Jose Enrrique Andino Zepeda was 58 years old when he died on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, in Mid-City. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at the rear of 1427 S. Mansfield Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the Wilshire Division.
He was a Latino man in his late 50s. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Jose Enrrique Andino Zepeda 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. Jose Zepeda is a common name, and searches for it turned up only other men, among them a man involved in a 2014 police shooting in Oxnard and men whose obituaries and fundraisers were published elsewhere. None of them is the man who died in Mid-City. The unusual spelling of his middle name, Enrrique, did not lead to any other record of him.
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 placed the location at the rear of an address on South Mansfield Avenue rather than at the front door or on the street. That suggests he may have been found behind a house or apartment building, perhaps in a yard, a driveway or an alley, although the record does not say whether he lived there or how he came to be there.
Mid-City is a broad area of central Los Angeles crossed by busy streets such as Pico Boulevard, Venice Boulevard and Washington Boulevard. Its residential blocks are lined with houses, duplexes and small apartment buildings, many of them built in the 1920s and 1930s, and it has long been one of the city's most diverse areas, home to Black, Latino, Asian and white families. It is a largely working and middle-class neighborhood of long-time residents, where neighbors on a block often know one another.
Homicides in Los Angeles fell steeply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet many killings from those years were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Jose Enrrique Andino Zepeda 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 South Mansfield Avenue in Mid-City in July 2012, who saw or heard something behind a building on that block, or who knew Jose and spoke with him in the days before his death, 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.
