Amos Hall III was 36 years old when he died on Thursday, April 26, 2018, in Mission Hills, a neighborhood in the northern San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near 10901 N. Marklein Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Mission Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded him as a Black man who "died Thursday, April 26, after being stabbed near 10901 N. Marklein Ave. in Mission Hills." The entry gives no further details. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Amos Hall III 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.
The name Amos Hall is shared by a number of other men, including older men whose obituaries appear in Michigan and other states, and people named in unrelated news reports far from California. None of them has any connection to the man who died in Mission Hills. The "III" in his name, however, indicates that he was the third generation of his family to carry it, which suggests that his father and grandfather were also named Amos Hall, and that relatives who share the name may still remember him.
Mission Hills takes its name from Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana, the Spanish mission founded in 1797 that still stands in the neighborhood and is one of the best-known historic sites in the San Fernando Valley. Today Mission Hills is a mostly residential community of single-family homes and apartment buildings, crossed by busy boulevards and close to several freeways. The neighborhood is patrolled by the LAPD's Mission Division. Marklein Avenue is one of the residential streets in the area, where many households have lived for years and neighbors often recognize one another.
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 Amos Hall III could be found in news archives or public records. More than seven years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near Marklein Avenue in Mission Hills in late April 2018, who knew Amos Hall III or his family, or who heard later talk about what happened to him, 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.
