike most entries in the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, his gives no street address and no neighborhood for where he was hurt or where he died.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report listed him as a Latino man. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Melvin Odir Flores Vasquez 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. Flores and Vasquez are both very common surnames, and the many records for men named Melvin Vasquez belong to people in other states or cannot be tied to him. His distinctive middle name, Odir, does not appear in any other public record found for this story.
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 missing location makes his case harder to picture than most. The assignment to the LAPD's Mission Hills division indicates that the case belonged to the department's Mission Area, which is based in Mission Hills and patrols part of the northeast San Fernando Valley. That is the only geographic clue the public record provides.
The northeast San Fernando Valley is a region of working-class neighborhoods, busy commercial boulevards, small businesses and family homes, set against the San Gabriel Mountains.
He died three days after Christmas, during the holiday season, when many families gather. At 37, he may have had parents, siblings, a partner or children who were expecting to spend those days with him. Someone among them, or among the people he worked or lived with, may know where he was in the days before he died and who he was with.
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 Melvin Odir Flores Vasquez could be found in news archives or public records. More than nine years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Melvin Odir Flores Vasquez, or who heard about an assault in the northeast San Fernando Valley in late December 2016, 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.
