Donna Reese Mckinney was 46 years old when she died on Thursday, March 4, 2004, in the Broadway-Manchester area of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds at 319 W. 105th St. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case, assigned to the Southeast Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded her death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described her as "a 46-year-old black female" who "died Thursday, March 4, after being stabbed in Broadway-Manchester." The entry gave an address on West 105th Street, but it did not say whether that was her home, the place where she was attacked or simply where she was found. No follow-up news story about her death appears to have been published.
Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Donna Reese Mckinney 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. Donna McKinney is a common name, and searches turn up many other women who share it, most of them in obituaries from Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia, Mississippi and other states. None of them can be connected to this 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.
Broadway-Manchester is a neighborhood in South Los Angeles named for the intersection of Broadway and Manchester Avenue. It is made up largely of modest single-family houses and small apartment buildings on numbered streets, crossed by busier commercial roads lined with shops, churches and auto businesses. For generations it has been home to many Black families, and in more recent decades many Latino families have moved in as well. The area is patrolled by the LAPD's Southeast Division.
At 46, Donna Reese Mckinney may have been a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt or a friend to people who still wonder what happened to her on that Thursday in March.
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 Donna Reese Mckinney 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 46-year-old woman named Donna Mckinney in South Los Angeles, or who was on or near West 105th Street in early March 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).
