October 23, 1983 – The LA Times reported on a crime that saw Police “baffled,” and had taken place the month before on Mexican Independence Day – still a big event on Olvera Street.

Glendale resident Elisabeth Sawicki, 53, was dressed in an outfit of “royal blue with large, bright and red and green floral patterns,” said LAPD Detective Joe Hargis. She had been celebrating the famous defeat of the Spanish at the El Paseo Inn, where she was a regular and known to all.

However, when she was returning to her car parked in Chinatown at around 8pm, she was shot and killed. Robbery wasn’t the motive – her purse wasn’t taken – and despite there being many people in the crowded streets no one had come forward.

Sawicki was said to have “no apparent enemies,” and so the lack of witnesses made this apparently motiveless murder even more confusing – and the killing was never solved.