Hector Manuel Valero was 33 years old when he died on Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006, in Vermont Knolls, a neighborhood in South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 1015 W. 85th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded only the barest outline of his death. It said that Valero, a 33-year-old Latino man, "died Sunday, Aug. 13, after being stabbed in Vermont Knolls, according to Los Angeles County coroner's records." No fuller account appeared in the newspaper, and no statement from 77th Street detectives about the case could be found.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Hector Manuel Valero 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. Hector Valero is not a rare name, and searches turn up several other men who carry it, including men named as relatives in obituaries published in Texas and Florida, a high school football player in Texas and a donor to an online fundraiser. None of them 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.
The address on West 85th Street is a residential one, which suggests that he may have been hurt at or near a home rather than in a business district, but the record does not say whether he lived there, was visiting, or was simply passing by. It also does not say who called for help.
Vermont Knolls is a residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, made up largely of modest single-family homes and small apartment buildings on a grid of numbered streets, with shops and businesses along Vermont Avenue. Many of its families have lived there for generations. The area is covered by the LAPD's 77th Street Division, one of the busiest divisions in the city.
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 Hector Manuel Valero 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 knew a 33-year-old man named Hector Valero in South Los Angeles, or who lived on or near West 85th Street in mid-August 2006, 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 (877-LAPD-24-7), or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
