Alvaro Dany Farelo Aquino was 28 years old when he died on Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, in North Hollywood, in the eastern San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 12126 Vanowen St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department North Hollywood Division case.
The coroner's records describe him as a Latino man. The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence, saying that he "died Sunday, Feb. 3, after being stabbed in North Hollywood, according to Los Angeles County coroner's records."
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Alvaro Dany Farelo Aquino 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. His full name, with its two surnames, is unusual, but searches for it led back only to copies of the Homicide Report entry on property history sites. Searches for the shorter form, Alvaro Aquino, turned up obituaries, school sports rosters and other records belonging to different men in other places and other years, none of whom can be connected to the man who died on Vanowen Street.
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.
The coroner gave a specific street address rather than a block or an intersection. The record does not say whether he lived there.
North Hollywood is one of the older communities of the San Fernando Valley, part of the city of Los Angeles. It grew up in the early twentieth century as a farm town and later became a dense neighborhood of apartment buildings, small houses and businesses. Today it is known for its arts district near the Metro B Line station, its small theaters and its busy commercial streets. Vanowen Street is one of the long east-west roads that run across the Valley floor, lined in many places with apartment buildings, small shops and auto businesses.
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 Alvaro Dany Farelo Aquino could be found in news archives or public records. More than 12 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived or worked near the 12100 block of Vanowen Street in North Hollywood in early February 2013, or who knew Alvaro and the people he spent time with, 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.
