Updated

California authorities are searching Wednesday for the individual who fatally stabbed a father of three defending a homeless man from being harassed by a group of men.

Donnie Reed, 39, was stabbed in the stomach early Sunday morning at Stix Sports & Grill's parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga, which is east of Los Angeles. Reed was leaving the pool hall when he noticed a group of people yelling slurs at the homeless man.

"They were getting closer to him and it looked like they were going to jump him," Lucky Hughes, a witness, told KTLA.com.  "And me and Donnie pretty much agreed we weren’t going to let that happen."

Hughes told the station that their group approached the men and one member of the group took out a knife and attacked Reed.

"He's not a fighter, guys. He was trying to help somebody, and this is what happened to him for doing something he would have done for anybody," Jenny Reed, his wife, told KABC.

Reed, a father of three, died an hour later at a hospital from the stab wound to his stomach. His best friend suffered a stab wound to the neck and is expected to survive.

His wife told CBSLA.com that she lost her best friend and wants the perpetrator to stand in front of their kids and “tell them why he took their daddy from them.”