The Daily News of Los Angeles
September 13, 2005 Tuesday
DAD PLEADS FOR SON TO RESURFACE;
MAN’S GIRLFRIEND FOUND DEAD IN TRUNK OF HIS CAR IN AZUSA
By Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer
GLENDALE – Police continued to search Monday for a missing Glendale
man whose girlfriend was found dead in the trunk of his car, and
detectives said they consider him a “person of interest” in her
death.
Police said Artur Khanzadyan, 24, had no criminal history. But the
family of his girlfriend, Odet Tsaturyan, 24, whose body was found in
the trunk of his 2005 Audi on Friday in Azusa, has said Khanzadyan
was violent with her.
Ashot Khanzadyan, the father of the missing man, issued a tearful
plea to his son after meeting with Glendale police.
“I’m pleading you as your father, as your friend,” Ashot Khanzadyan
said in Armenian through a police translator. “I’m pleading in the
name of your mom, your brother and your entire family, that please
… contact us and the Police Department, just like I am contacting
the Police Department and asking for their help to find you.”
Police are treating Khanzadyan as a “person of interest” in the
homicide case but not a suspect.
Tsaturyan’s car, a 2002 silver Honda Accord with license plate
4VAM520, is still missing. The Coroner’s Office is expected to
perform an autopsy today on Tsaturyan to determine the cause of
death.
Tsaturyan was last seen alive at 5 p.m. Tuesday, leaving the
apartment complex where she lived with her parents in the 800 block
of East Lomita Avenue in Glendale. Her family reported her missing
after she failed to show up at a party that evening.
Khanzadyan also lives with his parents, and he was last seen leaving
home at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. He was reported missing the following day.
“We don’t know if they were together that night,” Lorenz said.
“Something leads us to believe that they crossed paths because she’s
in the trunk of his car.”
Melkon Isagulyan, an uncle of Tsaturyan, said Khanzadyan had tried to
scare his niece in the past.
“The parents had felt a while ago that he was not normal and they
tried to keep their daughter away from him,” Isagulyan said in
Armenian.
“And the daughter had told the parents that she wouldn’t see him. We
don’t know how he convinced her to get out of the house the other
day.”
Tsaturyan, who worked at Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center
and later as a clerk in Los Angeles, was remembered by family and
friends as a fun person who liked to joke.
Khachik Essakhan, 45, who was a neighbor to the Tsaturyans for a
decade until he moved away some 11 months ago, said he worried about
Odet Tsaturyan being with Khanzadyan.
“He tried to control her all the time so that’s why I told her,
Odet, stay away from this guy. She said, ‘No, I love him.’ I don’t
know what kind of love is that,” he said.
Ashot Khanzadyan, who had worked with his son in the family’s
construction tile business, said his son is not violent.
“My son, for the past 24 years of his life, he’s never even killed a
fly and never hurt anyone,” Khanzadyan said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress