Miguel Aquino was 39 years old when he died on Saturday, December 1, 2001. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma. His death was ruled a homicide, and the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report lists the Santa Monica Police Department as the agency responsible for the case. The public record does not give the address where he was hurt.
He was a Latino man in his late 30s. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Miguel Aquino 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. Miguel Aquino is a common name, and searches turned up only other men who share it, including a city custodian, athletes, a man killed in New York in 2005 and a defendant in an unrelated Orange County murder case.
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.
Santa Monica is a city of about 90,000 people on the coast, bordered on three sides by the city of Los Angeles. It is best known for the Santa Monica Pier, with its Ferris wheel and amusement park, for its wide beach, and for the Third Street Promenade, a pedestrian shopping street that draws large crowds. The city has its own police department, separate from the Los Angeles Police Department. Homicides are rare in Santa Monica compared with many cities in the county, which makes a killing there stand out.
His death came at the start of the holiday season, a few months after the September 11 attacks. A beating serious enough to kill a man would likely have drawn attention from someone, whether a neighbor, a passerby or a coworker who noticed he was missing.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest. The death of a 39-year-old man in a city that rarely records homicides received only a brief entry in the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, and no news story about him appears to have been published.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Miguel Aquino could be found in news archives or public records. More than 24 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Miguel, or who remembers a man being badly hurt in Santa Monica in late November or early December of 2001, 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 contact the Santa Monica Police Department, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
