MAN ARRESTED IN LITTLE ARMENIA SLAYING
Andrew Blankstein
Los Angeles Times
April 23 2010
He is charged with killing a mother and suspected in the earlier
slayings of her husband and daughter. Detectives probe whether he
had stalked the woman.
Detectives are investigating whether a man suspected in the slaying
of a family in Little Armenia stalked one of the victims, according
to law enforcement sources.
Alberd Tersargyan of Los Angeles has been charged with killing one
member of the family, but police said they believe he’s responsible
for all three slayings, which occurred over two years in the Hollywood
area.
LAPD Capt. Kevin McClure said detectives recovered a weapon when they
arrested Tersargyan on Thursday but declined to provide further details
about the case. Tersargyan was charged with the special circumstance
of lying in wait, which makes him subject to the death penalty.
The slayings stunned Little Armenia, in part because the family’s
young daughter discovered the bodies of her parents and younger sister.
On Dec. 11, 2008, a gunman burst into the family’s Hollywood apartment
and shot father Khachik Safaryan and his 8-year-old daughter.
Safaryan’s 12-year-old daughter came home from school that afternoon
and found the bodies.
Eighteen months later, Safaryan’s widow, Karine Hakobyan, 38, was found
slumped in her car with a gunshot wound to the back of the head outside
her apartment. The daughter, once again, discovered the body when
she became worried that her mother had not returned home from work.
Tersargyan has been charged in Hakobyan’s death, but it’s unclear
exactly what connected him to the case.
Sources told The Times that detectives are investigating reports that
he was "obsessed" with Hakobyan and had spent some time stalking her.
But the sources would not say whether the family knew the man or had
earlier altercations with him.
Detectives have found no evidence that the family was involved
in crime in either the United States or Armenia, from which they
emigrated in 2003.
Safaryan worked as a butcher in Hollywood, and his wife was a
patient-care service aide at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.
After the father and daughter were killed, detectives struggled to
identify a motive or suspects.
Several months after those slayings, the daughter who discovered
the bodies drafted a letter to President Obama and other leaders,
including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking for help in solving the
case. In the letter, which she had not yet sent, she recounted how
the loss changed her family.
"I am hoping that you, Mr. President, will find time to put pressure
… to solve the hideous murder of my beloved sister and father." she
wrote. "I still see the bloody bodies of my sister and my father as
I found them that day."
She said that Dec. 11 "was an ordinary day for a lot of people; but
for us this day was special" because her younger sister was set to
present a poetry reading. "My whole family was excited. Unfortunately,
this day was tragic."
She also wrote about the grim toll of the killings. "Our family
is falling apart now," she wrote. "My grandparents are sick and
depressed. My mother cannot cope with the loss of her husband and
daughter. I am not in any better shape."