Jorge Alberto Diaz was 32 years old when he died on Monday, May 3, 2004, in the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw area of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 4005 Ursula Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case, assigned to the Southwest Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 32-year-old Latino male" who "died Monday, May 3, after being stabbed in Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw." The same records list a second man, 24-year-old Francisco Carrillo Jr., who also died of stab wounds on May 3, 2004, at the same address on Ursula Avenue.
That suggests the two men may have been attacked in the same incident, though no public account says whether they knew each other or what happened that day.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Jorge Alberto Diaz 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. Jorge Diaz is a very common name across Latin America and the United States, and searches turn up many other men called Jorge Alberto Diaz, none of whom can be tied to this death.
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.
Baldwin Hills and the Crenshaw district lie in the southwestern part of Los Angeles, along Crenshaw Boulevard. For decades the area has been known as a center of Black life and culture in Los Angeles, home to the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza shopping center and close to Leimert Park, with its galleries, music venues and weekend gatherings. Its streets mix single-family houses, apartment buildings and small businesses. The area is patrolled by the LAPD's Southwest Division.
At 32, Jorge Alberto Diaz was a grown man in the middle of his working years. He may have been a husband, a father, a brother or a friend to people who still wonder what happened to him. Whoever stabbed him took away the decades he still had ahead.
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 Jorge Alberto Diaz 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 32-year-old man named Jorge Alberto Diaz in the Crenshaw area, or who was on or near Ursula Avenue in early May 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 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).
