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Former Armenian Soldier, 65, Indicted On Four Counts Of Murder

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  • Former Armenian Soldier, 65, Indicted On Four Counts Of Murder

    FORMER ARMENIAN SOLDIER, 65, INDICTED ON FOUR COUNTS OF MURDER

    Los Angeles Times
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/grand-jury-indicts-obsession-drove-him-to-kill-four-in-las-little-armenia-.html
    Aug 29, 2011
    CA

    A grand jury indictment was unsealed Monday against a former Armenian
    army soldier accused of killing four people.

    Those killed included the family of a woman he allegedly was obsessed
    with and a prostitute on Sunset Boulevard.

    Alberd Tersargyan, 65, was arrested last year shortly after the body
    of Karine Hakobyan was discovered by her teenage daughter slumped
    in the front seat of her car in Little Armenia. She had been shot at
    close range.

    Fifteen months earlier, the same daughter had come home to the family's
    apartment to find the bodies of her father, Khachik Safaryan, and
    her younger sister.

    The four-count murder indictment returned Aug. 26 claims the daughter
    witnessed her father's killing. The special circumstance makes
    Tersargsyan eligible for the death penalty.

    The indictment supersedes existing charges and avoids the need for
    a preliminary hearing.

    Tersargyan once served in the Armenian army and fancied himself "a
    professional killer," detectives said. He became a suspect in the
    slayings after police received a tip from his employer.

    Police and prosecutors claim Tersargyan killed Hakobyan's husband
    and child after becoming obsessed with her.

    Tersargyan and his wife became close friends of Hakobyan's family
    almost immediately after they arrived in the country in 2003 and
    moved to Little Armenia on the eastern edges of Hollywood, police say.

    Safaryan had confided in Tersargyan that he was having an affair with
    an old girlfriend he had known in Armenia, said LAPD Det. Mike Whale.

    By then, Tersargyan had fallen in love with Hakobyan and tried to
    drive the couple apart by helping Safaryan arrange his trysts while
    also telling Hakobyan details about the affair, detectives said.

    Hakobyan remained in the marriage, which appears to have angered
    Tersargyan and led him to more drastic measures, detectives said.

    Safaryan received an anonymous threat that he should leave the country
    quickly, which detectives said they now believe was an attempt by
    Tersargyan to scare the man off.

    Within days of the threat, Safaryan and his daughter were dead.

    During the investigation into those killings, Tersargyan fed detectives
    details about the affair, which helped to turn suspicion on the
    mistress and her husband.

    In the months after the slayings, Tersargyan continued to pursue
    Hakobyan without success. Police believe the constant rebuffs
    ultimately drove him to kill her, as well.

    Suspicion first fell on Tersargyan when his boss at a cabinet-making
    company called an Armenian American police officer he knew in the
    Glendale Police Department with concerns about one of his workers.

    He told the officer that he had seen Tersargyan with a handgun and
    had talked of his close relationship with the Safaryan family.

    After his arrest, ballistics tests on a gun he owned showed it had
    been used to fire the bullets that killed Hakobyan, Whalen said.

    While searching Tersargyan's residence police found a beat-up gray
    van that they connected to the killing of prostitute Julie Kates.

    Kates had been standing alone at a bus stop in daylight on the corner
    of Sunset Boulevard and Kingsley Drive when she suddenly fell to
    the ground.

    When she was taken to a hospital, doctors discovered she had been
    shot in the temple with a small-caliber weapon.

    An acquaintance of Kates told detective that a man driving an old gray
    van had angrily accused Kates of stealing a DVD player the day before
    she was killed and threatened to harm her if she did not return it.

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