On November 23, 2015, a resident in a west Phoenix neighborhood near 75th Avenue contacted police to request a welfare check on a vehicle that had been parked on the street for several days without moving. Responding officers went to the 7500 block of West Crittenden Lane, just off 75th Avenue between the major cross streets of Indian School Road and Thomas Road, and found a car that matched the description from the call.
Inside, in the back seat of that vehicle, they discovered a lifeless body bearing traumatic injuries that investigators said were consistent with a homicide rather than an accident or natural causes.
Police later identified the victim as Oscar Andujo, a 50-year-old Hispanic/Latino male from Phoenix. According to information released at the time, friends and relatives told officers they had not heard from him since the preceding Saturday, and detectives believed his body had been placed into the back seat rather than him simply dying where he lay. His death was formally ruled a homicide, and the case was turned over to Phoenix police homicide detectives for a full investigation.
The circumstances suggested that the vehicle had likely been sitting at the curb for some time before anyone realized something was wrong, which complicated efforts to establish a precise timeline of the killing and to identify where the attack had actually taken place. Public summaries of the case describe the injuries only in general terms as “consistent with homicide,” without specifying the exact nature of the wounds, and note that the body was discovered in the back of a parked car near 75th Avenue and Indian School Road, with the original welfare-check call tied to the nearby Crittenden Lane address.
In the days that followed, family members organized an online memorial fundraiser to help cover funeral expenses, describing Andujo as a strong, highly spirited and witty father and grandfather who was “tragically taken” in a “senseless act of violence” and emphasizing how deeply he was loved by his children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews. The fundraiser, created from Phoenix in late November 2015, ties the appeal directly to his killing and underscores that his death came without warning, leaving relatives scrambling to cope with both grief and unexpected costs.
Despite the initial homicide ruling and the involvement of specialized detectives, there is no public record indicating that investigators ever named a suspect, released a detailed suspect description, or announced an arrest in connection with Andujo's death. Later entries in crime-tracking and cold-case databases continue to list his name with the cause of death recorded simply as murder under the jurisdiction of the Phoenix Police Department, signaling that the case remains unresolved and is treated as an unsolved homicide. As of the most recent online updates, his killing is still presented as an open case, with outside case-summary sites explicitly asking the public to report any new information that might help explain how he ended up dead in the back seat of that parked car and who was responsible.
