Joseph Von Yeager was 67 years old when he died on Friday, December 19, 2003, in the Exposition Park area of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 3408 Budlong Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Southwest Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, which draws on coroner's records, describes him as a Black man and records the date, the address on Budlong Avenue and the cause of death. That brief listing is nearly all that has ever been published about how he died.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Joseph Von Yeager 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. The middle name Von is unusual, but searches for Joseph Yeager returned obituaries and records for many other men with that name in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida and elsewhere, none of whom matched this case.
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. Because he was 67, it is possible that he was frail or that a single assault was enough to cause fatal injuries, but the record does not say.
Exposition Park takes its name from the large historic park just south of downtown Los Angeles that holds the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the California Science Center. The University of Southern California sits beside it. Away from the museums and stadium, the surrounding neighborhood is made up largely of older houses, apartment buildings and rentals, many of them home to students and longtime working families. Budlong Avenue is one of its residential streets.
Los Angeles still recorded roughly 480 to 520 homicides a year in the mid-2000s, and many of those killings were never solved. The death of an older man on a residential street a short distance from some of the best-known landmarks in Los Angeles does not appear to have been reported by any news outlet in 2003 or since.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Joseph Von Yeager could be found in news archives or public records. More than 22 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived near the 3400 block of Budlong Avenue in December 2003, or who knew Joseph Yeager and remembers the people around him 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 call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
