Leroy Swanigan Jr. was 60 years old when he died on Thursday, April 28, 2016, in East Compton. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds after he was attacked at the corner of East Compton Boulevard and South Castlegate Avenue. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department case.
The attack happened in broad daylight, in a place where people saw it. According to the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, Sheriff's deputies were called to the scene about 4:17 p.m. "after the department received multiple calls about a man who had been stabbed in the retail area," said Lt. Steve Jauch. Paramedics found Swanigan lying on the sidewalk with stab wounds to his abdomen.
He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:49 p.m., according to coroner's records.
Witnesses told investigators that Swanigan was stabbed by a Black man who fled east on East Compton Boulevard and out of view, Jauch said. Beyond that, detectives had very little. "We have no motive, no idea why he was there and no murder weapon," Jauch told the Times. "All we know is people called 911 because they saw him there bleeding." Investigators did not know what, if anything, had passed between the two men before the stabbing.
That frank statement is one of the clearest pictures of how hard the case was from the start. Several people called for help, which suggests that a number of witnesses were nearby, yet none of them appears to have been able to identify the attacker.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Leroy Swanigan Jr. has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story. Searches for his name turn up another Leroy Swanigan Jr., from Arkansas, whose birth year and date of death do not match, so that record belongs to a different man. The "Jr." in his name shows that he shared it with his father. He surely had family and friends who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
East Compton is an unincorporated community in South Los Angeles County, next to the city of Compton. It is a working-class area of single-family homes and small businesses, and East Compton Boulevard is one of its main commercial streets, lined with shops and strip-mall storefronts. Because the area is unincorporated, the Sheriff's Department handles police work there.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Leroy Swanigan 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. Anyone who was in the shops or on the sidewalks near East Compton Boulevard and South Castlegate Avenue on the afternoon of April 28, 2016, who saw a man running east on East Compton Boulevard, or who knew a 60-year-old man named Leroy Swanigan, 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 contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
