Susan M. Parenteau was 54 years old when she died on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2005, in Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma. The public record does not give the address where she was hurt. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded her death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It gave her age, listed her as a Latina woman, and noted the cause of death. It did not name a neighborhood or a street, did not say how she was hurt or who found her, and did not say whether investigators had any idea who was responsible. No follow-up story appears to have been published.
Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Susan M. Parenteau 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. Searches for her name turned up only other women named Susan Parenteau, in New Hampshire, Wisconsin and elsewhere, none of them 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 one geographic clue is the agency. Because the case belongs to the LAPD's Central Division, she was most likely hurt in or near downtown Los Angeles, the area that division serves, though that is an inference rather than a published fact.
Downtown Los Angeles is the historic center of the city and the seat of city and county government. It holds City Hall, the courthouses and the civic center, the office towers of the financial district, the old theaters and shops of Broadway, and neighborhoods such as Little Tokyo and Chinatown. It is also home to Skid Row, where thousands of people have lived in shelters, single-room hotels and on the sidewalks for decades. Nothing in the record says which part of this varied area was connected to her death.
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 Susan M. Parenteau 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 spent time in or around downtown Los Angeles in January 2005, or who knew a 54-year-old woman named Susan Parenteau, may hold information that could help. 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.
