Man Slain in Fight With Ex-Roommates : Crime: Miguel Gonzalez, 21, is stabbed to death in North Hollywood after acquaintances come to pick up belongings.

Minerva Flores pressed the blood-soaked bathroom towels to the punctured chest of Miguel Gonzalez and prayed he would survive.

Moments earlier, Flores had called paramedics after the 21-year-old Gonzalez was stabbed repeatedly just a few feet from her front door on Saticoy Street in North Hollywood. In an interview Monday, with the shades down as neighbors whispered fearfully outside, she described how a man and a teenage boy stabbed Gonzalez to death.

The two, former roommates of Gonzalez, were at the 60-unit building to pick up belongings at about 7 p.m. Sunday when an argument and fight ensued. Then, while the man grabbed Gonzalez, the teenager stabbed him several times, including once in the neck. The stabbing took place in the middle of the apartment’s busy courtyard not far from the intersection of Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Saticoy Street.

Flores said the men “could not stand each other” and had squabbled numerous times in the past, even after they no longer lived together.

Det. Charles Uribe of the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division said officers are looking for 20-year-old Jose Moran and an unidentified 16-year-old in connection with the slaying.

“He brought no weapons to a knife fight,” Uribe said about Gonzalez struggling against the two assailants. “If it was me, and two guys approached, I wouldn’t challenge them.”

Gonzalez’s father, Art Espinoza, said his son had been working with him for two years hanging dry wall for A&R; Plastering in San Fernando after moving to Los Angeles from Phoenix. He began living in the Saticoy Apartments after leaving his father’s home. Gonzalez’s girlfriend moved back to Phoenix 13 months ago with their 13-month-old son.

Espinoza said the death left his family in shambles. “It feels like somebody has just ripped all my insides out,” Espinoza said. “My son had been doing really well, going to church and trying to just live his life.”

Flores said she heard “Mikey” tell his assailants to “put down your knife and fight like a real man” a few minutes before he was stabbed. Gonzalez’s death, right in front of her eyes, had Flores grasping for a reason why.

“He was looking at me and I was trying to stop the blood from coming out,” she said. “Then he was gone.”

Her daughter, Elvira Gonzales, said the killers calmly left the scene and disappeared into the industrial strip adjacent to the apartment building.

“They walked away as if nothing happened,” Gonzales said.