Roy Anthony Sutherland was 48 years old when he was stabbed to death on the night of Sunday, August 2, 2009, in South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds suffered in the 3500 block of South Western Avenue, in the area the Los Angeles Times calls Exposition Park. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Southwest Division.
According to the Times, a person walking by found Sutherland with several stab wounds and called police at 11:20 p.m. He was taken to a hospital, where he died a short time later, according to the coroner's office. LA Weekly also reported that a passerby had found him on Western Avenue and called police.
The LAPD said at the time that there were no suspects and no known motive, and that no witnesses had come forward.
Detectives asked anyone with information to call the Southwest Division homicide unit at (213) 485-1383.
Beyond these details, almost nothing about Roy Sutherland has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story, and no later news report about his death turned up. Searches for his name turned up only other men who shared it, among them a model builder, people in Canada and the American South, and men in old family histories, none of whom can be connected to the man who died on Western Avenue. He surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
Because so little was released, many questions remain open. The record does not say whether Sutherland lived nearby, whether he was attacked on the sidewalk where he was found or somewhere else, whether he was robbed, or whether he knew the person who stabbed him. It also does not say how long he may have been lying there before the passerby stopped to help.
Exposition Park takes its name from the large park south of downtown Los Angeles that holds the Natural History Museum, the California Science Center and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, next to the University of Southern California. To the west of the park, the neighborhood is largely residential, with older houses and apartment buildings. Western Avenue, one of the city's longest north-south boulevards, is lined there with small businesses, churches and apartment buildings, and it carries traffic late into the night.
Homicides in Los Angeles fell steeply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet many killings from those years were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Roy Sutherland could be found in news archives or public records. More than 16 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was on South Western Avenue on the night of August 2, 2009, or who knew Roy Sutherland, 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).
