Ovidio Portillo was 46 years old when he died on Sunday, Sept. 5, 2004. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma. The public record does not give the address or even the community where he was hurt. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It gave his age, listed him as a Latino man, and noted the cause of death. It did not name a city, a neighborhood or a street, did not say how he was hurt or who found him, and did not say whether investigators had any idea who was responsible.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Ovidio Portillo 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. Portillo is a common surname in Central America, particularly in El Salvador and Honduras, and searches for his name turned up other men of the same name, none of them connected to his death.
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 date offers one small detail. Sept. 5, 2004, fell on the Sunday of the Labor Day holiday weekend, a time when many families gather for barbecues and parties and when friends and relatives would have expected to see him. Whether he died at a gathering, at home, at work or somewhere else entirely is not known.
Because the case belongs to the Sheriff's Department, he was most likely hurt in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County or in one of the many cities that contract with the Sheriff's Department for police services, though the Homicide Bureau also handles cases for some smaller city police departments. The record gives no hint which part of the county was connected to his death.
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 Ovidio Portillo could be found in news archives or public records. More than 21 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 46-year-old man named Ovidio Portillo in Los Angeles County in late summer 2004, or who heard about a man being badly hurt around the Labor Day weekend that year, 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 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.
