MAN CHARGED IN MURDER OF HOLLYWOOD WOMAN
Subha Ravhindhran and Melissa MacBride

KABC
Thursday, April 22, 2010

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (KABC) — A man was charged Thursday with murdering a
Hollywood woman, whose slaying last month was believed to be connected
to the 2008 double-homicide of her husband and their youngest daughter.

Alberd Tersargyan was charged with one count of murder with the
special circumstance of lying in wait, which could make him eligible
for a death sentence.

Police said Tersargyan was arrested Wednesday night at his
Hollywood-area home and a weapon was found. He was booked on suspicion
of killing 38-year-old Karine Hakobyan, whose body was found slumped
in the driver’s seat of her Honda CRV on March 26.

Hakobyan had returned home and parked her car in a carport at her
apartment complex in the 5800 block of Lexington Avenue at about 8:20
p.m. when she was shot in the head.

Tersargyan was allegedly obsessed with Hakobyan and had been stalking
her, according to authorities and a close family friend. He was
allegedly waiting for her to return home the night she was killed.

Tersargyan made a brief appearance at the downtown Los Angeles
courthouse in connection with the shooting death of Hakobyan, but
his arraignment was postponed until May 6. He was ordered to remain
jailed without bail.

Court records list Tersargyan as 73 years old, but police officials
said he may be in his late 50s.

Police said Tersargyan was being looked at as a possible suspect in
the December 2008 shooting deaths of the woman’s husband, 43-year-old
Khachik Safaryan, and their 8-year-old daughter Lusine.

Their bodies were found in their home in the 1200 block of Tamarind
Avenue by the couple’s then-12-year-old daughter when she came home
from school.

They had also been shot in the head.

Last month, that same daughter also discovered the slain body of
her mother.

She recounted the horrifying experience of discovering her parents
and little sister in a letter she was planning to send to President
Barack Obama.

She says she is tortured by the images in her mind of having the found
of the three family members. She says the things she’s seen at her age,
others would never she in a lifetime.

The devastating discovery of her father and sister in 2008 and
the months of turmoil that followed prompted the girl to write the
letter to President Obama, asking for help bringing her aunt over
from Armenia.

"Our family is falling apart now. My grandparents are sick and
depressed. My mother cannot cope with the loss of her husband and
daughter. I am not in any better shape: I still see the bloody bodies
of my sister and my father as I found them that day," the young girl
wrote in the letter.

Then after she found her mother’s body, she added a P.S. to the letter,
talking about the moment she realized her mother had been murdered.

"When I arrive in front of my mom’s wide open car door I see
blood. Slowly, I feel the world tear down in front of my eyes. Every
second thousands of things cross my mind. I get closer, panicking,
shaking my mom twice, running to get help, yelling," she wrote.

The teenager says that words can’t describe how she feels. She says
everything still feels like a nightmare and nothing seems real.

The letter has yet to be sent to President Obama.

City News Service contributed to this report.