Prayoon Tharnvisai was 72 years old when he died on Thursday, November 17, 2016. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma, and his death was ruled a homicide. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, which listed his death, gives no address or neighborhood for where he was hurt and does not name the agency that investigated it.
He was an Asian man in his early 70s, an age at which even a single blow or a fall during an assault can prove fatal. Beyond his name and his age, almost nothing about Prayoon 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. Public-records directories list a man named Prayoon Tharnvisai, born in 1944, at an address on Rosemont Avenue in Los Angeles, in the 90026 ZIP code that covers Echo Park and neighboring areas, and one of those directories marks him as deceased. The name is uncommon, and the birth year fits his age, which suggests these listings may refer to him. But no public record confirms it, and nothing says whether he was hurt at home or somewhere else.
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 is itself unusual. Most entries in the Homicide Report give at least a block or an intersection, and the absence of one here may mean the details were never released, or that he was injured somewhere other than where he died. If the Rosemont Avenue listings do refer to him, he lived in an older, hilly part of the city northwest of downtown, a neighborhood of bungalows, small apartment buildings and long-time residents, close to Echo Park Lake and Dodger Stadium. Neighbors in such a place often notice when an older man stops appearing on the street.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest. Deaths of older people from blunt force injuries are among the hardest to explain from outside, because the record rarely says whether a stranger, an acquaintance or someone close to the victim was involved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Prayoon Tharnvisai 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 Prayoon, or who knows what happened to him in November 2016, 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 leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS or contact the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500.
