Queens woman killed in Garden City Park crash
BY ERIK GERMAN | erik.german@newsday.com
October 8, 2007

A 62-year-old Queens woman died after her car was struck in Garden
City Park by a sport utility vehicle whose driver was intoxicated,
Nassau police said.

The victim, Jania Torosian, of Rego Park, was pronounced dead at
Winthrop-University Hospital shortly after the accident late Saturday
night, police said. Torosian’s passenger, Manousch Shaolian, 47, of
Forest Hills, was admitted to Winthrop with serious leg injuries,
police said.

The driver of the 2002 GMC Yukon, David Scarapicchia, 30, of Floral
Park, was charged yesterday with vehicular manslaughter and driving
while intoxicated after police said he slammed into Torosian’s 2002
Honda Civic as it turned left onto Jericho Turnpike >From Second
Avenue. Scarapicchia couldn’t be reached last night.

The accident occurred at 11:10 p.m. just after the Honda, with best
friends Torosian and Shaolian inside, left the home of Torosian’s
sister on Second Avenue, family members said.

"My mom actually ran out when she heard the sound," said Hamlet
Keshishyan, 29, Torosian’s nephew. "She watched as they took my aunt
out of the car. They had to rip the door off."

Torosian was pronounced dead at 11:51 p.m., police said. The news was
a blow to family members who remember her as a vivacious, fun-loving
debater who visited them every weekend. "She was like a lawyer,"
Keshishyan said. "You couldn’t really win an argument with her."

Widowed several years ago, Torosian had three grown children and two
grandchildren, Keshishyan said, and she worked as an accountant.

Torosian and her family immigrated to the United States in 1980,
family members said, leaving behind the post-revolutionary turmoil of
Iran’s capital, Tehran.

Like her best friend, Shaolian, Torosian was fluent in English, Farsi
and Armenian, the language spoken by their families. Both daughters of
Tehran’s close-knit Armenian community, the two women struck up a
friendship in America while singing together in a choir affiliated
with the Armenian Society of New York in Little Neck.

Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.