Joseph Marcello Rafael was 31 years old when he died on Monday, Oct. 27, 2014, in Pasadena. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma near Mercantile Place and Raymond Avenue. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Pasadena Police Department case.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Joseph Marcello Rafael 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.
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 recorded by the Los Angeles Times is an intersection rather than a street address, which suggests that he may have been found outdoors, but the record does not say so directly.
The name Joseph Rafael is shared by a number of people, and searches for it turned up obituaries for men in Texas, Iowa, Michigan, Connecticut and Northern California, along with historical figures and a magazine employee, none of whom had any connection to a death in Pasadena in 2014. The fuller name, Joseph Marcello Rafael, produced no news coverage, court filings or memorial pages at all. Whoever he was, his life before that October day has not been described anywhere that could be found.
Pasadena is a city of roughly 135,000 people about 10 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, set against the San Gabriel Mountains. It is famous for the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl and is home to the California Institute of Technology and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Raymond Avenue is one of the city's central north-south streets, and the area around it in the middle of Pasadena mixes shops, restaurants, offices, apartments and transit, with people coming and going at most hours of the day and night.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest. When almost no information is released to the public, potential witnesses may never connect a fight or a commotion they noticed with a homicide.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Joseph Marcello Rafael could be found in news archives or public records. More than 11 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Joseph Rafael, or who was near Mercantile Place and Raymond Avenue in Pasadena in late October 2014 and remembers an argument, a fight or a man who was injured, may be able to help. 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 Pasadena Police Department, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
