A 19-year-old former altar boy is accused of fatally stabbing a homeless man who had been searching through trash in an upscale California neighborhood, in an attack witnesses described as unfolding like a “horror movie.”

Conoray Lawantara has been charged in the death of Vanik Voskanyan, 40, who was killed last week in an alley behind a Beverly Hills apartment building, according to The California Post.

Residents told the outlet that Voskanyan had been going through garbage bins when Lawantara allegedly became enraged, pursued him, confronted him and stabbed him multiple times.

Police discovered Voskanyan on the ground in severe distress with a serious neck wound. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

“The police were trying to revive this poor man that was lying there with blood, like it was in CSI,” one neighbor told the outlet.

In a graphic video obtained by the California Post, Lawantara can be heard insisting to police that he acted in self-defense as the victim lies on the ground, surrounded by a pool of his own blood.

The teen, his bloodied hands cuffed behind his back, claimed he had also been stabbed and bitten on his finger.

Lawantara was arrested and arraigned in a Los Angeles courtroom Thursday, where he pleaded not guilty to murder. His bail was set at just over $2 million, and he was ordered to surrender his passport. 

The proceeding also revealed Lawantara’s unlikely past: The Indonesian national was recently an altar boy at Rhode Island’s posh Portsmouth Abbey, an $80,000-a-year private Catholic boarding school, according to The Post.

The deadly altercation unfolded shortly before midnight on August 30, when Beverly Hills police responded to reports of two men fighting in an alley in the 400 block of North Palm Drive, according to authorities. 

Officers discovered Voskanyan bleeding from his neck and rendered aid until paramedics transported him to a hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. Lawantara was also taken to a hospital for treatment. 

‘What’s wrong with a man picking trash?’ Brigette Barbie, a neighbor who witnessed the bloody aftermath in the normally posh community, told The Los Angeles Times.

‘The whole stabbing was not making sense to me,’ she added. ‘Why not just leave, turn around, call the police? Why was the knife so necessary?’

Footage captured moments after the violent encounter showed the frantic teen, handcuffed on the ground, insisting he acted in self-defense as he gave police his side of the story.

‘I didn’t reach for him first, he reached for me, his hand went to my leg. And at that time I produced my CCW (concealed carry weapon), it’s a 3.9 inch knife,’ Lawantara said, according to The Times. 

When an officer asked where the weapon was, the teen replied, ‘On the ground right there,’ claiming he had told Voskanyan to let him go, but the man refused and continued the scuffle even after he pulled out his knife.

‘He kept pulling at me,’ he said, according to the clip. In another, he claimed he tried to push the alleged victim off him before resorting to violence.

‘He kept going after me. I tried going away,’ he allegedly added.

A chilling video obtained by The Post captured the moments immediately after the stabbing, showing the homeless man stumbling down the alley and groaning in excruciating pain before collapsing to the ground. 

Neighbors, however, told investigators a very different story, claiming the alleged victim was walking away rather than provoking the confrontation.

One anonymous resident said Lawantara, who had moved into the building with his girlfriend just weeks earlier, confronted Voskanyan after spotting him searching through the garbage, according to KTLA.

‘The homeless guy was going through the trash bins, and this guy was bothered by it, following him and saying that he shouldn’t be there and he couldn’t be there,’ they told the outlet.

The resident said the man repeatedly walked away before eventually sitting on a couch in the alley, where the confrontation escalated. Lawantara was also stabbed in the ensuing chaos, they said.

He was charged with one count of murder on Wednesday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced. He was discharged from the hospital later that day and booked at the Beverly Hills Police Department. 

On Thursday, Lawantara arrived in court for his arraignment dressed in a blue jumpsuit, with his girlfriend, who was also at the scene the night of the killing, watching from the gallery as he stood before a judge, The Post reported.

His defense attorney, Debra White, doubled down on the self-defense claim, arguing that the alleged victim reached for her client’s neck and elbowed him during the verbal altercation.

She also said the man bit off a chunk of Lawantara’s finger and stabbed him in the stomach during the violent struggle.

But Judge Keith Schwartz immediately pushed back, saying there was ‘no reason for the defendant to have contact’ with the homeless man in the first place, according to the outlet. 

