Russell Thurman was 30 years old when he was killed in Oakland on Friday, July 1, 2011. The Oakland Police Department investigated his death, and the Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Oakland from 2008 through 2017, lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest.
Beyond his name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about Russell Thurman has been made public.
No news story about his killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. He surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew his attacker, what time of day it happened, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Russell Thurman is also a name shared by several other men who died in 2011 in other states, and searches for him turn up their obituaries instead. That makes it harder to find any trace of the man who died in Oakland and may help explain why his story has been so hard to follow.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in East Oakland. His killing came on the Friday before the Fourth of July weekend, a time when many people would have been outside and around the neighborhood.
Oakland was one of the most violent large cities in California in those years. The city recorded 148 homicides in 2006 and more than 100 in most years through 2013, and its police department solved far fewer of them than the statewide average. In 2010 and 2011, Oakland police cleared only about 30 percent of the city's homicides. Cases with few public details, like his, often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Russell Thurman could be found in news archives or public records. More than 15 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Russell Thurman and saw him at the start of July 2011, or who heard talk afterward of what happened to him, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Oakland Police Department Homicide Section at (510) 238-3821 or the homicide tip line at (510) 238-7950, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers of Oakland at (510) 777-8572.
