Floridala Munoz Portales was 59 years old when she died on Friday, July 30, 2004, in the Vermont Knolls neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds at 626 W. 78th St. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described her as "a 59-year-old Latino female" who "died Friday, July 30, after being stabbed in Vermont Knolls." The entry gave a full street address on a residential street, but it did not say whether that was her home, the home of someone she knew or simply the place where she was found. That short entry is nearly all that has been made public about her death.
Beyond her name, her age and the place where she died, almost nothing about Floridala Munoz Portales 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. She surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who she 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 she was stabbed during a fight or a robbery, attacked by a stranger or by someone she knew, or hurt indoors or on the street. It does not say what time of day she was hurt, whether she died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Her name is unusual, and searches for it turn up nothing at all beyond the Times record. Unlike many victims whose names are shared by dozens of strangers, she cannot be confused with anyone else, yet no obituary, death notice or later news story about her appears in any archive that could be checked. It is possible that she was known to friends and neighbors by a shorter form of her name, or that her family marked her death privately.
Vermont Knolls is a residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, made up largely of modest single-family homes and small apartment buildings on numbered east-west streets. It takes its name from Vermont Avenue, one of the long commercial corridors that run north and south through the area. The neighborhood is patrolled by the LAPD's 77th Street Division.
Los Angeles still recorded roughly 480 to 520 homicides a year in the mid-2000s, and many of those killings were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Floridala Munoz Portales could be found in news archives or public records. More than 21 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 59-year-old woman named Floridala Munoz Portales, or who lived on or near West 78th Street in Vermont Knolls in late July 2004, 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).
