Leonardo Saldana Jr. was 21 years old when he died on Tuesday, December 6, 2016, in the West Hills area of the San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds, and the address recorded for his death was 7300 Medical Center Drive, the location of West Hills Hospital and Medical Center. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Valley Bureau Homicide case.
That address is the first clue to how unusual his case was. Saldana was not found on a street or in a home. He was left at a hospital. The Daily News reported that "the man who died from a single stab wound after being dropped off at a West Hills hospital has now been identified," and that he "was pronounced dead at 8:30 p.m.
Tuesday at the hospital," according to coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter.
According to City News Service, officers from the LAPD's Topanga Community Police Station were sent to the hospital at about 8:30 p.m. on a call of "assault with a deadly weapon." Valley Bureau Homicide Det. John Doerbecker said they found Saldana "dropped off at the emergency room with a stab wound," and that he died there. "The preliminary investigation revealed that the victim was dropped off at the hospital by potential witnesses in the case," Doerbecker said. "Those potential witnesses left the hospital without making a statement to the officers or detectives."
The Daily News added that "witnesses fled after dropping Saldana off" and that police were "trying to determine where the crime occurred." That remains the central mystery of the case. The people who drove him to the emergency room almost certainly knew where he had been and what had happened, and their decision to leave suggests they may have been afraid, or may have had reasons of their own to avoid police.
Beyond these reports, almost nothing about Saldana's life has been made public. No obituary or memorial page could be tied to him with confidence. Leonardo Saldana is a fairly common name, and searches turn up an artist, a Texas school employee and others who share it, none of whom can be connected to this death.
West Hills is a residential neighborhood at the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, bordered by the Simi Hills and made up largely of single-family homes on quiet, curving streets. The hospital on Medical Center Drive serves much of the west Valley, so the stabbing may have happened some distance away.
By the mid-2010s Los Angeles was recording roughly 250 to 300 homicides a year, among the lowest totals in decades, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Leonardo Saldana Jr. could be found in news archives or public records. More than nine years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. The people who brought him to the hospital on the evening of December 6, 2016, and anyone who knew where he was earlier that day, may hold the answers detectives need. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Valley Bureau Homicide detectives asked anyone with information to call them at 374-1943. 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.
