Abraham Montes-Martinez was 53 years old when he died on Saturday, January 19, 2013, in Sherman Oaks, a neighborhood in the southern San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 14141 Ventura Blvd. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the department's Van Nuys division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report listed him as a Latino man. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Abraham Montes-Martinez 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. He surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record. Both Montes and Martinez are common surnames in Spanish-speaking families, and a search for the combined name turns up nothing beyond the coroner's listing itself.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he 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 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 coroner's record gives a specific street address on Ventura Boulevard, which suggests that the death was connected to a particular property along the boulevard. That is an inference only. The record does not say whether the address was a business, an office, a parking area or a residence, or whether Abraham Montes-Martinez worked there, lived nearby or was simply passing through.
Sherman Oaks is one of the better-known neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley, a mix of hillside homes south of the boulevard, apartment buildings and quiet residential streets to the north. Ventura Boulevard is its main commercial street and one of the best known in the Valley, lined with restaurants, coffee shops, salons, offices and small strip malls. It carries heavy traffic during the day and stays busy into the evening, and many of the people who work along it commute in from other parts of the city. A killing in such a busy setting is the kind of event that someone, a worker, a customer or a passerby, may have noticed in some small way in mid-January 2013 without realizing that it mattered.
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 Abraham Montes-Martinez 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 the 14100 block of Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks in mid-January 2013, or who knew Abraham Montes-Martinez and saw him in the days before he 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.
