He was fatally stabbed in a Beverly Hills alley. His family says portrayal of him was all wrong
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Set us as preferred As a gentle breeze rustled the trees at Grand View Memorial Park in Glendale, friends and family of Vanik Voskanyan took turns tossing a fistful of dirt and a white rose on the casket of their loved one, who was stabbed to death in Beverly Hills last month.Voskanyan, 40, was slain in an alleyway behind the 400 block of North Palm Drive the night of Aug.30 and died from multiple sharp-force injuries in a hospital shortly after, according to Beverly Hills police and the L.A.
County medical examiner.The suspected assailant, 19-year-old Beverly Hills resident Conoray Lawantara, was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty earlier this month, according to L.A.County Superior Court records.
A neighbor said that Lawantara angrily confronted a man who was going through the trash in the alleyway.She and others living nearby described the victim as appearing homeless, a characterization that spread quickly through media reports — much to the distress of those who knew Voskanyan.“Vanik was not a homeless person,” longtime friend Levon Grigoryan told The Times.
“It is painful for his family and friends to see him reduced to a single description that does not tell the truth about the person he was.”Grigoryan said that Voskanyan lived in Glendale with his mother and brother and was an intelligent man who loved reading books and was well versed on politics, sports and current events.“Vanik was much more than the circumstances of his death,” he said.
“He was a son, a brother, a relative, a friend, and someone who was loved and remembered by many people.”On Monday, more than 100 people dressed in black gathered at St.Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank.
The Catholic service, conducted in Armenian, was open-casket, allowing mourners a final chance to say goodbye as they filed by the altar at the conclu...