Julian Castillo Lara was 70 years old when he died on Sunday, Sept. 2, 2012, in Downey. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 12232 Chavers Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Downey Police Department case.
He was a Latino man of 70. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Julian Castillo Lara 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. Julian Lara is a fairly common name, and searches for it turned up only other men who share it, among them a teenager who died in 2025, a man named Salvador Julian Lara who died in 2021 and young men in Texas and elsewhere. None of them is the man who died in Downey in 2012.
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 rather than an intersection, which suggests that he may have been found at or near a home, although the record does not say whether he lived there. At 70, he was far older than most victims of violent crime.
Downey is a city of about 110,000 people in southeast Los Angeles County, between Norwalk, Bellflower, South Gate and Pico Rivera. Unlike many of its neighbors, it has its own police department. The city is known for the oldest operating McDonald's restaurant and for its place in the history of the space program, since the Apollo command modules were built at the aerospace plant there, now remembered at the Columbia Memorial Space Center. Much of Downey is made up of quiet residential streets of single-story houses with front lawns, and it is often described as a solidly middle-class city where families stay for generations.
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 Julian Castillo Lara could be found in news archives or public records. More than 13 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near Chavers Avenue in Downey at the end of August and the start of September 2012, or who knew Julian and saw him that Labor Day weekend, may hold information that could help detectives. Family members who remember him could also help by sharing who he was. 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.
