Savannah Cree Lucero was less than a year old when she died on Tuesday, December 31, 2013, in Downey. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 8924 Imperial Highway. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Downey Police Department case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded her death with only the basic facts drawn from coroner's records. It listed her age as zero, which means she had not yet reached her first birthday, and it gave her name, the date, the address and the cause of death. It did not describe what happened to her, who was caring for her, or how she came to be hurt. No police statement or news story about her death could be found.
Beyond her name and the few facts in the coroner's record, nothing about Savannah Cree Lucero has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story. Her middle name, Cree, is unusual, but the searches that turn up her full name lead only back to copies of the Times record. Other people named Savannah Lucero appear in obituaries and on donation pages in Colorado, New Mexico and elsewhere, but they are adults and have nothing to do with this case. A baby girl was given a name by people who loved her, yet almost nothing of her short life 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 she was injured at the Imperial Highway address or somewhere else, whether she died at the scene or later, or how long before her death the injuries happened. A finding of blunt force trauma in a child so young, together with a ruling of homicide, means the coroner concluded that her injuries were caused by another person, but the record does not say who, and it does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Downey is a city of more than 100,000 people in southeast Los Angeles County, between the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers. It is largely residential, with tree-lined streets of single-family homes, and it has its own police department. The city is known for its long ties to the aerospace industry, which built parts of the Apollo spacecraft there, a history now honored at the Columbia Memorial Space Center. Downey is also home to the oldest operating McDonald's restaurant and was the hometown of the singing duo the Carpenters. Imperial Highway is one of the major east-west roads that cross the southern part of the county.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Savannah Cree Lucero could be found in news archives or public records. More than 12 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a family with a baby girl named Savannah living in or near Downey in December 2013, or who knows what happened to her in the days before New Year's Eve that year, 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 contact the Downey Police Department, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
