Joe George Espinosa-Montes III was 29 years old when he died on Thursday, March 3, 2005. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Pomona Police Department case. Unlike most entries in the coroner's records, his gives no address or neighborhood for the place where he was hurt.
The coroner's record describes him as a Latino man in his late 20s. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Joe George Espinosa-Montes III 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 unusual.
The hyphenated surname joins two family names, and the "III" shows that he was the third man in his family to carry the name Joe George, after his father and grandfather. Even so, searches for his name found nothing beyond the Homicide Report listing.
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.
Because no location was recorded, it is not even clear where in the city he was attacked. The fact that the Pomona Police Department is listed as the investigating agency suggests that he was hurt somewhere within Pomona's city limits, but that is an inference from the agency name, not a detail the record states.
Pomona is one of the larger cities in eastern Los Angeles County, with about 150,000 residents. Named for the Roman goddess of fruit, it is known today as the home of the Los Angeles County Fair, held each year at the Fairplex, and of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. The city has a historic downtown, older residential neighborhoods of bungalows and apartment buildings, and busy commercial corridors such as Holt Avenue. Pomona has its own police department, which investigates homicides inside the city.
A man of 29 usually has a circle of people around him: relatives, coworkers, friends from school, neighbors. Some of those people may have learned something about how he died, even if what they heard never reached investigators.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Joe George Espinosa-Montes III 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 knew Joe or his family in Pomona in early 2005, who saw him in the days before March 3, 2005, or who heard talk afterward about what happened to him, 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 contact the Pomona Police Department, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
