Mariah R. Canales was a baby girl, about six months old, when she died on Friday, December 1, 2006, somewhere in Los Angeles County. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case.
Almost nothing else about her death has been made public. The coroner's record lists her age as zero, and no address or community is given for the place where she was hurt. When the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report listed the county's deaths for that week, it described her as "a 6-month-old Hispanic baby girl" who "was killed by an unknown mechanism at an undisclosed location in Los Angeles County." Her time of death was listed as 6:41 p.m. on December 1. The coroner's final finding of blunt force trauma came later.
No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser for Mariah could be found for this story, and no news outlet appears to have written about her death. She had a family who named her and cared for her during the few months of her life, but none of their memories of her have entered the public record. Her name is shared by a number of adult women across the country, none of whom has any connection to this case.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown. The record does not say whether she was injured at home, in someone else's care, or somewhere else, or whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say who was with her when she was hurt, how the injuries were discovered, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect. When a baby this young dies of blunt force injuries, detectives usually focus on the adults who were caring for the child, but there is no public information about what investigators concluded in Mariah's case.
The decision not to release a location is unusual. It may have been made to protect relatives, including other children in the home, or to protect an ongoing investigation, but no reason was given. The Sheriff's Department handles homicides in the unincorporated communities of Los Angeles County and in the many cities that contract with it for police services, an area that stretches from the Antelope Valley to the South Bay and the San Gabriel Valley. Mariah could have lived in any of them.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest. Deaths of infants are among the hardest cases for detectives, because the victims cannot speak and the only witnesses are often the people closest to them.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Mariah R. Canales 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 a baby girl named Mariah, about six months old, who died in Los Angeles County in late November or December 2006, or who knew the family that cared for her, may hold information that could help investigators. 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.
