Edward Lee Bright was 40 years old when he died on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, in Watts. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 2219 E. 115th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the department's Southeast Division.
He was a Black man of 40. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Edward Lee Bright 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. His name is not rare, and searches turned up only other men who share it, among them a man of the same name in Killeen, Texas, who was still alive years after 2006, and older men in Missouri and Arkansas.
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 coroner's record does give a street address on East 115th Street, which suggests that he was found at or near a home rather than on a major boulevard, but it does not say whether he lived there.
Watts is one of the best-known neighborhoods in Los Angeles. It sits in the southern part of the city, and its name is tied to the Watts Towers, the soaring sculptures of steel, mortar and broken tile that Simon Rodia built by hand over more than three decades, and to the uprising of August 1965, which left 34 people dead and became a turning point in the history of the city. Watts is home to several of the largest public housing developments in Los Angeles, among them Nickerson Gardens, Jordan Downs and Imperial Courts, and it is crossed by the Metro rail line that links downtown Los Angeles with Long Beach.
Los Angeles still recorded roughly 480 to 520 homicides a year in the mid-2000s, and many of those killings were never solved. The death of a 40-year-old man on a residential street in Watts received only a brief entry in the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, and it does not appear to have been covered by any other news outlet.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Edward Lee Bright 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 lived near East 115th Street in Watts in October 2006, or who knew Edward, may hold information that could help detectives with the Southeast Division. 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.
