Joaquin Herrera was 49 years old when he died on Saturday, April 4, 2015, in Los Angeles County. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after being stabbed, and his death was ruled a homicide. The public record of his case is unusually thin: the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report did not give an address or a neighborhood for the attack, and its entry does not name the agency that investigated it.
The Times recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 49-year-old Latino male" who "died Saturday, April 4, after being stabbed." The web address of that entry refers to a "John Doe," which suggests that he may at first have been listed as an unidentified man before the coroner confirmed his name.
If so, it may have taken days or longer before his family learned what had happened to him, though the record does not say.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Joaquin Herrera 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. Joaquin Herrera is a common name in Mexico, Central and South America and the United States, and searches for it turn up court records, arrest reports and obituaries for many other men, including a man arrested in Florida in 2019 and a man buried in Whittier in 1999. None of them can be tied to this death.
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. Without an address, it is not even publicly known which police agency was responsible for the investigation, though the Times listed the death in the city of Los Angeles.
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 Joaquin Herrera could be found in news archives or public records. More than ten years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 49-year-old man named Joaquin Herrera living in or around Los Angeles in the spring of 2015, or who knows where and how he was hurt on or before April 4 of that year, may hold information that could help investigators. Relatives who were notified of his death, coworkers who noticed his absence or neighbors who heard about a stabbing that weekend could all help place the case. 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.
