VICTIMS IN SUNDAY’S DOUBLE SLAYING IDENTIFIED
By Mike Blasky
Las Vegas Review – Journal
tims-in-Sundays-double-slaying-identified-81245522 .html
Jan 12 2010
Nevada
The Clark County coroner’s office, as well as family members, have
identified the victims in Sunday’s double slaying as Anoush Sarkisian
and Mariam Sarkisian, two women involved in a highly publicized
immigration case in 2005.
The death of Anoush Sarkisian, 50, of Las Vegas, was listed as homicide
from a gunshot wound to the head.
Officials did not release the second victim’s name, but family member
Gonya Sarkisian confirmed Tuesday that the woman is Mariam Sarkisian,
in her early 20s. She also confirmed that Anoush was Mariam’s mother.
The victims were shot and killed Sunday when Gregg Thomas, 23, of
Las Vegas, entered their residence at 1809 Warrenville St., upset
over a custody dispute regarding the 1-year-old infant he had with
his girlfriend, police said.
Thomas then turned the gun on himself, police said, in an apparent
murder-suicide.
Mariam and her sister, Emma, made headlines in 2005 when the two —
then ages 17 and 18, respectively — were rescued from the brink of
deportation to the Republic of Armenia when then-U.S. Secretary of
Homeland Security Tom Ridge intervened at the request of Sen. Harry
Reid, D-Nev.
The girls would have been shipped back to the land of their birth,
despite not speaking the language or having the resources to survive
in the struggling nation that once was part of the former Soviet Union.
They had lived in the United States since 1991, when they emigrated
with their father, Rouben Sarkisian, but immigration officials voided
their applications for residency after Rouben divorced his American
wife, their stepmother.
Gonya Sarkisian, who is Mariam’s aunt, said Mariam’s father was not
living at 1809 Warrenville at the time of the slayings. He had been
divorced from Anoush, who was not a U.S. citizen and had also battled
immigration officials. Still, he kept in contact with his daughters
and will return to Las Vegas Wednesday, she said.
Emma Sarkisian is currently staying with another aunt, and has
possession of Mariam’s child, she said.
There are three additional teenage Sarkisian sisters, said Gonya,
all of whom were born in the United States: Michelle, Elizabeth and
Patricia. She did not have their exact ages.
Patricia Sarkisian, who is staying with Gonya, witnessed the slayings
and is "quite fragile," said Gonya.
"They’re all very fragile," she said. "This is very shocking."