Rodgenia Iris Withers was 35 years old when she died on Monday, June 7, 2004, in Long Beach. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds at Pacific Avenue and Broadway. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Long Beach Police Department case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded her death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described her as "a 35-year-old black female" who "died Monday, June 7, after being stabbed in Long Beach." The entry gave only an intersection, not an exact address, and it did not say whether she lived nearby, whether she was attacked at that corner or whether she was simply found there. No follow-up story about her death appears to have been published.
Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Rodgenia Iris Withers 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. She surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who she was, but none of that has entered the public record. Her first name, Rodgenia, is very unusual, which makes it all the more striking that a search for it turns up nothing at all about her life, her family or her death.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether she was stabbed during a fight or a robbery, attacked by a stranger or by someone she knew, or hurt indoors or on the street. It does not say what time of day she was hurt, whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Pacific Avenue and Broadway sit in the heart of downtown Long Beach, a few blocks inland from the waterfront. The area mixes older commercial buildings, apartment blocks and offices with the restaurants and bars of the nearby Pine Avenue district, and it is close to the city's civic buildings and transit lines. In 2004 downtown Long Beach was in the middle of years of redevelopment, but many of its streets were still home to working-class renters, people living on low incomes and people without stable housing.
The Long Beach Police Department, which runs its own homicide detail separate from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, took responsibility for the case. 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 Rodgenia Iris Withers 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 35-year-old woman named Rodgenia Withers in Long Beach, or who was in downtown Long Beach near Pacific Avenue and Broadway in early June 2004, 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 contact the Long Beach Police Department's Homicide Detail at 562-570-7244, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
