Jose Antonio Depaz Melgar was 69 years old when he died on Wednesday, May 18, 2011, in the Westlake neighborhood west of downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 2515 Beverly Boulevard. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the department's Rampart Division.
According to the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, Jose was found unresponsive on a sidewalk in the 2500 block of Beverly Boulevard at about 8 a.m. Authorities were called, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Ed Winter, a spokesman for the coroner's office, told the Times that authorities described him as a transient. Coroner's records showed that he suffered blunt force trauma to the head, and the Times reported that "he may have been kicked and stomped." The Times asked anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers.
A genealogy listing gives his birth date as September 23, 1941, and records his death at age 69 on May 18, 2011, which matches the Homicide Report. Beyond that, almost nothing about his life has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story, and no news outlet other than the Times appears to have reported on the death. His name is shared by a number of other men, and searches turned up only obituaries for namesakes in other states.
The few details that were released leave the most important questions open. The record does not say whether anyone saw or heard an attack in the hours before he was found, whether he was known to people in the area, or whether he had been in an argument with anyone. The finding that he may have been kicked and stomped suggests that someone attacked him while he was on the ground.
Westlake is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Los Angeles. It surrounds MacArthur Park, one of the city's oldest parks, and it has long been home to working families, many of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America, living in older apartment buildings. Its busy commercial streets, bus lines and Metro subway stops bring a steady flow of people through the area at all hours. The neighborhood has also long had a large population of people living on the street, and many older men without homes have spent their nights on its sidewalks.
Homicides in Los Angeles fell steeply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet many killings from those years were never solved. The death of an elderly man without a home, found on a sidewalk on a weekday morning, drew only a short notice in the Homicide Report.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Jose Antonio Depaz Melgar could be found in news archives or public records. More than 14 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was on Beverly Boulevard in Westlake on the night of May 17 or the early morning of May 18, 2011, or who knew Jose from the neighborhood, 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.
