James Ray was 63 years old when he died on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near 303 E. 5th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case under LAPD Central.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded him as a Black man who "died Wednesday, Aug. 31, after being stabbed near 303 E. 5th St. in Downtown." The entry was drawn from coroner's records and gives no further details about how or why he was hurt. No follow-up story appears to have been written.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about James Ray 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.
James Ray is a very common name, and searches for it are crowded with other men: a self-help author convicted after deaths at an Arizona sweat lodge, a stage and television actor who died in Los Angeles in 1988, a New Jersey lawyer convicted of murder, and many obituaries from other states. None of them is connected to the man who died on East 5th Street. That makes it even harder to find traces of his life online.
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.
East 5th Street east of Main Street runs through the eastern part of downtown Los Angeles, in or near the area long known as Skid Row. For decades the district has held one of the largest concentrations of homeless people in the United States, along with missions, shelters, single-room-occupancy hotels and social service agencies. Its sidewalks are often lined with tents and makeshift shelters. The neighborhood is only a few blocks from the office towers, loft buildings and restaurants of the historic core.
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 James Ray 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. Anyone who lived, worked or stayed near East 5th Street in late August 2016, who knew a 63-year-old man named James downtown, or who later heard someone talk about a stabbing on that block, 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.
