Marco Lavelle Coleman Sr. was 34 years old when he died on Saturday, September 23, 2006, in Watts. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 2021 E. 115th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Southeast Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as "a 34-year-old black male" who "died Saturday, Sept. 23, after being stabbed in Watts." That short entry, drawn from coroner's records, is nearly the whole public record of his death.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Marco Lavelle Coleman Sr. 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.
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.
Searches for his name are crowded out by a well-known namesake, Marco Coleman, a former NFL defensive end who played at Georgia Tech, and by other men who share the name. None of them can be connected to this death. The "Sr." in his name suggests that he had a son named after him, who may have been a child when his father was killed.
Watts is a neighborhood in South Los Angeles, best known for the Watts Towers, the soaring folk-art sculptures built by Simon Rodia over more than three decades, and for the 1965 uprising that began there and became one of the defining events in the city's history. The area is home to several large public housing developments, along with streets of small single-family homes, churches and corner stores, and many families have lived there for generations. East 115th Street is a residential street in the eastern part of the neighborhood. In a close-knit place like Watts, news of a killing travels fast, and it is likely that people in the area heard talk about what happened to Marco Coleman, even if none of it ever reached detectives.
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 Marco Lavelle Coleman Sr. 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 was on or near East 115th Street in Watts in September 2006, or who knew Marco Coleman and spent time with him in the days before his death, 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).
