Andres Cardenas was 39 years old when he died on Tuesday, March 29, 2005, in East Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 3852 Wool Wine Dr. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case.
The coroner's record describes him as a Latino man in his late 30s. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Andres Cardenas 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.
His name is a common one, and searches for it turned up only other men: an older man from Jalisco whose family was profiled in a 2006 newspaper feature, men of the same name who died of other causes in Orange Cove, California, and in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2005, and men named in court cases in Illinois and Florida. None of them is the man who died in East Los Angeles.
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.
The coroner gave a specific street address on Wool Wine Drive. That may mean he was found at or near a home, but the record does not say whether he lived there, was visiting someone, or was found outside.
East Los Angeles is an unincorporated community just east of the city of Los Angeles, beyond Boyle Heights. Because it is not a city, it has no police department of its own, and the Sheriff's Department patrols its streets from its East Los Angeles station. It is one of the most densely settled parts of the county, a largely Mexican American community of small houses, apartment buildings and busy commercial streets such as Whittier Boulevard, with East Los Angeles College and Belvedere Park among its best known landmarks. Many families there have lived on the same blocks for generations, and residential streets like Wool Wine Drive are places where neighbors tend to know one another by sight.
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 Andres Cardenas could be found in news archives or public records. More than 20 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near Wool Wine Drive in late March 2005, who knew Andres or the people he spent time with, or who heard talk afterward about what happened to him, 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 (8477).
