Charles Richard Nelson Jr. was 47 years old when he died on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2002. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case, assigned to the Harbor Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 47-year-old white male" who "died Wednesday, Aug. 7, after being stabbed." Unlike most entries, it gave no street address and no neighborhood, so even the place where he was hurt is missing from the public record. The only clue to where it happened is the assignment of the case to the LAPD's Harbor Division. No follow-up story about his death appears to have been published.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Charles Richard Nelson 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. Charles Nelson is a very common name, and searches turn up hundreds of other men who share it, from the actor Charles Nelson Reilly to men whose obituaries were published in Florida, Minnesota, Texas and elsewhere. None of them can be connected to the man who died in 2002.
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 suffix in his name shows that he shared it with his father, Charles Richard Nelson.
The Harbor Division covers the southern tip of the city of Los Angeles, the narrow strip of land that connects the rest of the city to the Port of Los Angeles. Its neighborhoods include San Pedro, Wilmington and Harbor City. It is an area shaped by the port and its shipping terminals, with older residential neighborhoods, fishing and maritime businesses, refineries and industrial yards, and long-standing communities of dock workers and their families.
Homicides in Los Angeles rose sharply in the early 2000s, climbing past 600 in 2002, and detectives carried heavy caseloads. Many killings from those years were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Charles Richard Nelson Jr. could be found in news archives or public records. More than 23 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 47-year-old man named Charles Nelson in San Pedro, Wilmington or Harbor City in the summer of 2002, or who heard about a man being stabbed in the harbor area in early August of that year, 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 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).
