Sarah Jackson was 58 years old when she died on Wednesday, May 20, 2020, in the South Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after being stabbed near 45th Street and San Pedro Place. Her 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 described her only as "a 58-year-old Black female" who "died Wednesday, May 20, after being stabbed near 45th Street & San Pedro Place in South Park." The location is given as an intersection rather than a house number, which suggests she may have been found on the street, but the record does not say so.
Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Sarah Jackson 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.
She surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who she was, but none of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether she was stabbed during a fight or a robbery, attacked by a stranger or by someone she knew, or hurt indoors or on the street. It does not say what time of day she was hurt, whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Sarah Jackson is an extremely common name. Searches turn up a musician with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, real estate agents, a university professor, a murder victim in Tennessee decades ago and hundreds of obituaries for other women, none of whom can be connected to this death. That commonness has made it nearly impossible for any trace of this particular woman to surface in public records. At 58, she had lived a long life before that day, and someone in South Los Angeles almost certainly remembers her.
South Park is a neighborhood in South Los Angeles that takes its name from the city park of the same name. It is a densely built, working-class area of small houses, older apartment buildings, corner stores and churches, cut by long east-west streets numbered in the 40s and 50s. Many families have lived in the neighborhood for generations, and neighbors often know one another by sight. A stabbing at a street corner may have been heard or noticed by people who never spoke to detectives.
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 Sarah Jackson 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 was near 45th Street and San Pedro Place in South Park in May 2020, or who knew a 58-year-old woman named Sarah Jackson who lived or spent time in the area, 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.
