Jimmy Jackson was 36 years old when he died on Monday, Dec. 4, 2000, in the Vermont-Slauson neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 1346 W. 59th Place. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 36-year-old black male" who "died Monday, Dec. 4, after being stabbed in Vermont-Slauson." The entry gave a street address, but it did not say whether that was his home, the home of someone he knew or simply the place where he was found. No follow-up story appears to have been written.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Jimmy Jackson 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. His name is one of the most common in the country, which makes him especially hard to trace. Searches return a former NBA player, college baseball coaches, a professional boxer, a policy executive, defendants in criminal cases in Kentucky, New York, Texas and Georgia, and hundreds of obituaries. None of them can be connected to the man who died on West 59th Place.
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.
Vermont-Slauson is a residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, named for the intersection of Vermont and Slauson avenues. Its side streets are lined with modest single-family houses, duplexes and small apartment buildings, many built in the first half of the twentieth century, while the main avenues carry small shops, churches, auto businesses and bus lines. The neighborhood falls within the LAPD's 77th Street Division, which in 2000 was one of the busiest homicide divisions in the city. Many families in the area have lived there for generations and know their neighbors by sight.
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 Jimmy Jackson could be found in news archives or public records. More than 25 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Jimmy, who lived near the 1300 block of West 59th Place in December 2000, or who heard talk in the neighborhood about a stabbing in the first week of that month, 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).
