Jose Norberto Molina was 42 years old when he died on Saturday, October 7, 2017, in Arleta, in the northeast San Fernando Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 9141 Canterbury Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Valley Bureau Homicide case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report entry on his death is brief. It says only that Molina, "a 42-year-old Latino male," died "after being stabbed in Arleta," according to coroner's records. The Times did not publish quotes from detectives, a description of a suspect or any account of how the stabbing happened, and no news story about the case could be found.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Jose Norberto Molina 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.
His name has made the search for him harder. Jose Molina is one of the most common name combinations in Southern California and across the Spanish-speaking world, and searches for it return obituaries, fundraisers and court records for many different men, in states from Texas and New Mexico to South Carolina and Maryland. None of those records match his age, the date of his death or the address in Arleta.
The address itself offers one small clue. The coroner's records place his death at a specific street number on Canterbury Avenue rather than at a block or an intersection, which suggests that he may have been found at or near a home or other building, but the record does not say whether he lived there.
Arleta is a largely residential neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles in the northeast San Fernando Valley, bordered by communities such as Pacoima, Panorama City and Sun Valley. Its streets are lined mostly with single-family homes.
By the mid-2010s Los Angeles was recording roughly 250 to 300 homicides a year, among the lowest totals in decades, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Jose Norberto Molina could be found in news archives or public records. More than eight years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Someone who lived on or near Canterbury Avenue in Arleta in October 2017, or who knew Molina and noticed that he was in trouble in the days before he died, may know something that has never reached 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 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
