Iman Zare Josheghani was 27 years old when he died on Sunday, September 6, 2020, in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, just west of downtown. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after being stabbed near 660 S. Alvarado St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Bureau Homicide unit.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 27-year-old white male" who "died Sunday, Sept. 6, after being stabbed near 660 S. Alvarado St. in Westlake." The entry did not say how he came to be on Alvarado Street that day, whether he lived nearby, or who found him. No news story about his death could be found.
One public trace of his life does survive.
A memorial page on the website Find a Grave, listed under the name Iman Josheghani, gives his birth date as August 11, 1993, and his date of death as September 6, 2020, matching the age and date in the coroner's record. According to that page, he was buried at El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest, in Orange County. That suggests he may have had family or roots in Orange County, although the memorial itself does not say where he lived or how he spent his life.
Beyond that memorial, almost nothing about him has been made public. No obituary, family fundraiser or news report could be found.
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. It lies just west of downtown and is centered on MacArthur Park, a historic park with a lake that has long been a gathering place for the neighborhood. Alvarado Street is one of its busiest commercial streets, lined with small shops, street vendors, bus stops and apartment buildings, and it carries heavy foot traffic at most hours. The area has long struggled with poverty, homelessness and street crime.
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 Iman Zare Josheghani 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 27-year-old man named Iman Josheghani, whether in Los Angeles or in Orange County, or who was on or near the 600 block of South Alvarado Street in Westlake in early 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.
