Christina Salazar was 24 years old when her death was recorded on Sunday, July 1, 2001. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department case. The public record does not give the address or the community where she was found.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded her death in one of its shortest entries. It described her only as "a 24-year-old white female" who "died Sunday, July 1, after being stabbed." Unlike most entries, it named no street, city or neighborhood.
A memorial page on the Find a Grave website, titled "Christina Salazar (1976-2001)," quotes a news report that "Christina Salazar, 25, had been missing from an unincorporated area outside Whittier since June 25," according to a deputy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Listings from Rose Hills Mortuary in Whittier and from a memorial website record a Christina Salazar, born in 1976, who died in June 2001. The year, the sheriff's involvement and the approximate age all fit, which suggests that these pages may refer to the same young woman, perhaps reported missing days before her body was found. The dates and the age do not line up exactly with the coroner's record, however, and none of the pages that could be read describe how she died, so the connection cannot be confirmed.
If that is her, it would mean that her family spent several anxious days searching for her before learning she had been killed. Beyond these listings, no obituary text, family fundraiser or news story describing her life could be found. Christina Salazar is a common name, and searches are crowded with other women, including a 17-year-old shot near the University of Southern California in 2011 and women in Northern California, Georgia and Texas. None of them is the woman who died in 2001.
The public record does not say whether she was attacked by a stranger or by someone she knew, where she was hurt, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department patrols the unincorporated parts of the county as well as dozens of cities that contract for its services. Unincorporated communities near Whittier, in the southeastern part of the county, are largely residential, with neighborhoods of single-family homes and apartments. The department's Homicide Bureau investigates killings in all of the areas it serves.
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 Christina Salazar could be found in news archives or public records. More than 24 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a young woman named Christina Salazar in the Whittier area, or who remembers a woman reported missing there in late June 2001, 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 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).
