Olugbenga Adedato Oni was 34 years old when he was killed on Sunday, March 1, 2015, in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds in the 6000 block of North Figueroa Street. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Northeast Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described what police found that night. "About 9:30 p.m., Los Angeles police officers responded to a call of a death investigation in the area and found Oni on the ground in an alley with a stab wound," the Times wrote, citing a department news release. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:35 p.m., according to the coroner's office.
The Times asked anyone with information to call Northeast Division detectives at 344-5731.
A few days later the local news site The Eastsider reported that police were "asking the public for help to find the person or persons responsible for the fatal stabbing of 34-year-old Olugbenga Oni." No suspect description, motive or account of what led up to the attack appears in the public record. It is not known whether he lived nearby, whether he knew the person who stabbed him, or whether anyone saw what happened in the alley.
Funeral records add a few details about his life. Obituary listings with Dignity Memorial state that Olugbenga Oni was born on April 30, 1980, in Los Angeles and died on March 1, 2015, and that he was laid to rest under the care of Live Oak Memorial Park in Monrovia. The listings do not name his family or describe his work or interests, but the dates match the coroner's record exactly. He was a Los Angeles native, born in the city where he died, a few weeks short of his 35th birthday.
His first name is shared by many people on social media and in professional directories, and searches for it turn up several unrelated people. None of those pages could be tied to the man who died in Highland Park.
Highland Park is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Northeast Los Angeles, set in the hills along the Arroyo Seco between downtown and Pasadena. It is known for its Craftsman houses and its historic commercial strips along Figueroa Street and York Boulevard. By 2015 the neighborhood was in the middle of rapid change, as new restaurants, bars and shops opened along Figueroa and rents rose, while many longtime residents remained. The block where Oni was found sits along that busy Figueroa corridor, lined with businesses and backed by alleys behind the storefronts.
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 Olugbenga Adedato Oni 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. Someone who was on or near North Figueroa Street in Highland Park on the evening of March 1, 2015, or who knew Oni and the people he spent time with in the weeks before, may know something that has never reached 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.
