Rian Monarrez was eight months old when he died on Friday, November 7, 2008, in El Sereno, a neighborhood on the eastern edge of the city of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 5356 1/2 Oakland Street. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Abused Child Unit.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report said the baby died "after suffering blunt force injuries including head trauma, multiple skull fractures and intracranial hemorrhages in the 5300 block of Oakland Street of El Sereno, according to coroner's records." The entry, written by Anthony Pesce, was a single sentence. It did not say who was caring for the child, how he was hurt, when the injuries happened, or whether he died at home or at a hospital.
The assignment of the case to the Abused Child Unit indicates that detectives treated the death as a possible case of child abuse, which is how injuries of this kind to an infant are usually investigated. The public record does not say whether anyone was ever questioned, arrested or ruled out, and no news story about the death appears to have been published beyond the Times entry.
A death notice for Rian Monarrez was published in the Los Angeles Times on November 11, 2008, four days after he died, and an online listing gives his name as Rian A. Monarrez, with the Guerra & Gutierrez mortuary. The saved copy of the notice does not include its text, so it is not known what his family wrote about him. Beyond that notice, almost nothing about his short life has been made public. He was a baby with a family who chose to mark his passing in the newspaper, and someone still remembers him.
The address on Oakland Street includes a half number, which usually indicates a rear house or a second unit on the same lot. El Sereno is a largely residential, hilly neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles, bordering the cities of Alhambra and South Pasadena, with Huntington Drive as its main commercial street. Many of its blocks are lined with older single-family homes, often with additional units behind them.
Homicides in Los Angeles fell steeply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet many killings from those years were never solved. Deaths of infants from blunt force injuries can be especially hard to resolve, because there are rarely outside witnesses and the people closest to the child are often the only ones who know what happened in the days before.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Rian Monarrez could be found in news archives or public records. More than 17 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near the 5300 block of Oakland Street in El Sereno in the fall of 2008, who knew the family, or who saw or heard anything that concerned them about the baby's care in the weeks before November 7, 2008, may hold information that matters. 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.
