HUSBAND MURDERS WIFE OUT OF LOVE: “IF HE LOVED HER, WOULD HE KILL HER? “- ASKS VICTIM’S DAUGHTER
12:04, December 19, 2012
In the scope of the Rapid Response Unit created by Society without
Violence NGO, we present another case of domestic violence with a
tragic end. The mission of Rapid Response Unit is to uncover cases
of domestic violence in our society, give them public coverage and
to pursue transparent and fair investigation.
With tears in her dark-black eyes Anahit, a 17 year-old girl who’s
matured in the span of a mere few days from pain and suffering,
is trying to recall how she lost her mother two weeks ago.
“I was asleep, but I woke up at 4am because my mother was screaming.
My sister Arpine was still asleep. I hurried to the dinning-room to
find the door locked and Valodya hitting my mom. Mom was shouting
for me to open the door. I ran to the kitchen, picked-up a spoon
and opened the door easily. I entered the room and saw him hitting
my mom with a vase,” Anahit recounts. “I tried to take mom away, but
he again started hitting her. Then he brought mom to the kitchen by
dragging her on the floor. That’s when he began to stab her with the
knife. We were calling for help and pleading for him to stop. But he
wouldn’t listen to us. He was killing our mom in front of our eyes.”
The step-father, 51 year-old Valodya Muradyan, killed his wife,
35 year-old Dianna Nahapetyan, in the presence of her daughters on
December 4.
One of the sisters, 14 years-old Arpine, hasn’t spoken at all after the
incident. Dianna’s mother 58 year-old Valya Nahapetyan says the girls
are stressed-out, having witnessed the violence against their mother.
Unsuccessfully trying to save their mother, the sisters run out of
the house and try to find help by knocking the neighbors’ doors. But
no one answers. Barefoot, the children go to the police station. When
the girls were trying to get out of the house, the step-father manages
to cut Anahit’s leg with the knife.
“Luckily, the girls managed to get out, or else he would have killed
them as well. What could I”- told Dianna’s mother.
The murderer managed to lock the house door and escape before the
police came. The next day he showed up at the Shengavit police station
and confessed he had killed his wife. The Criminal Investigation
Department of the Ararat Provincial Police launched a murder criminal
case.
Dianna’s family house is in the Armash village of Ararat. The girls
moved there to live.
Dianna’s mother Valya said she had three girls, the youngest of which
died at the age of 14 from stroke. The other sister is married and
lives in the US. Dianna married for the first time at the age of 17.
The first husband was also from Armash. During ten years of married
life she had two daughters. Later she got divorced.
In 2006, Dianna met Valodya Muradyan, who had left his family in the
US and returned to Armenia. He was a relative of Dianna’s sister’s
husband. Dianna’s mother says they didn’t approve of her relationship
with Valodya but they couldn’t force her out of it.
Valya Nahapetyan with the portrait of Diana “I struggled a lot to split
them up. I even sent her to Sochi to live with my brother, but Valodya
found her there as well. Before that, they lived in Hrazdan. He was
always in some kind of strange deals. He borrowed money from some
people and they took and kept him in Vardenis. Dianna found money
and brought him back,”,- recounts Valya Nahapetyan, Dianna’s mother.
Valya says that her daughter’s relationship with Valodya proved to
be fatal for Dianna as she paid with her life.
Dianna, with her husband, daughters and mother lived in Abkhazia
for awhile. Valodya bought and sold cars there. He was under the
“protection” of one of local authorities. When that protection dried
up, some unknown people took the cars from him.
“He took $60,000 from different people promising to bring back cars
for them. They hardly managed to escape from Abkhazia to Russia, or
else he would be killed. Then he left for Mexico to cross over the
border into the US, but he was sent back on the same plane because
he lacked an entrance visa,”- says Valya. “It took his mother some
time to get his papers in order and take him to the US.”
Even from halfway around the world, Valodya kept pestering Dianna
with telephone calls and promises of love.
“He called and told her that he was coming. Dianna told him to at
least buy a house for them to live in when he arrived. He sent the
money and Dianna bought an old house in Ararat. I have to give him
that much. She suffered a lot renovating the place. He came and they
started to live together. He had brought cars with him and was busy
selling them,”- the mother recalls.
But the fights between the spouses continued; they were quarreling
every day.
“He wouldn’t let my mother live peacefully as he was jealous. Even
if somebody looked at her in the street he’d start quarreling. My mom
was young and very beautiful. He would check her cell phone, calling
her bad names. Two days before the incident my mom threw him out of
the house. He returned one day,”- says Anahit. “That day, they again
quarreled but he got down on his knees and apologized to y mother.
My mom was the understanding type…. I have made a video with my
i-pad showing how he pushed and insulted her. I always told her to be
careful, since he might hurt her. I don’t think he loved her. Would
he kill her, if he loved her?
Neighbors describe Dianna as a proud person would didn’t socialize
that much. They say she always dressed fashionably modern and drove
a foreign car.
“She was a beautiful woman but they generally kept to themselves.
They were always quarreling,”- the neighbors say.
Valya Nahapetyan learnt about her daughter’s death in the US. She
says she had talked to her two days before the tragic incident
“I kept telling him to leave her, to get a divorce if it was impossible
to live together. It’s 21st century after all. I told him that I’d
take care of my grandchildren. The he goes on Shant TV and brazenly
states that he loved Dianna. I told the investigator that, in a fit
of anger, it’s possible to slap your beloved wife. But he stabbed
her 25 times with a knife. Then he stabbed her in the throat to make
sure she was dead. He knowingly tortured her to death. My children
seem to have gone crazy,”- says a teary-eyed Valya.
Mother is suffocating from the anguish of her daughter’s cruel death.
Anahit says, “They applied make-up to mother’s face, but it was
still black. She was so beautiful, but at that time she looked 15
years older.
Valya Nahapetyan, Dianna’s mother, will act as her legal successor.
She is going to hire a lawyer. The Rapid Response Unit will support
Valya in the case. Valya says she will sue Shant TV for covering the
murder in such a one-sided fashion.
“They had no moral right to broadcast such material. Fine Dianna
has died and gone. She won’t see any of this, but what about these
children? They are interviewing the murderer, the neighbors, but what
about me? Why won’t they ask me?”, – tells Valya Nahapetyan.
P.S. If you have witnessed a case of domestic violence please alert
the Rapid Response Unit at
Gayane Lazarian
SWV Rapid Response Unit
First photo- Dianna’s mom Valya Nahapetyan and daughter Anahit