Gregory William Desean Gardner was a baby, less than a year old, when he died on Thursday, August 18, 2005. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department case handled by the department's Homicide Bureau. The public record does not give an address for where he was hurt.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, which draws on coroner's records, lists him as a Black boy and gives no other details. Beyond his full name and his age, almost nothing about Gregory 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 full name, with two middle names, is distinctive, and someone clearly chose it with care. Searches for it turned up only adults named Gregory Gardner, among them a professor, a physician and the subjects of several unrelated obituaries in other states. None of them could be connected to the baby who died in Los Angeles County 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 fact that the Sheriff's Department handled the case tells us something about where he probably died. The department patrols the unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County, from East Los Angeles and Florence-Firestone to the Antelope Valley, and it serves as the police force for dozens of contract cities that have no departments of their own, such as Compton, Lakewood, Carson, Palmdale and Lancaster. A death assigned to the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau most likely happened in one of those places rather than within the city of Los Angeles, but the record does not say which.
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. Gregory William Desean Gardner had no chance to build a life of his own, and his death has passed almost without public notice.
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 Gregory William Desean Gardner 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 Gregory or the people caring for him in August 2005, or who saw or heard something that worried them at the time, 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 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.
