Tony Kim was a baby, less than a year old, when he died on Saturday, September 3, 2005. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma. His death was ruled a homicide. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report lists the case under the agency code ACU, which refers to the Los Angeles Police Department's Abused Child Unit, the detectives who investigate the deaths and serious injuries of young children. The public record does not give an address for where he was hurt.
The Homicide Report, which draws on coroner's records, lists him as an Asian boy and gives no other details. Beyond his name and his age, almost nothing about Tony Kim 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.
Tony Kim is a common name, especially among Korean American families, and searches for it turned up only adults who share it: a real estate agent, a lawyer, an actor, a teacher who was once detained abroad, and the subjects of many unrelated obituaries. None of them could be connected to the baby who died in Los Angeles in 2005.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances of his death remain unknown to the public. The record does not say where he was when he was hurt, who was caring for him, whether he died at home or at a hospital, or whether investigators ever identified anyone responsible. When an infant dies of blunt force trauma, detectives typically examine the child's medical history and the accounts of every adult who cared for him, and such cases can take months to build. None of those steps in this case have been made public.
The assignment to the Abused Child Unit suggests that he died within the city of Los Angeles, though the record does not say in which neighborhood. The city stretches from the San Fernando Valley to the harbor at San Pedro, and it is home to one of the largest Korean American communities in the country, centered on Koreatown west of downtown. Whether Tony Kim's family had any tie to that area is not known.
A baby's life of a few months leaves few records behind: a birth certificate, perhaps a few doctor's visits, photographs kept by the people who loved him. Tony Kim had no chance to build a life of his own, and his death has passed almost without public notice.
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 Tony Kim could be found in news archives or public records. More than 20 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Tony Kim or the people caring for him in late summer 2005, or who saw or heard something that worried them at the time, 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 call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
