Valdemar Hunter Ross was 54 years old when he died on Monday, July 19, 2004, in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 1464 South Dunsmuir Avenue. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as "a 54-year-old black male" who "died Monday, July 19, after being stabbed in Mid-City." The entry gave a full street address on a residential street, but it did not say whether that was his home, the home of someone he knew or simply the place where he was found. That short entry is nearly all that has been made public about his death.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Valdemar Hunter Ross 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.
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.
His first name is unusual in Los Angeles, and searches for his full name turn up only a single people-search listing for a man of that name in Los Angeles, with no further details. Ross, by contrast, is a very common surname, and searches for shorter forms of his name return many unrelated people. No obituary, death notice or later news story about him could be found.
Mid-City is a large, mostly residential area in the center of Los Angeles. Its streets are lined with older single-family homes, duplexes and small apartment buildings, many dating from the early twentieth century, and it has long been one of the more racially and ethnically mixed parts of the city, home to Black, Latino, Asian and white families. Dunsmuir Avenue is one of its quiet north-south residential streets. The area falls under the LAPD's Wilshire Division.
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 Valdemar Hunter Ross could be found in news archives or public records. More than 21 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 54-year-old man named Valdemar Ross, or who lived on or near South Dunsmuir Avenue in July 2004, 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).
