Jocelyn Nicole Juriansz was 29 years old when she died on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005, in Venice, the beach neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds at 908 Garfield Ave. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Pacific Division case.
The coroner's record describes her as a white woman. The Argonaut, the weekly newspaper that covers Venice and the nearby beach communities, reported on her death in early October 2005 in a story headlined "Two die in separate homicides within a week." According to that report, she "was identified by the Los Angeles County Coroner as Jocelyn Nicole Juriansz, 29, of Venice," and an autopsy was performed the following Monday.
Only a short excerpt of that article could be reviewed for this story, so its full account of what happened is not repeated here.
A Find a Grave memorial records that she was born on April 23, 1976, in Toronto, and that she died in Los Angeles on Sept. 24, 2005, at the age of 29. She had come a long way from home. Her name is very unusual, and several other public records appear to belong to the people who loved her. An In Memoriam notice for Jocelyn Juriansz, giving her dates as April 23, 1976, to Sept. 24, 2005, was published in Canada's National Post on Sept. 24, 2009, the fourth anniversary of her death. A Jocelyn Juriansz Memorial Award is offered at Ryerson University, now Toronto Metropolitan University, to a student in its School of Fashion, and a Jocelyn Nicole Juriansz Memorial Foundation appears on a list of Canadian non-profit corporations. A Facebook group called "Jocelyn Juriansz - In Memoriam" carries birthday messages from friends. Together these suggest that her family and friends in Toronto worked to keep her memory alive, and that she may have had ties to the world of fashion, although the listings themselves do not describe her life.
The public record does not say how she was hurt, whether she knew the person who attacked her, whether she died at the Garfield Avenue address or later at a hospital, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Venice was founded in the early 1900s by developer Abbot Kinney as a seaside resort modeled on its Italian namesake, complete with canals, a few of which survive today. Over the decades it became known for its boardwalk, its artists and street performers, and its mix of small bungalows, apartment buildings and newer homes on narrow residential streets a short walk from the sand.
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 Jocelyn Nicole Juriansz 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 Garfield Avenue in Venice in September 2005, who knew Jocelyn in Los Angeles or in Toronto, or who heard later talk about what happened to her, 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).
