Tomas Agustin Domingo was 70 years old when he died on Wednesday, May 10, 2000, in the Westlake area of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 1740 W. Temple St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Rampart Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 70-year-old Asian male" who "died Wednesday, May 10, after being stabbed in Westlake." It gave no other details about what happened, and 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 Tomas Agustin Domingo 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. Tomas and Domingo are both common names, and searches for him turned up only other people, among them a man named in a Los Angeles child support case filed in 2019, men whose obituaries were published in South Carolina, Indiana, North Carolina and Florida. None of them can be connected to the man who died on Temple Street.
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 coroner listed a street address rather than an intersection, which suggests he may have been hurt at or near a building, perhaps a home, although the record does not say whether he lived there. At 70, he was far older than most people killed in Los Angeles and nothing in the public record explains who might have wanted to harm him or why.
Westlake is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Los Angeles, lying just west of downtown and centered on MacArthur Park. It is a district of older apartment buildings, busy shopping streets and small businesses, home to many working families and immigrants from Latin America and Asia. Temple Street runs west from downtown through Westlake and toward Silver Lake, lined with apartment buildings, churches and storefronts.
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 Tomas Agustin Domingo 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 West Temple Street in May 2000, or who knew a 70-year-old man named Tomas Domingo in the Westlake 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 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).
