Joseph Fitzgerald was 66 years old when he died on Friday, October 3, 2003, in Wilmington, a neighborhood in the harbor area of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 1036 W. Cruces St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the department's Harbor Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report gave only the most basic facts. It described him as "a 66-year-old white male" who "died Friday, Oct. 3, after sustaining blunt force trauma in Wilmington, according to Los Angeles County coroner's records."
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Joseph Fitzgerald 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. Joseph Fitzgerald is a common name, and searches for it are crowded with other men: attorneys in Southern California, a school board member in New Jersey, defendants in unrelated court cases in Iowa and Nebraska, and dozens of men memorialized in obituaries across the country, including several who died in 2003. None of them can be tied to the 66-year-old man who died on Cruces Street.
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 address given is a street number on a residential block, which suggests that he may have been at a home or apartment when he was hurt, though the record does not say whether he lived there.
Wilmington sits beside the Port of Los Angeles, one of the busiest container ports in the country, and much of its character comes from the harbor. Oil refineries, rail yards, truck routes and shipping terminals line its edges, while its interior is made up of blocks of small houses, apartment buildings and neighborhood shops. Many longtime residents have worked on the docks or in related industries, and the residential streets north of the port tend to be close-knit.
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 Joseph Fitzgerald 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 on or near Cruces Street in Wilmington in early October 2003, or who knew Joseph Fitzgerald and saw him in the days before he died, 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.
