Keith Chrison was 50 years old when he died on Sunday, August 3, 2008, in South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 4381 S. Western Ave., in the area the coroner's records list as Vermont Square. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's South Bureau Homicide unit.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as "50, a black man," who "was stabbed to death in the 4300 block of South Western Avenue near Jefferson Park on Sunday, Aug. 3." The entry added one more detail: "The L.A. County Coroner's office listed his time of death as 5:10 p.m." It closed with the note that "This homicide was reported by the coroner," which means that the paper learned of the death from coroner's records rather than from a police statement or a reporter at the scene.
The time of death places the killing in the late afternoon or early evening of a summer Sunday, when
Western Avenue would have been busy with traffic, shoppers and people waiting for buses. That suggests that people on the street may have seen or heard part of what happened, although no account in the record says so. A time of death is not always the time of the attack, and the record does not say whether he died at the scene or later.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Keith Chrison has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story, and no follow-up news report appears to have been written. He surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record. Chrison is an uncommon surname, and searches turned up no other record of him.
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 sidewalk. It does not say whether anyone saw what happened or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Western Avenue is one of the longest and busiest north-south streets in Los Angeles. In this stretch of South Los Angeles it is a commercial corridor lined with small businesses, auto shops, markets, churches and apartment buildings, with residential blocks of older single-family homes stretching away on either side. The Times placed the spot near Jefferson Park, a neighborhood known for its Craftsman houses, and the surrounding area has long been home to working families, many of whom have lived there for generations.
Homicides in Los Angeles fell steeply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet many killings from those years were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Keith Chrison could be found in news archives or public records. More than 17 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was on the 4300 block of South Western Avenue on the afternoon of August 3, 2008, or who knew a 50-year-old man named Keith Chrison who spent time in that area, may hold information that could help. 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 (877-LAPD-24-7), or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
