Maria Reynoso was 81 years old when she died on Monday, August 12, 2002, in the city of Montebello. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died of stab wounds at 236 E. Fremont Square. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Montebello Police Department case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded her death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described her as "a 81-year-old Latino female" who "died Monday, Aug. 12, after being stabbed in Montebello." The entry gave a street address, but it did not say whether that was her home. No follow-up story about her death appears to have been published.
An obituary listing at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier records a Maria Reynoso who "was born on November 29, 1920 and passed away on August 12, 2002."
The dates match both her age and the day of her death in the coroner's record, which suggests the listing is hers, but it gives no other details about her life, her family or where she was laid to rest.
Beyond that, almost nothing about her has been made public. No news story, memorial page or family fundraiser describing her could be found. Maria Reynoso is a common name in Southern California, and searches turn up several other women who shared it, including a 77-year-old great-grandmother killed by a hit-and-run driver in South Los Angeles in 2018 and a woman from Commerce who died in 2019. None of them is the woman who died in Montebello in 2002.
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.
Born in 1920, she had lived through the Depression and the Second World War, and at 81 she may well have been a mother, grandmother or great-grandmother, though the record names no relatives. Nothing in the public record says how she spent her later years, who she lived with or how she came to be attacked.
Montebello is a city just east of East Los Angeles. It is a largely residential suburb of single-family homes and apartment complexes, with a well-known shopping mall, the Montebello Town Center. The city has its own police department, which investigated her death.
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 Maria Reynoso could be found in news archives or public records. More than 23 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew an elderly woman named Maria Reynoso in Montebello, or who lived on or near East Fremont Square in August 2002, 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 Montebello Police Department, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
