Arturo P. Costello was 91 years old when he died on Saturday, March 29, 2003, somewhere in Los Angeles County. 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 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.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 91-year-old Latino male" who "died Saturday, March 29, after sustaining blunt force trauma." It named no street, neighborhood or city. It did not say how he was hurt or whether detectives had any idea who was responsible. No news story about his death appears to have been published.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Arturo P. Costello 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. His name is not a common one in Los Angeles, yet searches for it returned only lists of soldiers from the Spanish Civil War and an index of old New York newspaper photographs, none of which can be tied to the man who died in 2003.
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.
His age is the most striking fact in the record. At 91, Arturo Costello was born around 1911 or 1912, and he had lived through nearly the whole of the 20th century. Very few homicide victims in Los Angeles County are that old. At that age, an injury a younger person might survive can prove fatal. The coroner's finding of homicide means only that his death was caused by another person. It does not say whether anyone meant to kill him.
Because no address was released, it is not known which part of the county he lived in. The Sheriff's Department investigates killings in unincorporated communities and in the many cities that contract with it for police services, and its Homicide Bureau handles every such case.
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 Arturo P. Costello 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 a 91-year-old man named Arturo Costello in the spring of 2003, including neighbors, relatives, caregivers or members of his church or community, 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.
