Juan Osegueda

Juan Osegueda was 26 years old when he died on Wednesday, December 6, 2006, in Highland Park, in northeast Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 5248 E. Meridian St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Northeast Division.

The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 26-year-old Latino male" who "died Wednesday, Dec. 6, after being stabbed in Highland Park." The entry gave a street address, but it did not say whether he lived there, whether he was visiting or whether that was simply the place where he was found. No follow-up story appears to have been written.

A genealogy listing adds one detail. It records a Juan J. Osegueda who was born on October 19, 1980, and who "died at age 26 years old on December 6, 2006." The dates match the coroner's record, which suggests that the listing refers to him and that his middle initial was J.

Beyond his name, his age, his birth date and the place where he died, almost nothing about Juan Osegueda has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found, 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. Searches turn up several other men named Juan Osegueda, in Los Angeles County and elsewhere, none of whom 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.

Highland Park is one of the older neighborhoods of Los Angeles, lying along the Arroyo Seco between downtown and Pasadena. It grew up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is known for its hillside streets, its Craftsman houses and its commercial strips along Figueroa Street and York Boulevard. In 2006 it was a largely working-class, mostly Latino neighborhood that was beginning to see the changes that would later reshape it.

Los Angeles still recorded roughly 480 to 520 homicides a year in the mid-2000s, and many of those killings were never solved.

No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Juan Osegueda could be found in news archives or public records. More than 19 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near Meridian Street in Highland Park in December 2006, or who knew a 26-year-old man named Juan Osegueda, 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).