Seldin Dzananovic, 24, said the teens with the hammers approached him farther north on Gravois about an hour before the attack on Begic. He said he was able to fight them off, suffering only cuts to his hands and neck.

“I’m just lucky,” he said. “God is on my side.”

Begic and his family came to the United States from Bosnia in 1996, moving first to Utica, N.Y., before settling in Waterloo, Iowa, said his sister, Denisa Begic. She said he moved to Phoenix, where he worked as a moving truck driver before returning briefly to Iowa. He moved to St. Louis several months ago and was engaged to a woman, Arijana, whose family lives in St. Louis.

Singing was one of his passions, and he often performed in public.

“He loved America,” said Denisa Begic, 23, of Sioux Falls, S.D. “We come from Bosnia because we were getting killed and our homes and families were getting destroyed. Never in my life did I think he would get murdered.”

She said she knows some Bosnians are upset over her brother’s death because they believe the suspects, who are black and Hispanic, targeted Begic because he was Bosnian. She said she wants people to know her brother would not have judged them because of their race; he had friends of many racial and ethnic backgrounds.