Man, 71, Dies After Being Beaten, Robbed at Home : Crime: The retired UCLA employee was tinkering in his garage when he was surprised by two young men who pistol-whipped him.

In the tree-lined West Los Angeles neighborhood where Archie O’Bryant lived quietly, but died violently, friends and family searched for answers Tuesday.

Police said the retired UCLA facilities manager died en route to a Culver City hospital Monday afternoon after being pistol-whipped and robbed by two men who surprised him as he tinkered with a pickup truck in his garage.

“Who would want to kill a 71-year-old man like that?” asked neighbor Heather Frost, 25, who described O’Bryant as a “pillar of the community.”

Investigators said there were no suspects and little evidence to work with, other than the few words the victim muttered to his wife, Ruth, after managing to struggle into the house and dial 911.

“He was able to say that he had been robbed and pistol-whipped by two young men, probably in their 20s, and that’s about the extent of it,” said Los Angeles Police Detective Sgt. Jim Sanford.

An undetermined amount of money was missing from O’Bryant’s wallet, the detective said.

An autopsy was scheduled to determine if O’Bryant died as a result of blows, or had suffered a fatal heart attack, Sanford said.

“I think everyone is in a state of shock that something like this could happen around here,” said one resident of the neighborhood in the 12000 block of Clarkson Road, an area of well-kept homes just east of the Santa Monica Airport.

“This is a stable kind of place where nothing like this has ever happened,” said the neighbor, a 15-year resident who asked not to be identified. “About the only thing that changes around here is that the trees grow taller.”

Friends described O’Bryant and his wife as mainstays in the neighborhood, who bought their house when it was new in 1950, raised two sons there, and often volunteered their home for community meetings.

“My dad could have lived anywhere else,” said Bob O’Bryant, 47, of Simi Valley. “But he would have never considered moving.”

The younger O’Bryant said that, despite some recent health problems, his father “was as happy as I’ve ever seen him” after receiving a clean bill of health from his doctor a month ago.

“He went out three weeks ago and bought a new motor home, which is something that he’d always wanted, and was excited about a trip he was planning to take in a couple of weeks to Washington state to do some salmon fishing,” Bob O’Bryant said. “And then something like this happens. You go figure it.”

O’Bryant had worked at UCLA for 40 years, first as an electrician and ultimately as an administrator in facilities management, his son said. But retirement did not suit his father, he said, “and he continued to do electrical work until recently, when he decided it was time to enjoy himself more--to travel, fish, and just take more time to tinker around the house, which is something he really enjoyed.”

Steve O’Bryant, 44, of Agoura Hills, the victim’s other son, said his father was apparently trying to repair the lights of a truck he had bought recently when the assailants entered the garage from the alley at the rear of the property.

“My brother and I grew up here, and in all the years my parents continued to live here, nothing alarming ever really happened in this neighborhood,” Steve O’Bryant said. “I always thought of us as the All-American family and this as an All-American type street.”