‘He didn’t approach, he wasn’t violent. He was minding his own business,’ Schwartz said, adding that the teen still ‘stabbed him repeatedly, like in a horror movie.’

If he posts bond, Lawantara will be required to wear a GPS monitor. Police said the attack appears to have been an isolated incident and that no one else was involved. 

A prominent Republican senator is pressing Congress to take a fresh look at the National Education Association’s long-standing congressional charter.

Critics of the teachers’ union argue there is little left to debate, contending that the NEA has fallen short of the responsibilities tied to that charter and that lawmakers should move to revoke it without delay.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, is urging his colleagues to scrutinize the NEA’s status amid concerns over the union’s associations with several left-leaning nonprofit organizations, including the Zinn Education Project and Rethinking Schools, as well as allegations of serious financial mismanagement.

Opponents say some organizations connected to the NEA promote classroom materials and political messages that excuse violence tied to the Black Panther Party and advance what they describe as radical gender ideology for young students.

“Children are struggling to read and to do basic math. Instead of helping students succeed, teachers’ unions are injecting a dangerous, anti-American agenda into our classrooms,” Cassidy said.

“Parents deserve to send their children to school without worrying that they will be indoctrinated with DEI and taught that Americans have ‘misplaced faith’ in our institutions.”

A charter revocation wouldn’t stop the NEA from operating, but it would deliver a severe reputational blow to the group.

It’s one that’s long overdue —- and not only because the union has focused on hard-left politics instead of history, geography, math and science. 

In fact, the NEA, along with the American Federation of Teachers, has presided over a decades-long effort to completely wreck any meaningful standards in education in order to shield their millions of members from any accountability.

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At the same time, they fought for ever fatter paychecks and pensions, while spending millions in union dues on radical-left political causes. 

After the 2020 George Floyd riots, both the NEA and the AFT ratcheted up their leftist activism and fought to turn America’s classrooms into BLM-indoctrination factories. 

Never mind reading and math, kids were taught that America is evil, brainwashed with antisemitic tropes about Israel and shown pornography as part of their sex and “gender” education; some educators even sought to socially transition kids without parental knowledge or consent. 

The results are tragic: An increasingly illiterate and innumerate nation, with the damage concentrated among the most vulnerable kids.

In New York, almost 30% of fourth-graders score below basic on the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ mathematics test, while 41% are below on reading — about where the depressing national numbers are. 

The NEA’s charter, dating from 1906, requires union to “elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching; and to promote the cause of education in the United States.”

For decades, all evidence shows the unions have done precisely the opposite. 

Though the AFT has no congressional charter, in July, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce began probing allegations that its boss, Randi Weingarten, spent the union’s dues on to write and promote a controversial, lefty-slanted book.

Now Congress must now take on the NEA as well — at the very least, revoking its charter, a small first step toward making sure our kids are actually learning in school.

An Illinois mother is facing three murder charges in connection with the death of her 2-year-old son, in a case officials say has already sparked comparisons to the high-profile Lindsay Clancy trial.

Corie A. Walsh, 40, remained under medical care Friday after officers found her Tuesday at her home with injuries believed to be self-inflicted, though not life-threatening, according to a statement from the Frankfort Police Department.

Frankfort is located roughly 36 miles southwest of Chicago.

Once she’s released from treatment, she will be transferred to the Will County Adult Detention Facility to await a hearing.

Frankfort police officers responded to Walsh’s home Tuesday afternoon and found her son unresponsive. He was given CPR and taken to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, their loved ones, and everyone affected by this heartbreaking tragedy,” Frankfort police said in a statement shared with News Media. “We ask our community to keep them in their thoughts and prayers and to respect their privacy as they navigate this profoundly difficult time.”

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The boy was strangled, according to FOX 32.

Carolyn Pappas, who lives nearby, told NBC Chicago earlier this week that the boy’s death has left residents stunned. She told the station that the circumstances brought to mind the case of Clancy, a Massachusetts mother who admitted to killing her three children before attempting to take her own life.

“This is just absolutely devastating, that this could be another Lindsay Clancy situation in our neighborhood, in our community. You never think it’s going to hit so close to home,” she told the station. “And so yeah, that absolutely makes us think of that. And again, just more people I think are struggling than we realize and so we just need to be there for one another.”

