Good Samaritan Killed Breaking Up Street Fight In Riverside

COLTON (CBSLA.com)  —  A Colton family is in deep mourning Friday after a husband and father lost his life trying to break up a fight between two men.

Adam Valles was beaten to death. He died yesterday.

His grieving wife spoke to CBS 2's Greg Mills.

"I try to sleep and I talk to him before I go to sleep and I look at the pictures of our wedding. It helps," says Johana Cordova Valles of her husband of seven years.

Valles' family says he stopped a fight in downtown Riverside early Saturday morning and then tried to stop another one.

Mills showed security video of Valles being punched.

"He got up. And then somebody hit him in the face and that was the last time he got up," sad Johana.

She didn't know at that point her husband would never regain consciousness.

"No. I thought he was fine. I thought he was going to be fine," said Johana.

Adam hung on for five says before dying yesterday in a Riverside hospital. The Valles' were high school sweethearts. They married and had two children -- Rosealee, 8, and younger brother, Danny, 4.

"They're exactly like him. They're clowns. Just like him," Johana said, holding back tears.

She said it was just like her husband to try to stop a fight.  The couple wet out Friday night to a place on Main Street in the downtown entertainment district.

At closing, they went to Uber it home when they saw two fights. Typical of Adam he tried to break up both.

"He was always like that. Always helping everybody. Always," Johana said.

Friday evening, at a vigil held in his honor, friends and family told KCAL 9's Tina Patel that Adam was one of a kind.

"Adam would always help when he could," said his sister Ashley Valles, "that's just what he did."

His father wasn't surprised Adam stepped in to help someone in need.

"He gave his life to save other people's lives," said Mike Valles, "the people on the floor, he didn't have to do that. He could have just walked away."

The family came together to grieve but also to ask for help.

"Please let us pray that the guy who did this is caught," said Ashley, "and that Adam gets justice."

In the meantime, the family says they will do everything in their power to keep Adam's memory alive in his children.

His father said, "My boy was a hero and he is a hero. That's what I'm going to tell them, your dad went home to Heaven as a hero."

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