Stella Aspiras

Stella Aspiras was only a baby when she died on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2005, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds at 3710 Los Feliz Blvd. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Northeast Division case.

The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described her as "a Asian female" who "died Thursday, Oct. 13, after being stabbed in Los Feliz." The report gives no age in its text, but the coroner's record lists her age as zero and places her in the age range from birth to 5 years, which suggests that she was an infant less than a year old. That brief entry is nearly everything that has been made public about her death.

Beyond her name and the place where she died, almost nothing about Stella Aspiras 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. A child so young had barely begun her life, and the people who held her, fed her and cared for her in those first months surely remember her, 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 who was caring for her that day, whether she was hurt inside a home or somewhere else, whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone else was hurt, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect. The killing of a baby is among the rarest and most painful cases detectives handle, and it is unusual for such a death to draw no news coverage at all.

Aspiras is an uncommon surname, and searches turned up only a handful of unrelated people who share it, none of them connected to this death.

Los Feliz is a hillside neighborhood on the east side of Los Angeles, at the foot of Griffith Park and the Griffith Observatory. Los Feliz Boulevard is its main east-west street, a wide, tree-lined road of apartment buildings, homes and churches that runs along the southern edge of the park. The neighborhood is known for its older homes, its shops and restaurants along Vermont Avenue and Hillhurst Avenue, and its mix of longtime residents and newer arrivals. In a neighborhood of close-set apartment buildings, someone may have heard or seen something that day.

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 Stella Aspiras could be found in news archives or public records. More than 20 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near Los Feliz Boulevard in October 2005, or who knew Stella Aspiras and her family, 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).