Norma Alicia Delgado was 40 years old when she died on Monday, August 14, 2006, somewhere in Los Angeles County. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma, and her death was ruled a homicide. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, which listed her death, gives no address or neighborhood for where she was hurt and does not name the agency that investigated it.
The Times entry consists of a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described her as a Latina woman and gave her age and the date of her death. Nothing else about her, or about what happened to her, appears in the published record.
Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Norma Alicia Delgado 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. She surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who she was, but none of that has entered the public record. Her name is a common one across Mexico, Central America and the United States, and searches turned up only other women who share it, among them public employees in Mexico and Panama and women whose obituaries appeared in Florida, Colorado and New Jersey. None of them is connected to her death.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether she 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 she was hurt, whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
The missing details are themselves unusual. Most entries in the Homicide Report give at least a block or an intersection, and many name the police agency in charge. The absence of both here may mean that the details were never released, or that she was hurt in one place and died in another. The record does not explain which.
The Times record lists Los Angeles as the city, which may mean she died in the city itself or that the entry simply used the county's largest city as a default. Los Angeles is a vast city of nearly four million people, and Los Angeles County as a whole holds about ten million, across 88 cities and many unincorporated communities.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Norma Alicia Delgado 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 40-year-old woman named Norma Alicia Delgado, or who knows what happened to her in August 2006, 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 leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS or contact the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500.
