Amari Findley was an infant girl, less than a year old, when she died on Monday, June 30, 2014, in the Chesterfield Square neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 1818 W. 71st Street. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Juvenile Division.
The coroner's records list her age as zero, which means she had not yet reached her first birthday. Beyond her name, her age and the address where she died, almost nothing about Amari 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 her death. A baby so young had no life outside her family and the people who cared for her, and whatever is remembered about her lives with them.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances of her death remain unknown to the public. The record does not say how she was injured, who was with her, whether she was hurt at the address on 71st Street or brought there, whether she died at home or later at a hospital, or whether investigators ever identified anyone they believed was responsible. The assignment of the case to the Juvenile Division, rather than to a regular homicide unit, reflects that the victim was a child; the record says nothing more about what detectives found.
The death of an infant from blunt force trauma is among the hardest kinds of cases to investigate. There are rarely outside witnesses, the injuries may not be discovered right away, and medical experts must work to establish when and how a child was hurt. Cases like these can stay open for years while investigators and prosecutors weigh the medical evidence.
Chesterfield Square is a small residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, made up largely of single-family homes and small apartment buildings on tree-lined blocks, with busier commercial streets at its edges. Like many South Los Angeles neighborhoods, it is a place where families have lived for decades and where neighbors often know who lives on their block. People who lived near 71st Street in 2014 may remember the household, the arrival of emergency vehicles, or things they heard in the days before.
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 an infant girl in Chesterfield Square received only a brief entry in the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, and no further reporting on it could be found.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Amari Findley 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 lived on or near West 71st Street in Chesterfield Square in June 2014, or who knew Amari and the people who cared for her, 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.
