Rachel Tyneia-Alicia Campus was 18 years old when she was found dead on Monday, Nov. 19, 2007, in Boyle Heights. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma, and her body was found in the 2000 block of East 1st Street. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described how she was found. Reporter Anthony Pesce wrote that she "was found dead Monday, Nov. 19 in an alley in the 2000 block of 1st St. in Boyle Heights, according to the Los Angeles County coroner." The entry continued: "A passer-by discovered her body and coroner's officials determined she had been choked and then dumped at the location, said Craig Harvey, chief coroner's investigator."
The entry added a detail that makes her case all the more painful. "During her autopsy, they discovered a fetus," it said. "Both deaths were listed a homicides." The entry did not say how far along the pregnancy was, or whether she or anyone close to her had known about it.
The account raises questions the record does not answer. If she was "dumped" in the alley, then she was killed somewhere else, which means the place where she died and the person who moved her body have never been publicly identified. The case was assigned to the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division, an elite downtown unit that usually takes on complex or high-profile investigations, which may suggest that detectives saw it as more than an ordinary case. No follow-up appears to have been published.
Beyond the Times entry, almost nothing about Rachel Campus has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story, and searches for her name return mostly unrelated results, such as the television host Rachel Campos-Duffy. She surely had family and friends who remember her, but none of that has entered the public record.
Boyle Heights lies just east of downtown Los Angeles, across the Los Angeles River. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, a dense, working-class community of older homes, apartment buildings, murals and small businesses that has long been the heart of Mexican American Los Angeles. First Street is one of its main east-west streets, running past Mariachi Plaza and on toward East Los Angeles. Its alleys run behind homes and storefronts, places where a body could be left out of sight of the street.
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 Rachel Tyneia-Alicia Campus could be found in news archives or public records. More than 18 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Someone who lived or worked near East 1st Street in Boyle Heights in November 2007 may remember a car in the alley, a young woman who had gone missing, or talk about her death. People who knew an 18-year-old named Rachel who was expecting a child may also know who she was with in her final days. 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.
