Lidia Abigail Carranza was 22 years old when she died on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in Sylmar. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining multiple blunt force trauma when she was hit by a car near Polk Street and San Fernando Road. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Valley Traffic Division case.
The Daily News reported that day that Carranza, "22, of Los Angeles, was injured about 1:20 a.m. at Polk Street and San Fernando Road," and that "the circumstances of her death were under investigation."
Those circumstances soon came into sharper focus. Ed Winter, a spokesman for the coroner's office, told the Los Angeles Times that Carranza had been partying with her friends shortly before 1:20 a.m. At one point, he said, one of the men she was talking to "purposely swerved his car and hit her, and she rolled over the hood." She was taken to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, where she was pronounced dead at 7:28 a.m.
On Dec. 27, Valley Traffic Division Det. A. Sanchez told The Times that investigators had identified a 22-year-old man, Julio Cesar, as a suspect in her death. A warrant for his arrest was being filed, Sanchez said, but officials believed he had fled to Mexico. Detectives described him as 5 feet 5 and 140 pounds and said he also went by the names Alvarado and Momasterio. Cesar had left his car, a 2002 Nissan Sentra, at a friend's house, and investigators found it and kept it as evidence. Sanchez said Cesar was the only person in the car and that no one else was injured.
Beyond those reports, little about Lidia Carranza herself has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for her, and the account of her death says nothing about her work, her family or her plans. She was 22, and the people who were with her that night, and the family who lost her, surely remember far more about her than the record does.
Sylmar is the northernmost community in the city of Los Angeles, set in the northeast corner of the San Fernando Valley against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It is a largely residential area known for its horse properties and semi-rural lots alongside newer subdivisions and apartment complexes, and its name became known across the country after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. San Fernando Road is one of the main commercial and industrial corridors through the area.
Homicides in Los Angeles fell steeply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet many killings from those years were never solved.
Police had a name and a car, but no arrest or court case connected to the death of Lidia Abigail Carranza could be found in news archives or public records, and there is no public sign that the warrant was ever served. More than 14 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was near Polk Street and San Fernando Road in Sylmar in December 2011, or who knows where the suspect went, 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.
