Cheryl Dejarnette was 53 years old when she died on Tuesday, October 22, 2013, in the Broadway-Manchester area of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma near 87th Street and Broadway. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case assigned to its Criminal Gang Homicide Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described her as a Black woman and gave an unusually detailed account of what happened. "About 2 a.m. a person sleeping in a vacant lot was awakened by the sounds of breaking glass and saw Dejarnette being beaten by a man," LAPD Detective Supervisor Sal LaBarbera told the paper. The witness left, according to the report, and "came back to the vacant lot about 7 a.m. and found the woman's lifeless body covered by foliage." She was pronounced dead at 7:50 a.m. in the vacant lot, according to coroner's records.
The witness gave investigators a description of the attacker. According to the Times, "The witness described the suspect as black, possibly in his mid-30s and wearing dark clothing." The report also noted that "Dejarnette was a known transient in the area," which suggests she may have been living on the streets or in places such as the lot where she was found. No name for a suspect was ever made public.
Beyond those details, very little about Cheryl Dejarnette has entered the public record. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for her, and searches for her name turned up only other women named Cheryl DeJarnette in other states, none of whom can be connected to the woman who died in Los Angeles.
The account leaves several questions open. The record does not say whether she knew the man who beat her, what the breaking glass was, or whether her attacker covered her body. Those gaps suggest that the people who were near the lot that night, and the people who knew her on the street, may know more than has been reported.
Broadway-Manchester is a neighborhood of South Los Angeles named for the crossing of two of its main streets, Broadway and Manchester Avenue. Most of it is residential, with blocks of small single-family homes and apartment buildings, while Broadway itself is lined with small businesses, churches and the occasional empty lot. It is a working-class area where many families have lived for generations, and people experiencing homelessness are a familiar part of street life along its commercial corridors.
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.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Cheryl Dejarnette 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 was near 87th Street and Broadway in the early morning hours of October 22, 2013, or who knew Cheryl Dejarnette in the area in the months before she died, 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. The Times asked anyone with information to call the Criminal Gang Homicide Division at 485-4341. 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.
