Joan Angelique Richards was 5 years old when she died on Wednesday, December 20, 2000, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 111 N. Hill St. Her death was ruled a homicide. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report lists the case under the agency code ACU, which refers to the Los Angeles Police Department's Abused Child Unit, the detectives who investigate the deaths and serious injuries of young children.
The Times entry described her as "a 5-year-old black female" who "died Wednesday, Dec. 20, after sustaining blunt force trauma in Downtown, according to Los Angeles County coroner's records." On the same day, at the same address, a 7-year-old girl named Breanna Patricia Richards also died of blunt force trauma. The two girls shared a surname, a date of death and a place of death, which strongly suggests that they were sisters and that they died in the same event, though the public record does not say so directly.
Only fragments of their story survive online. A Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors document from January 2001 lists the names "Breanna Richards. Joan Richards." one after the other, which suggests that the board adjourned a meeting in their memory, as it often does for county residents who have died. A compilation of news reports on foster care gathered by the Children's Advocacy Institute, a child welfare research and advocacy group, contains a fragment referring to "a relative of Breanna and Joan Richards," which suggests that their deaths drew attention in connection with the child welfare system. The full text of those documents could not be reviewed for this story, and the circumstances they describe are not known.
No obituary or memorial page for Joan could be found. Joan Richards is a common name, shared by a historian of mathematics and many older women whose obituaries appear online, none of them connected to this child. She surely had family who remember her.
Because so little has been released, the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say how the girls were hurt, who was with them, whether they died at the scene or later at a hospital, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
The address on North Hill Street lies in the civic center of downtown Los Angeles, an area of courthouses, government offices and public plazas near City Hall and the Music Center, busy on weekdays with lawyers, jurors, county workers and families with business before the courts. It is not a residential street, which suggests that the girls may have been there with an adult for some official purpose, though that is not known.
Homicides in Los Angeles rose sharply in the early 2000s, climbing past 600 in 2002, and detectives carried heavy caseloads. Many killings from those years were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Joan Angelique Richards could be found in news archives or public records. More than 25 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Joan or her family, or who was in the civic center of downtown Los Angeles on December 20, 2000, and saw what happened to two young girls on North Hill Street, may hold information that matters. 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.