Three other people who were unharmed were found inside the Walsh home on Tuesday, police said, according to FOX 32.

Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz faced heckling outside court after the Lindsay Clancy case ended in a mistrial.

Cruz spoke to reporters shortly after Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial at the courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

While he was addressing the media, a woman standing behind him called out: “You only cared when the kids were dead — why didn’t you care about the mother?”

Cruz maintained a composed expression as others nearby appeared to support the woman’s remarks, responding with chants of: “Amen.”

As reporters continued asking questions, the woman kept interrupting, prompting Cruz at one point to ask a journalist to repeat what they had said.

She was also seen shaking her head as he spoke and kept on shouting over him before walking away. Others shouted that he was corrupt. Another woman stood behind Cruz was seen shaking her head every time he spoke.

When questioned over whether his prosecutor’s case was insensitive, he responded that killing three children was insensitive. 

‘Insensitive is ignoring those facts, we have an obligation to stand up for those people and seek justice’, he added.

Cruz maintained Clancy’s killing of her children was cold-blooded murder, but that he refused to be drawn on whether he would push for a retrial and said the decision was yet to be made. 

Prosecutors may also ask for the verdict to be decided by a judge, rather than a jury trial. 

The jury panel of nine women and three men spent over 37 hours deliberating the case after five weeks of evidence.

They sent four notes to the judge this week saying they had been unable to reach a verdict. 

Yesterday it emerged that 11 of the 12 jurors had come to the same verdict, but that a twelfth holdout was refusing to follow them. 

The final note sent by jurors on Friday morning read: ‘It is with a heavy heart that we are unable to come to a unanimous decision and will not be able to.’ 

Clancy – who killed her three young children in January 2023 – now faces a grueling retrial. 

She strangled her children with exercise bands and then allegedly attempted to kill herself, but her efforts failed and left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair for life. 

The law requires the jury to come to a unanimous decision, and if they are unable to, the judge is forced to declare a mistrial.

A mistrial means the prosecution will have the opportunity to try Clancy again. The trial will have to start over from jury selection.

A second trial would not violate Clancy’s Fifth Amendment right against double jeopardy, which protects citizens from being punished for the same crime twice.

The Constitution of the United States prevents the government from trying a person again for the same crime after they have already been found innocent or guilty.

But because Clancy’s first trial has resulted in a deadlock, the prosecution is allowed to charge her a second time.

It is unclear whether the prosecution will move forward with a second trial.

Clancy is likely going to be kept institutionalized in the interim while a decision is made.

The Tunnel to Towers Steel Across America tour made a solemn stop in Boston on Wednesday, paying tribute to fallen heroes during a cross-country journey expected to conclude in New York City shortly after the Sept. 11 anniversary.

At the Massachusetts Fallen Heroes Memorial in Boston’s Seaport, organizers displayed a preserved 21-foot steel beam from the World Trade Center’s South Tower, a powerful 9/11 artifact that has been traveling across the country since May.

“For first responders and veterans, especially as we approach the 25th anniversary, this is deeply personal,” said Dan Magoon, executive director of Massachusetts Fallen Heroes. “It’s about teaching the next generation and making sure we never forget the sacrifices made on 9/11, as well as everything endured over the two decades that followed in combat zones around the world.”

Mike Eruzione, the captain of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team remembered for the legendary “Miracle on Ice” victory over the Soviet Union, also took part in the tribute, remembering friends who were aboard one of the planes hijacked during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“It touched the heart of our country. It touched the souls of our country,” Eruzione said of Tunnel to Towers, which helps 9/11 families, first responders, and veterans rebuild in part from funds raised through nationwide charity runs.

The gathering brought together first responders from Massachusetts as well as law enforcement. Guests were allowed to approach the 16,900-pound beam and pay their respects.

“It’s just crazy to think about where it once stood, the people that worked inside the buildings, the people that rushed inside to save those people, and what happened when it all came down,” said Daniel McCarthy, a Bostonian whose parents are from New York.

The beam was brought to Fenway Park on Wednesday night after traveling to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Monday.

On Sept. 8, the tour will stop at the White House in Washington, D.C.