Homer Bell Jr. was 51 years old when he died on Thursday, January 1, 2004, in the Vermont Knolls neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 1140 W. 81st St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the 77th Street Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as "a 51-year-old black male" who "died Thursday, Jan. 1, after being stabbed in Vermont Knolls." That short entry is nearly all that has been made public about his death. He died on New Year's Day, the first day of 2004, though the record does not say whether he was hurt during the night of New Year's Eve or later that day.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Homer Bell Jr. 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.
The record gives a street address on West 81st Street, which suggests he may have been hurt at or near a home, though it does not say whether he lived there. Homer Bell is an old-fashioned name that appears in many families, and searches turn up only unrelated men, among them a soldier with the same name who was killed in Vietnam in 1968 and elderly men remembered in obituaries in Georgia, New York, Missouri and Texas. None of them can be connected to the man who died in South Los Angeles.
Vermont Knolls is a residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, named for Vermont Avenue, the long north-south boulevard that runs through it. Its side streets are lined mostly with single-family houses and small apartment buildings, and for decades it has been home to many working and middle class Black families, with a growing number of Latino families as well. The neighborhood is patrolled by the LAPD's 77th Street 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 Homer Bell Jr. 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 Homer Bell, or who was on or near West 81st Street in Vermont Knolls in the last hours of 2003 or on January 1, 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 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).
