William Roy Knox was 40 years old when he died on Sunday, Feb. 18, 2001, in the El Monte area of the San Gabriel Valley. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 10632 Lower Azusa Road. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 40-year-old white male" who "died Sunday, Feb. 18, after being stabbed in El Monte." It gave no other details about what happened. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about William Roy Knox 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.
William Knox is a common name, and searches for him turned up only other men, among them men named in old newspaper notices in other states and in obituaries from across the country.
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 listed a street address on Lower Azusa Road, but the record does not say whether that was his home, the home of someone he knew, a business or simply the place where he was found.
The case was assigned to the Sheriff's Department rather than the El Monte Police Department, which may mean the address lies in an unincorporated area near El Monte, although the record does not say so.
El Monte is one of the older communities of the San Gabriel Valley, east of downtown Los Angeles, and it was known in the nineteenth century as the end of the Santa Fe Trail. Today it and the surrounding areas are a mix of modest single-family homes, apartment complexes, mobile home parks and small businesses, home to many working families, a large share of them Latino and Asian American. Lower Azusa Road is a long east-west street through the area, lined with homes, small shops and light industrial businesses.
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 William Roy Knox could be found in news archives or public records. More than 24 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived or worked near the 10600 block of Lower Azusa Road in mid-February 2001, or who knew a 40-year-old man named William Knox in the San Gabriel Valley, may hold information that could help investigators. 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).
