Ex-Convict Held in Slaying of Sportfisherman

An ex-convict on parole for robbery has been arrested on suspicion of murder in the shooting last week of a sportfisherman at Big Bear Lake, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Jeffory Burton Paxton, 25, was arrested Friday night by deputies who had staked out his house trailer in a vineyard in Rancho Cucamonga.

Paxton was being held on $1 million bond in connection with the killing Wednesday of Armen Shakhkaramyan, 47, during a lakeside robbery in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Shakhkaramyan was killed and a companion, Sarkis Aylozlan, 28, was wounded when a robber blasted gunshots through the side of the station wagon in which the pair were resting during a fishing excursion to Big Bear Lake, deputies said.

Two companions of the victims said they had surrendered their wallets to the gunman, but he opened fire anyway.

A getaway car was abandoned when it crashed on California 18 about five miles from the shooting and three men, believed to have been involved in the killing, hitchhiked down the mountain from the wreck, deputies said.

The wrecked car was traced to Paxton, deputies said. He was arrested about 10 p.m. after driving another car with its lights out through a vineyard road to his house trailer, Sheriff’s Sgt. Pierre Ingersoll said.

“He parked his car, went into the trailer, grabbed clothes, threw them in the car and took off through the vineyard,” Ingersoll said.

Paxton surrendered without incident when deputies stopped his car.

“He said: ‘I’m the guy you’re looking for,’ ” Ingersoll said.

The two other suspects have not been caught.

Shakhkaramyan, a plumber and mechanic from Moscow, had been in the United States for about a year and was living with relatives in Los Angeles.

His friends said they thought a fishing trip to the usually peaceful lake would be a relaxing break from the city.