Oneisha Robinson was 2 years old when she died on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2003. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Gardena Police Department case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report gave even less than usual. It described her as "a 2-year-old black female" who "died Thursday, Aug. 7, after sustaining blunt force trauma." It gave no address and no neighborhood. The only clue to where she was hurt is the agency that took the case, the police department of the city of Gardena.
Beyond her name, her age and the date of her death, almost nothing about Oneisha 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 her death. Searches for her name turn up only adult women who share it, among them a college student, a recent graduate and a behavioral therapist, none of whom has any connection to this child. She surely had a family, and relatives and neighbors who remember her, but none of that has entered the public record.
The death of a child this young from blunt force trauma raises questions that the record does not answer. A 2-year-old cannot protect herself or explain what happened to her, and in cases like this one investigators usually look closely at the people who were responsible for the child's care. That is a general observation only. The public record does not say whether Oneisha was hurt at home or somewhere else, how she was injured, whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital, or whether anyone was ever questioned, arrested or charged.
It is also possible that she was hurt some time before she died, and that the date in the record marks her death rather than the day she was injured. The missing address could reflect a death in a hospital, or simply information that was never released.
Gardena is a city in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, just south of the city of Los Angeles. It is a diverse, largely residential community of modest homes and apartment complexes, long known for its card clubs and for a large Japanese American community whose history in the city goes back generations. Its police department is small compared with the county's largest agencies, and a child's death would have been among the most serious cases it handled that year.
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 Oneisha Robinson 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 knew the Robinson family in Gardena in the summer of 2003, or who knows how this little girl came to be hurt, may hold information that could help investigators. Even the smallest detail about who was caring for her in the days before she died could matter. Anyone with information can contact the Gardena Police Department, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
