Scott Michaels was 44 years old when he died on Thursday, April 5, 2012, after he was found in the 11100 block of Balboa Boulevard in Granada Hills, in the northern San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 11130 Balboa Blvd. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Devonshire case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report listed him as a white man. Coroner's spokesman Ed Winter said Michaels was discovered in an alley with possible blunt trauma to the chest. Paramedics took him to a hospital in Mission Hills for treatment. Winter said it was unknown when the injury had occurred, but Michaels died of the trauma that night at 11:22 p.m. Police said he was a transient, and investigators continued to look into the death. Devonshire detectives asked anyone with information to contact them.
Those few lines are almost all that has been made public about him. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found, and no other news outlet appears to have followed up on his death. Scott Michaels is a common name, and searches for it turn up many other men, among them real estate agents, a well-known Hollywood tour guide and men arrested in Georgia and Florida, none of them the man who died in Granada Hills. He surely had family or friends, perhaps far from the Valley, who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
The record leaves the most basic questions open. Because the coroner could not say when the injury happened, it is possible that Michaels was hurt some time before he was found. An injury to the chest can come from a beating, a kick, a fall or a blow from an object, and the public record does not say which investigators believed it was. It also does not say whether anyone saw him being hurt or whether a suspect was ever identified. People who live without stable housing are often more exposed to violence, and their deaths can draw less public attention, which may be part of why so little was reported.
Granada Hills is a largely suburban neighborhood of single-family homes, shopping centers and wide boulevards in the northern San Fernando Valley. Balboa Boulevard is one of its main north-south streets, and alleys run behind many of the businesses that line it. People who work along that stretch or regularly pass through it may have known Scott Michaels by sight in the spring of 2012.
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 Scott Michaels 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 spent time along Balboa Boulevard in Granada Hills in early April 2012, or who knew a man named Scott Michaels living on the streets there, 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.
