Bernard Ballard Kendall was 39 years old when he died on Monday, February 24, 2003, in Hollywood. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at Carlos Avenue and Gower Street. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollywood Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 39-year-old white male" who "died Monday, Feb. 24, after sustaining blunt force trauma in Hollywood." It gave the location as a street corner rather than a house number, which suggests he may have been hurt outdoors, but it did not say how he was hurt or whether detectives had any idea who was responsible. No follow-up news story appears to have been published.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Bernard Ballard Kendall 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 full name, with the unusual middle name Ballard, appears nowhere in the saved search results. Searches for Bernard Kendall turned up a judge in New Zealand, a British army surgeon who died in 1912 and men in obituaries elsewhere, none of whom can be tied to the man who died in Hollywood.
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.
Hollywood is the most famous neighborhood in Los Angeles, known around the world as the birthplace of the American film industry. By the early 2000s it was in the middle of a long revival, as new hotels, theaters and shopping centers rose along Hollywood Boulevard. Away from the tourist areas, much of Hollywood is made up of older apartment buildings and bungalows on quiet side streets, home to young people trying to break into the entertainment business, longtime renters and immigrant families. Gower Street is a well-known north-south street in the neighborhood with deep ties to the early film industry, and its corner at Sunset Boulevard was long nicknamed Gower Gulch.
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 Bernard Ballard Kendall 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 or worked near Carlos Avenue and Gower Street in Hollywood in February 2003, or who knew a 39-year-old man named Bernard Kendall, 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 call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
