Benjamin James Pierfax died on Thursday, May 29, 2014, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma near Sixth and Crocker streets. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Division.
The coroner's records describe him as a Black man, 59 years old. A memorial listing posted by Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall, in the Santa Clarita Valley, gives his dates as February 1, 1959, to May 29, 2014, the same day recorded by the coroner. Those dates would have made him 55 rather than 59, and the public record does not explain the difference. The listing shows that someone arranged for his care after his death, which suggests that he had family or friends who looked after him at the end, but it offers no details about his life, his work or the people who loved him. No news story, family fundraiser or longer obituary could be found.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances of his death remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he was beaten in a fight, attacked by a stranger, hurt during a robbery 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 corner of Sixth and Crocker streets lies in the heart of Skid Row, the part of downtown Los Angeles that has for generations held one of the largest concentrations of homeless people in the United States. Its blocks are lined with missions, shelters, single-room-occupancy hotels and service agencies, and many people live in tents and makeshift shelters on the sidewalks. Skid Row is also a close community in its own way, where residents, outreach workers and mission staff often know one another by name. At the same time it is a place where violence is common and where many crimes are never reported or solved, in part because people who live on the street can be hard for detectives to find again.
The record does not say whether Benjamin lived on Skid Row, stayed at one of its shelters or was only passing through. 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 man in his 50s on a Skid Row street corner received only a brief entry in the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Benjamin James Pierfax 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 was near Sixth and Crocker streets in late May 2014, including residents, shelter staff and outreach workers, or anyone who knew Benjamin, 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.
