Manuel Martinez was less than a year old when he died on Wednesday, December 20, 2006, in the Florence neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 903 E. 78th Street. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed with the agency code ACU, the abbreviation for the Los Angeles Police Department's Abused Child Unit.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as a Latino baby boy and listed his age as zero, meaning he had not yet reached his first birthday. The entry gave the address and the date, and no account of what happened.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, nothing about Manuel Martinez 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 his death. His life was very short, but he had a name, a family and people who cared for him in the months he was alive, and none of their memories of him have entered the public record.
The assignment of the case is the most telling detail in the record. The LAPD's Abused Child Unit is a specialized team that investigates serious physical abuse of children, including the deaths of young children when abuse is suspected. Its involvement suggests that investigators believed the injuries that killed him may have been inflicted by someone responsible for his care, though nothing public says who that might have been or whether anyone was ever identified as a suspect.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown. The record does not say whether he lived at the address on 78th Street, whether he was hurt there or somewhere else, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, or how long before his death the injuries occurred. It does not say who was caring for him at the time or who called for help.
Deaths of infants are among the hardest cases for investigators. Babies cannot describe what happened to them, the injuries are often discovered only after a child is brought to a hospital, and the adults who were present may be the only people who know the truth. Cases like this one can stall for years unless someone close to the family comes forward.
Florence is a densely populated neighborhood in South Los Angeles, made up largely of small single-family homes, duplexes and apartment buildings on a grid of numbered streets. It is a working-class area with many families and young children, and it lies within the LAPD's 77th Street Division.
Los Angeles still recorded roughly 480 to 520 homicides a year in the mid-2000s, and many of those killings were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Manuel Martinez could be found in news archives or public records. More than 19 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew the family, lived near the 900 block of East 78th Street, or saw or heard anything that worried them in December 2006 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.
