Gregory Jay Price was 51 years old when he died on Saturday, March 12, 2005, in the Harvard Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 1654 W. 65th Place. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department 77th Street Division case.
The coroner's record describes him as a Black man in his early 50s. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Gregory Jay Price 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. His name is a common one.
Searches turned up a well-known economist named Gregory Price, a bodybuilder of the same name, and obituaries for many other men called Gregory Price who died in North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Arkansas and other states, years apart from 2005. None of them is the man who died on West 65th Place. A people-search listing even shows a living Gregory Jay Price in Los Angeles a decade after this death, a reminder of how easily records for different men with the same name can be confused.
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 coroner gave a specific street address on West 65th Place. That may mean he was found at or near a home, and it may have been where he lived, but the record does not say so.
Harvard Park is a small residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, part of the area patrolled by the LAPD's 77th Street Division. Its blocks are lined mostly with modest single-family houses and small apartment buildings, many of them built in the first half of the twentieth century, and many of its residents are longtime homeowners and renters who have watched their streets change over decades. On short residential streets like West 65th Place, neighbors often know one another's routines, cars and visitors.
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 Gregory Jay Price 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 West 65th Place in March 2005, who knew Gregory or the people he spent time with, or who heard talk afterward about what happened to him that Saturday, 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).
