Robert Avila Jr was 16 when he vanished from Los Angeles in the summer of 1982 and was reported missing on July 21. Eight days later, on July 29, Caltrans workers near the Hollywood Freeway in Echo Park found his markedly decomposed remains on the Rampart Boulevard offramp about forty feet from the body of 14-year-old Raymond Davis. Records list Avila’s death as July 29, 1982, and his burial at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.

Later accounts describe ligature strangulation with a length of stereo speaker wire. Early reports noted the medical examiner had not yet released findings for Avila while Davis’s cause was confirmed, highlighting how fresh and grim the discovery scene was. Detectives came to suspect the same predator killed both teenagers, and attention focused on Randy Steven Kraft after his 1983 arrest; a cryptic list found among his possessions included entries many have linked to Davis and Avila. Kraft was later convicted of multiple murders, but Avila’s killing was not prosecuted separately and remains officially linked to Kraft by proximity, method, and the so-called scorecard.

Does anyone have memories of Avila or information about his last known movements in Los Angeles?