Khachik Surmabukhian was 65 years old when he died on Wednesday, December 21, 2016, in Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 18707 Roscoe Boulevard. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the department's Valley Bureau Homicide unit.
He was a white man in his mid-60s, just days before Christmas. Beyond his name, his age and the address where he died, almost nothing about Khachik 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 his death. He surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
There is one small thread. Business directories list a man named Khachik Surmabukhian as the principal of a smoke shop called Ahk Cigarettes Plus at 18535 Roscoe Boulevard, a short distance along the same boulevard from the address in the coroner's record, and property listings show a man of that name as a homeowner on Arminta Street in the western San Fernando Valley. The name is uncommon, which suggests these listings may well refer to him, but no public record confirms it, and nothing says whether he was at work, at a business or somewhere else when he was hurt.
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.
Northridge is a largely residential community in the northwest San Fernando Valley, best known as the home of California State University, Northridge, and as the namesake of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Roscoe Boulevard is one of the Valley's long east-west thoroughfares, lined with strip malls, gas stations, small family businesses and apartment buildings, and carrying heavy traffic at most hours of the day. A violent death at a street address on a busy commercial boulevard is the kind of event that passing drivers, shopkeepers and customers might have noticed without realizing what they had seen.
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. The death of a 65-year-old man from blunt force injuries on a major Valley boulevard received only a brief entry in the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Khachik Surmabukhian 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 was on Roscoe Boulevard in Northridge in December 2016, who did business along that stretch, or who knew Khachik 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.
