Kyle Jermaine Butler was 34 years old when he died on Wednesday, May 6, 2009, in Los Angeles County. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, which drew on coroner's records, did not list an address or a neighborhood.
The Homicide Report gave only his name, his age, the date and the cause of death, and it described him as a Black man of 34. The Sheriff's Department handles homicides in the county's unincorporated communities, in the many cities that contract with it for police services, and in county jails and other county facilities, so the case could have arisen in any of those places. The record does not say which.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Kyle Jermaine Butler 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 the death. He surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record. Searches for his name turned up only namesakes, among them a character in a popular television crime drama that aired the same year, a man from the South Bay who died years later and men whose obituaries were published in other states. None of those pages concerns the man who died in May 2009.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he was beaten in a fight, attacked by a stranger, assaulted indoors or on the street, or struck by a vehicle, all of which can lead to a finding of blunt force trauma. It does not say what time of day he was hurt, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
The Sheriff's Department patrols a vast territory, from South Los Angeles County communities to the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley. Without an address, it is impossible to say which community Kyle Jermaine Butler lived in or where he spent his final days, and the public record offers no hint of where he was from, what he did for a living or whether he had children.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest. The death of a 34-year-old man, recorded without even a location, is among the least documented entries in the Homicide Report.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Kyle Jermaine Butler could be found in news archives or public records. More than 16 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Relatives, friends, co-workers or neighbors who knew a 34-year-old man named Kyle Jermaine Butler in Los Angeles County in the spring of 2009, or who know how he was hurt in early May of that year, 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 contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
