Larry Wayne Bumgarner was 53 years old when he died on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2002, in Lancaster, in the Antelope Valley of northern Los Angeles County. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 45803 Kingtree Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 53-year-old white male" who "died Wednesday, Feb. 20, after being stabbed in Lancaster." The entry gave a street address on Kingtree Avenue, but it did not say whether that was his home, and 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 Larry Wayne Bumgarner 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. Bumgarner is a fairly uncommon surname, but searches for the name turn up mostly unrelated men, including a Larry Wayne Bumgarner who died of natural causes in Montana in 2021 and others in North Carolina. None of them can be connected to the man who died in Lancaster in 2002.
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 53 he was a man in late middle age, with most of a lifetime behind him. Nothing in the record says whether he had a wife or children, what kind of work he did, how long he had lived in the Antelope Valley, or whether relatives elsewhere were ever told how he died.
Lancaster is a city in the high desert north of the San Gabriel Mountains, about 70 miles from downtown Los Angeles. It grew with the aerospace industry and nearby Edwards Air Force Base, and in the 1980s and 1990s it expanded quickly as families moved there in search of cheaper housing. Much of the city is made up of tract homes and quiet residential streets laid out on a wide grid.
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 Larry Wayne Bumgarner 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 lived on or near Kingtree Avenue in Lancaster in February 2002, or who knew a 53-year-old man named Larry Wayne Bumgarner in the Antelope Valley, 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).
