Marie Josefina Jimenez-Aldana was 22 years old when she died on Thursday, August 29, 2013, in Sylmar. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma on the 210 Freeway at Hubbard Street. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Mission Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report listed her race as white and gave no further details. Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Marie Josefina Jimenez-Aldana 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 full name is distinctive, but searches for it turned up nothing beyond the Times entry itself.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether she was beaten in a fight, attacked by a stranger, assaulted indoors or on the street, 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 location is the most unusual detail in her case. The Times placed her death on the 210 Freeway at Hubbard Street, which suggests she may have been struck by a vehicle, thrown or pushed from a vehicle, or hurt on or near an on-ramp or the shoulder. The record does not confirm any of these possibilities, and it does not say whether she was in a car, on foot or somewhere along the edge of the freeway.
The case was assigned to the LAPD's Mission Division rather than to a traffic division or to the California Highway Patrol, which patrols state freeways. That assignment suggests detectives treated the death as something other than an ordinary traffic collision, though the reasons have never been made public.
Sylmar is the northernmost neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles, tucked against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the top of the San Fernando Valley. It is a largely residential community of single-family homes, horse properties and apartment complexes, crossed by several major freeways, including the 210 Foothill Freeway, which runs east and west along the base of the mountains. Hubbard Street is one of Sylmar's main north-south streets.
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 Marie Josefina Jimenez-Aldana 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 on or near the 210 Freeway at Hubbard Street in Sylmar in late August 2013, or who knew Marie Josefina Jimenez-Aldana and saw her in the days 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. 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.
