Santana Watts Aguinaga was 3 years old when he died on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, in Vermont Knolls, a neighborhood in South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 725 1/4 W. 77th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Abused Child Unit case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report listed him as a Latino boy. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Santana 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 his death. Searches for his full name, and for the shorter name Santana Aguinaga, returned nothing at all connected to him. A little boy of 3 surely had people who loved him, but none of their memories of him have entered the public record.
The case was assigned to the LAPD's Abused Child Unit rather than to a regular homicide squad. That unit handles the deaths and serious injuries of young children when abuse is suspected, which suggests that detectives looked at whether Santana had been harmed by someone responsible for his care. That is an inference only. The public record does not name a suspect, does not say how he was injured, and does not say whether anyone was ever questioned or arrested.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether Santana was hurt at the address on 77th Street or brought there afterward, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, or how long his injuries may have gone untreated. A fraction in an address, such as the 1/4 in this one, is often used for a rear house or a separate unit on a shared lot, which may mean he lived in a small dwelling behind another home, though the record does not say so.
Vermont Knolls is a South Los Angeles neighborhood of modest single-family homes and small apartment buildings, named for nearby Vermont Avenue. Neighbors on blocks like these often know which children live on their street. Some of them may have seen or heard something in the weeks before March 2012 without realizing that it mattered.
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 Santana Watts Aguinaga 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 the 700 block of West 77th Street in Vermont Knolls in early 2012, or who knew Santana and the adults around him, 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.
