Guiselle Cristina Rojas was 39 years old when she died on Thursday, June 13, 2002, in East Pasadena. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 3354 Thorndale Road. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case.
The coroner's summary in the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report gives only her age, the date and the address. Six months later, though, the Times returned to her death in a story about the unusual ways the FBI was trying to catch fugitives. An FBI agent told the paper he planned to show moviegoers the profiles of wanted men, among them a 51-year-old man who "had reportedly become obsessed with 39-year-old Guiselle Rojas." The Times wrote: "In June, police say, ambushed her outside her Pasadena-area home and stabbed her more than 50 times." That account describes a stabbing, while the coroner's records list blunt force trauma as the cause, and the public record does not explain the difference. The story also makes clear that, at the end of 2002, the man police blamed was still at large.
A few more lines about her life survive. Pepperdine University's alumni magazine, in its Winter 2003 issue, listed her among graduates who had died, identifying her as a 1994 master's graduate of the university's Graduate School of Education and Psychology. "She was thirty-nine years old," the notice said, adding that she "was killed on June 13." No obituary, memorial page or family tribute could be found beyond that brief notice. Her full name is distinctive, and searches turned up only unrelated women in Latin America who share parts of it.
What the record does suggest is a woman who had built an educated, professional life, and who was attacked at or near her own home by someone who, according to the police account in the Times, had fixed his attention on her. The details of how long that went on, whether she ever reported it, and whether anyone saw the attack have never been published.
East Pasadena is an unincorporated community just east of the city of Pasadena, in the western San Gabriel Valley. It is largely residential, with quiet streets of single-family homes, and because it is not part of any city, its policing comes from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department rather than the Pasadena Police Department. The San Gabriel Mountains rise just to the north.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest. Cases in which a suspect is identified but escapes can stay open for decades, and some are closed only when a fugitive is found far from home.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Guiselle Cristina Rojas could be found in news archives or public records. More than 23 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Guiselle Rojas, who lived near Thorndale Road in East Pasadena in June 2002, or who knows where the man police sought may have gone, 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.
