Alejandro Delval Bueno was 28 years old when he died on Monday, July 17, 2006, in Sylmar, in the northern San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 14187 Oro Grande St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Mission Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded only the essentials. It said Bueno, "a 28-year-old Latino male," died "after being stabbed in Sylmar," according to the coroner's records. The record gives a street address rather than an intersection, which suggests he was hurt at or near a home or building on Oro Grande Street, but it does not say whether he lived there. No follow-up story appears to have been written about his death.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Alejandro Delval Bueno 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.
Alejandro Bueno is a fairly common name, and searches for it lead mostly to other men, including a well-known Argentine singer who died in a car crash in 2000 and men who died in Illinois, Texas and Indiana. None of them can be tied to the man who died in Sylmar, and none were used for this story. His middle name, Delval, is less common, but it does not appear in any public account that could be found.
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.
Sylmar is the northernmost neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles, tucked against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It is a mix of older single-family homes, apartment complexes, horse properties and newer housing tracts, and it is home to many working families. The area is perhaps best known outside the Valley for the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, which caused heavy damage across the northern San Fernando Valley. Oro Grande Street is a residential street, and neighbors there may remember the summer night or day when police arrived.
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 Alejandro Delval Bueno 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 Oro Grande Street in Sylmar in July 2006, or who knew a 28-year-old man named Alejandro Bueno, 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).
