William Vidal Matul Gonzalez was 16 years old when he died on Sunday, July 11, 2021, in Westlake. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near 1840 W. 3rd St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case. Its agency is listed only by the code CBH, which appears to stand for the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Bureau Homicide unit, the detectives who handle killings in and around downtown.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about William Vidal Matul Gonzalez 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.
The coroner's record describes him as a Latino teenager, and the Los Angeles Times entry says only that he died "after being stabbed near 1840 W. 3rd St. in Westlake."
His full name is distinctive, but the shorter form, William Gonzalez, is one of the most common names in the country. Searches for it return obituaries, court cases and news stories about many other men, in Orange County, Michigan, Florida, Massachusetts and elsewhere, and none of them mention a teenager killed in Los Angeles in July 2021. Matul is a less common surname, and it may be that his family used it more than Gonzalez, but no record under either form could be tied to him.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he was stabbed during a fight or a robbery, attacked by a stranger or by someone he knew, or hurt indoors or on the street. 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.
Westlake is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Los Angeles, lying just west of downtown. It is centered on MacArthur Park, whose lake and lawns have been a gathering place for generations, and it is crowded with apartment buildings, small shops, street vendors and busy bus lines. Third Street runs east and west through the northern part of the neighborhood toward downtown. Westlake has long been home to many working families and recent immigrants, and life there is lived largely on the sidewalks, where neighbors see a great deal of what happens.
Los Angeles recorded about 260 homicides a year in 2018 and 2019, among the lowest yearly totals in more than half a century, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of William Vidal Matul Gonzalez could be found in news archives or public records. More than four years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew him, who was on or near West 3rd Street in Westlake in July 2021, or who heard talk afterward about a teenager stabbed there, 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 call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
