Ray David Valencia was 34 years old when he died on Wednesday, June 24, 2020, in East Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near 3707 E. Medford St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as "a 34-year-old Latino male" who "died Wednesday, June 24, after being stabbed near 3707 E. Medford St. in East Los Angeles." That entry is nearly all that has been made public about his death. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Ray David Valencia 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.
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.
Ray Valencia is a common name in California and the Southwest. Searches return obituaries for older men of that name in Texas, Nebraska, Oregon and New Mexico, a law school dean, a car salesman and others, but none of them can be connected to the young man who died in East Los Angeles.
The address on Medford Street is a specific one, which suggests he may have been at or near a home, though the record does not say whether he lived there or was visiting. That is only an inference.
East Los Angeles is an unincorporated community just east of Boyle Heights and the city of Los Angeles, and for that reason it is policed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department rather than the LAPD. It is one of the best-known Mexican American communities in the United States, with Whittier Boulevard as its main commercial street, and its neighborhoods are made up mostly of small single-family houses, many of them owned by the same families for generations. Residential streets like Medford Street are the kind of blocks where neighbors know one another and notice when something is wrong.
The killing came in late June 2020, a few months into the coronavirus pandemic, when many people were out of work or spending long days at home. 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 Ray David Valencia could be found in news archives or public records. More than five years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near Medford Street in East Los Angeles in June 2020, who knew Ray Valencia and saw him in the days before his death, or who heard later talk about how he was hurt, 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.
