Fugitive Caught

City News Service
November 12, 2004 Friday

LOS ANGELES

A fugitive wanted for allegedly running down man in a road-rage
slaying in Universal City in 2000 was in custody today after he was
arrested in Armenia and handed over to U.S. authorities, police said.
Shahen Eghia Keshishian, 32, was wanted for the murder of 44-year-old
freelance film editor Michael Craven of Canoga Park on the southbound
Hollywood (101) Freeway south of Barham Boulevard on April 29, 2000,
according to Glendale police. Keshishian, a commercial truck driver,
was at the wheel of a new Chevy Suburban when he and his passenger
threw eggs at Craven’s Jeep, according to the Glendale and Los
Angeles police departments. “The victim and suspect pulled to the
shoulder when Keshishian suddenly accelerated and intentionally ran
over the victim,” according to an entry on the LAPD’s most wanted
list. His arrest by Armenian authorities in the Armenian capital of
Yerevan last Saturday and his subsequent return to Los Angeles
resulted from an effort involving the FBI, LAPD and Glendale police,
authorities said. Assisted by other U.S. law enforcement agencies,
the LAPD determined last month that Keshishian was hiding in Armenia,
a Glendale police statement said, adding he was later arrested by
Armenian authorities for overstaying his visa. Prior to his arrest,
Glendale police officers who had gone to Armenia to assist in the
training of officers in that country secured an agreement from
Armenia’s National Security Service to help locate Keshishian, the
Glendale police statement said. It added that the LAPD, with the help
of the Glendale Police Department, began to develop a relationship
with Armenian authorities over the past few years. “This is the first
time in which someone from Armenia was handed to U.S. authorities to
be returned to the United States to face criminal charges,” the
Glendale statement said. Keshishian, now at the Twin Towers jail in
lieu of $1 million bail, has been charged with murder and is expected
to appear in court Nov. 24., the Daily News reported. “I am pleased
as punch. I am just so elated,” homicide Detective Martin Pinner of
the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division told the Daily News after
returning from Armenia with Keshishian in tow on Wednesday. “This
arrest, I do believe, came as a result of policemen talking to
policemen, and massive cooperation with other agencies in two
different countries.” Craven was driving on the Hollywood Freeway
with a friend after dinner when his jeep was pelted with eggs thrown
from the Suburban after one of the drivers apparently cut off the
other, the Daily News reported. The Suburban turned out to be a key
clue in identifying Keshishian, according to Pinner, who told the
Daily News that it had been fraudulently bought by someone who loaned
it to Keshishian the night of the murder. “We researched every
Suburban purchased in the time frame around the murder,” Pinner told
the newspaper. “We looked for him all over the U.S. with the help of
the FBI and tons of agencies. Boston, New York. I spoke to people in
Texas. We did a lot of work,” Pinner said. Detectives continue to
search for the passengers in the SUV that night. “It was the
passenger throwing the stuff at the victim,” Pinner told the Daily
News. “It’s a felony. The passenger is also going to jail. I’d love
to figure out who he is.”