Mike Nalbandyan was 39 years old when he died on Monday, September 7, 2020, in Valley Glen, in the San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after being stabbed near 7144 N. Fulton Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case, assigned to the department's Valley Bureau Homicide detectives.
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, Sept. 7, after being stabbed near 7144 N. Fulton Ave. in Valley Glen." The entry gave a street address, but it did not say whether that was his home, the home of someone he knew or simply the place where he was found. September 7, 2020, was Labor Day, a holiday Monday in the first pandemic summer, when many people were home from work.
No follow-up story appears to have been written about his death.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Mike Nalbandyan 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. Searches for his name turn up only a few scattered listings, including a business directory entry and a 2006 legal notice for a man of the same name in Tujunga, and none of them can be firmly connected to the man who died in Valley Glen.
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.
Valley Glen is a residential neighborhood in the southeastern San Fernando Valley, lying between Van Nuys and North Hollywood. It is home to Los Angeles Valley College and is made up largely of single-family homes, apartment buildings and small commercial strips along its main streets. Fulton Avenue is one of the north-south streets that run through the neighborhood.
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 Mike Nalbandyan could be found in news archives or public records. More than five years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 39-year-old man named Mike Nalbandyan, or who was on or near Fulton Avenue in Valley Glen over the Labor Day weekend of September 2020, 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.
