William Mitchell Andrews was 60 years old when he died on Thursday, June 6, 2019, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 721 S. Main St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Central Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him only as "a 60-year-old white male" who "died Thursday, June 6, after being stabbed in Downtown." No news story about the stabbing could be found, and the police have not released any public account of what happened.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about William Mitchell Andrews 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.
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.
William Andrews is a very common name. Searches turn up a law school graduate, a garage owner in a 1938 Australian newspaper, a man of the same name killed in San Francisco later in 2019 and hundreds of obituaries for other men. None of them can be connected to this death, and that crowd of namesakes has made it even harder for any trace of this particular man to surface.
The address lies on South Main Street in the Historic Core of downtown Los Angeles, a district of early 20th-century commercial buildings, old theaters and former banks, many of them converted into lofts and apartments in recent decades. The blocks around Main Street mix new restaurants, bars and residents with older businesses and single-room hotels, and Skid Row, where thousands of people live in shelters, missions and tents, lies a short distance to the east. Downtown streets are busy at almost every hour, which means that someone, whether a resident, a worker, a security guard or a person living outside, may have seen or heard something near 721 S. Main St. that day.
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 Mitchell Andrews could be found in news archives or public records. More than six years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was on South Main Street near Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles in early June 2019, or who knew a 60-year-old man named William Andrews, 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.
