Los Angeles Daily News, CA
June 15 2005

Mass killer found dead

Prison hanging likely suicide

By Charles F. Bostwick, Staff Writer

LANCASTER — A prison inmate convicted of murdering his wife and
six children nine years ago in Glendale’s worst mass murder was
found dead Tuesday, hanging from a bedsheet in the prison infirmary,
officials said.

The 49-year-old inmate, an Iranian refugee serving a life sentence
without possibility of parole, had been in state prisons since his
2000 conviction and had been at the Lancaster prison since April,
officials said.

“Preliminary reports have suggested that the inmate committed suicide,”
California State Prison-Los Angeles County spokesman Lt.

Ken Lewis said in a written statement. “As a result, an investigation
has been initiated by prison officials to determine events leading
up to the death.”

Prison officials did not release the man’s name because they could
not locate his next of kin to inform them of his death.

But coroner’s officials confirmed he was Jorjik Avanesian, who was
convicted of dousing his family’s one-bedroom apartment in Glendale
with gasoline and setting it on fire in 1996, four months after the
Avanesians came to America as religious refugees.

Psychiatrists testified that Avanesian was delusional, but he denied
he was insane. His trial was delayed for more than two years while
he was treated in a state mental hospital.

Prosecutors said bystanders heard his family screaming from
inside the burning apartment, but Avanesian refused to unlock the
apartment-complex gate so they could be rescued. Three bodies were
found in the bedroom and four in the bathroom.

Avanesian later told police that he killed his family because he
believed his wife and oldest daughter were involved in pornography.

Three months before the fire, he brandished a knife at his 17-year-old
daughter, and he slapped and threw a stool at his 8-year-old son. He
was told to get counseling at an Armenian charity but never showed up.

The Pasadena Superior Court jury that convicted Avanesian deadlocked
on whether to recommend the death penalty, so prosecutors settled on
a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.

Los Angeles County coroner’s officials said a full autopsy will be
conducted, which is the standard policy for deaths that occur in
jails or prisons.

A correctional officer found the inmate hanging from a sheet attached
to a ceiling air vent in the prison’s infirmary about 11:10 p.m.

Monday, officials said. Prison medical staff and paramedics performed
cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him, but could not revive him.

He had been in the prison infirmary for what prison officials
characterized only as medical reasons.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress