Daisy Alicia Funes died on Monday, March 22, 2010, in Van Nuys. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 14649 Calvert St. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Van Nuys Division case.
Her age is uncertain in the public record. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described her in its story as a 30-year-old Latina, while the data attached to the same entry lists her age as 51. Which figure is correct could not be confirmed.
What little was reported about her death came from the coroner's office. At about 1 a.m., authorities saw a man running from a residence in the 14600 block of Calvert Street, said Ed Winter, a spokesman for the coroner's office. When they entered the location, they found Funes' body. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 1:50 a.m.
The case did not move quickly through the coroner's office. Officials first said she had died of blunt force trauma and listed the death as a homicide, then deferred a final determination while they waited for additional tests. In February 2011, nearly a year after her death, the coroner's officials said her death had been ruled a homicide and that she "died from multiple traumatic injuries."
The account leaves many questions open. It does not say who the running man was, whether officers caught him or identified him, whether he lived at the residence, or how he was connected to her. It does not say whether the residence was her home. That a man was seen fleeing the place where she was found suggests that investigators may have had a lead from the very first minutes, but no later report about the case could be found.
Beyond those details, almost nothing about Daisy Funes has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story. Her name is shared by other women, including a former executive director of a Chicago immigrant organization and a woman who organized a memorial fundraiser in Whittier, and none of them can be tied to the woman who died in Van Nuys.
Van Nuys is one of the oldest and largest communities in the San Fernando Valley. It is home to the Van Nuys Civic Center, a cluster of city, county and court buildings, and to Van Nuys Airport, one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country. Its residential streets mix apartment buildings with modest single-family homes, and the area is home to a large Latino population.
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 Daisy Alicia Funes could be found in news archives or public records. More than 15 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Neighbors on Calvert Street in March 2010, anyone who saw a man running from a home there in the early hours of that Monday, and anyone who knew Daisy and the people around her 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.
