Maria Serpas was 68 years old when she died on Wednesday, May 14, 2014, in Reseda. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 18242 Saticoy Street. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's West Valley Division.
The coroner's records describe her as a Latina woman, 68 years old. Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Maria Serpas 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. She surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who she was, but none of that has entered the public record. Her name is shared by a number of women in Southern California and elsewhere, and searches turned up only those other women, including a career coach, a pharmacist and women whose obituaries were published years later.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances of her death remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether she was attacked in her home, assaulted during a robbery, hurt by someone she knew 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 she was hurt, whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect. The record gives a specific street address, which may mean she was hurt at or near a home or building on Saticoy Street, but it does not say whether she lived there.
Her age makes her death unusual, since women in their late 60s are rarely the victims of homicide.
Reseda is a neighborhood in the west-central San Fernando Valley, part of the city of Los Angeles. It grew up after World War II as a suburb of modest ranch houses, and it later became known nationally through the movie The Karate Kid and Tom Petty's song "Free Fallin'." Today it is a diverse, largely working- and middle-class community with a large Latino population, and many of its residents are families who have lived there for decades. Saticoy Street is one of the long east-west streets that cross the Valley, lined in Reseda with apartment buildings, single-family homes and small businesses.
On a street like Saticoy, neighbors may have heard or seen something on the day she was hurt, and some of them may still live nearby. 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 68-year-old woman in Reseda received only a brief entry in the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Maria Serpas 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 Saticoy Street in Reseda in May 2014, or who knew Maria, 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.
