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Family members mourned an Armenian man Monday in Glendale who was allegedly stabbed to death at the hands of a Beverly Hills teen with a cushy life.
The body of 40-year-old Vanik Voskanyan laid in a powder blue casket with a large bouquet of white roses on top as a clergyman and his family laid him to rest at Grand View Memorial Park in Glendale.
Beverly Hills teen resident Conoray Lawantara allegedly stabbed 40-year-old Vanik Voskanyan as he dug through trash in the alley on Aug. 30. After a struggle, police arrived and arrested the teen.
Voskanyan was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. Lawantara claimed he stabbed the man in self-defense.
His attorney, Debra White, claimed Voskanyan reached for the teen’s neck and elbowed him during Lawantara’s arraignment. White also said Voskanyan bit off a portion of Lawantara’s finger, and Lawantara suffered a stab wound to the abdomen during their exchange.
Judge Keith Schwartz was quick to interject, saying there was “no reason for the defendant to have contact” with the homeless man. “He didn’t approach, he wasn’t violent,” he added. “He was minding his own business.”
The defendant “stabbed him repeatedly, like in a horror movie,” Judge Schwartz said.
Family said at the memorial that they want justice served in the case.
“I hope justice is served,” Armen Akopyan, Voskanyan’s uncle, told the Los Angeles Times. “Because [the suspect] took an innocent man’s life.”
He said Voskanyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia, and moved to Glendale in 2009. The 40-year-old studied in his home country to be a dentist before working in construction, jewelry, and as a dental technician after he moved to America.
A longtime friend disputed the characterization of Voskanyan as homeless.
“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,” Levon Grigoryan told the outlet.
“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.”
“It doesn’t matter how the guy was living at that moment. You don’t have to take a knife and kill somebody.”
More than 100 family members dressed in black attended his service at St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank before it moved to his burial in Glendale. The Catholic service was conducted in Armenian and was open-casket.
Lawantara spent some time in the hospital before being jailed and charged with murder. His bail was set at $2 million, and he has since posted bond. Lawantara, an Indonesian national, has pleaded not guilty to the charge.
It was revealed in court that Lawantara recently attended the posh Portsmouth Abbey boarding school in Rhode Island. He was listed as a 2025 graduate of the $80,000-a-year private Catholic school.
The alleged murderer is due back in court on Nov. 5 to set a date for a preliminary hearing.
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