Akop Aduryan, 46

Seventeen years ago, Akop Aduryan moved to Los Angeles from his native Armenia, hoping to make a better life for his young family.

His country was war torn and in economic shambles after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Together, he and his wife, Ruzanna, who was pregnant with their second child, decided to start over in America.

Nine days after they arrived, his wife gave birth to another son. They shared a small three-bedroom home in North Hollywood with 12 family members.

Aduryan, who had received two degrees in Armenia, worked making jewelry with his brother to support his family. After they moved into their own apartment, he and his brother worked together as mechanics. With money still tight, four years ago he took a second job as a night security guard.

Each weeknight his routine was the same. He would get home from his work as a mechanic around 6 p.m., take a short nap, then leave for his job as a security guard at 8 p.m. He would return home for roughly half an hour between 9 and 9:45 p.m., then leave again for work and come home at midnight, said his older son Chris, 18.

On July 23, Aduryan followed his usual pattern. He arrived home about 9 p.m. on his break from guarding outside an insurance company building at Victory and Laurel Canyon boulevards in North Hollywood. Forty-five minutes later he went back to work.

What happened next makes no sense to his wife and sons.

About 11 p.m., Aduryan got into a heated argument with a group of Armenian men in a somewhat secluded area in the 7500 block of Goodland Avenue in Sun Valley – along the back fence of the Charles Leroy Lowman Special Education Center, a school for special needs children.

He was more than two miles from his security guard post.

Anthony Pesce in North Hollywood

Dispatch: 'It's still a mystery why he was on that street'