Richard Cossio Gonzalez was 53 years old when he died on Sunday, March 2, 2003, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 100 Winston St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Central Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 53-year-old Latino male" who "died Sunday, March 2, after being stabbed in Downtown." The entry gave an address on Winston Street, but it did not say whether he lived there, whether he was staying in the area or whether that was simply the place where he was found. No follow-up story appears to have been written, and no police news release about his death could be found.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Richard Cossio Gonzalez 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. Richard Gonzalez is one of the most common names in Southern California, and searches turn up hundreds of other men who shared it, including a Caltrans worker killed on a San Diego freeway in 2011, several police officers and men whose obituaries appeared across the country. 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 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.
At 53, he had lived most of his life before that Sunday in March. He may have had children, brothers and sisters or old friends somewhere in Los Angeles or farther away.
Winston Street is a short street in the eastern part of downtown Los Angeles, close to the area known as Skid Row. For decades that part of downtown has held missions, shelters and single-room-occupancy hotels, and it has been home to one of the largest concentrations of people without stable housing in the United States. The record does not say whether he lived in the area or was only passing through.
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 Richard Cossio Gonzalez could be found in news archives or public records. More than 22 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 53-year-old man named Richard Gonzalez who spent time in downtown Los Angeles, or who was on or near Winston Street in early March 2003, 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).
