Andrew James Christian was 22 years old when he died on Sunday, February 15, 2004, in Palmdale, in the Antelope Valley of northern Los Angeles County. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 38714 12th St. East. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as "a 22-year-old black male" who "died Sunday, Feb. 15, after being stabbed in Palmdale." That short entry, drawn from coroner's records, 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 Andrew James Christian 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.
Andrew Christian is a fairly common name, and searches for it turn up many unrelated people, among them engineers and scientists named on patents and research papers and older men remembered in obituaries in Virginia and the Midwest. None of them can be connected to the young man who died in Palmdale. The record gives a residential street address, which suggests he may have been hurt at or near a home, though it does not say whether he lived there.
Palmdale sits in the high desert on the far side of the San Gabriel Mountains, about an hour's drive north of downtown Los Angeles. In the 1990s and 2000s it was one of the fastest growing cities in the county, as families looking for more affordable homes moved to new tracts built across the valley floor, and many residents commuted long distances to jobs in the Los Angeles basin. The city is closely tied to the aerospace industry through Air Force Plant 42, where military aircraft have been built and tested for decades. Palmdale contracts with the Sheriff's Department for police services, so killings in the city are investigated by the department's Homicide Bureau.
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 Andrew James Christian 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 Andrew Christian, or who was on or near 12th Street East in Palmdale in mid-February 2004, may hold information that could help investigators. 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 Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
