Sharon Renay Wright was 41 years old when she died on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003, in Long Beach. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds at 2120 E. 7th St. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Long Beach Police Department case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded her death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described her as "a 41-year-old black female" who "died Thursday, Jan. 30, after being stabbed in Long Beach." The entry gave a street address, but it did not say whether she lived there, whether she was attacked there or whether that was simply where she was found. No follow-up story about her death appears to have been published.
Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Sharon Renay Wright 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. Sharon Wright is a very common name, and searches are crowded with other women who share it, including a former mayor of Santa Rosa and women whose obituaries were published in Pennsylvania, Kansas, Tennessee, Alabama and many other states.
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.
At 41 she was in the middle of her adult life. Nothing in the record says whether she had children, what kind of work she did, how long she had lived in Long Beach, or whether she knew the person who stabbed her.
Long Beach is the second-largest city in Los Angeles County, a port city of more than 450,000 people on the coast south of Los Angeles. Seventh Street is one of the city's main east-west streets, running from the edge of downtown through older residential neighborhoods of apartment buildings, bungalows and small businesses. The 2100 block lies east of downtown, in a part of the city where blocks of apartments sit close to busy commercial corners. Long Beach has its own police department, which investigates killings inside the city.
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 Sharon Renay Wright 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 lived on or near the 2100 block of East 7th Street in late January 2003, or who knew Sharon and the people in her life at the time, may hold information that could help detectives. 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 Long Beach Police Department's Homicide Detail at 562-570-7244, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
