Noel Salas Jaquez was 25 years old when she died on Sunday, May 21, 2000, in the Arcadia area of the San Gabriel Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds at 11113 Lower Azusa Road. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's 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 25-year-old Latino female" who "died Sunday, May 21, after being stabbed in Arcadia." It gave no other details about what happened, and 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 Noel Salas Jaquez 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. Noel is more often a man's name, and searches for her name turned up only other people, among them a man named Noel Jaquez Aguirre who died in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 2022 and a donor to an unrelated online fundraiser. None of them can be connected to the young woman who died in 2000.
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.
The case was handled by the Sheriff's Department rather than by the Arcadia Police Department, which suggests the address may lie in an unincorporated pocket of county territory near the city rather than inside Arcadia's city limits, although the record does not say so directly. The record does not say whether she lived at that address.
Arcadia is a city in the western San Gabriel Valley, at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. It is best known for Santa Anita Park, the historic horse racing track, and for the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, with its peacocks and old Queen Anne cottage. Much of the city is made up of quiet residential streets, and it borders El Monte and several unincorporated county neighborhoods.
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 Noel Salas Jaquez 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 lived on or near Lower Azusa Road in May 2000, or who knew a 25-year-old woman named Noel Jaquez in the Arcadia and El Monte area, 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).
