John Fang Sun was 60 years old when he died on Wednesday, June 18, 2003, in South San Gabriel, an unincorporated community in the western San Gabriel Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 8035 Hill Drive. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 60-year-old Asian male" who "died Wednesday, June 18, after being stabbed in South San Gabriel." The entry gave a street address on Hill Drive, but it did not say whether he lived there, whether he was visiting or whether that was simply where he was found. No follow-up story about his death appears to have been published.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about John Fang Sun 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. Searches for the shorter form, John Sun, return other men, including a doctor in Orange County, a retired mathematics professor in Maryland and a much younger man from Rosemead who was named in a federal gang case in 2006. None of them can be connected to this death.
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.
At 60, he was at an age when many people are looking toward retirement, helping to raise grandchildren or still working full time, though nothing in the record says what his own life looked like.
South San Gabriel is a small, mostly residential pocket of unincorporated county land surrounded by the cities of San Gabriel, Rosemead and Monterey Park. Its streets are lined with single-family homes, and the surrounding San Gabriel Valley is home to one of the largest Asian American communities in the country. Because the community is not part of any city, police services come from the Sheriff's Department, and homicides there are investigated by the department's Homicide Bureau.
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 John Fang Sun could be found in news archives or public records. More than 22 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 60-year-old man named John Sun or John Fang Sun in South San Gabriel or the nearby cities, or who lived on or near Hill Drive in June 2003, may hold information that could help. 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).
