An unexplained death in South LA



The South L.A. apartment where the LAPD found Stanley Thiesfield | Daina Beth Solomon

The South L.A. apartment where the LAPD found Stanley Thiesfield | Daina Beth Solomon

When police officers arrived at a two-room apartment just south of USC last fall to investigate complaints of foul odors, they found a body decomposed beyond recognition.

Something else caught their attention, too — the black electrical cord knotted around the man’s neck.

A Los Angeles Police detective declared the apartment a crime scene and set about collecting mail, business cards, fingerprints, DNA samples — anything that might offer clues about the dead man’s life, and how and why he’d died. A driver’s license revealed a name: Stanley Thiesfield.

Almost a year later, the fact that Thiesfield died at age 59 remains one of the only conclusions of the investigation. 
[Read more…]

Jonathan Gold: Finding Good Food in South Los Angeles



Listen to an audio story by Annenberg Radio News

It doesn’t matter if it’s Thai, Ethiopian, Italian, French, Polish, Spanish or Japanese – when it comes to food, the only standard you should be eating by is the GoId standard. No, I’m not referring to the golden rule or Grade-A rating, but the sought-after seal of approval given by Pulitzer Prize winner and LA WEEKLY food critic Jonathan Gold.

In this week’s interview with host Tiffany Marie Brannon, Gold digs into his favorite haunts, tells us about growing up in South Los Angeles and the multicultural influence of L.A. that he continues to love today.

Gold also shares a slice of his opinions on the future of L.A. cuisine, how the economy has had an impact on restaurants, and his hope of enticing people out of their culinary comfort zone by tempting their taste buds through his writing.