LAGUNA BEACH : 3 L.A. County Holdups May Be Tied to Baskin-Robbins Slaying

Police investigating the slaying of an ice cream store operator and the wounding of her husband during a botched robbery on Feb. 20 said Tuesday that there may be a connection between that crime and three earlier holdups in Los Angeles County.

Laguna Beach Lt. Danell M. Adams said a man with a steel handgun held up a Conroy’s Flowers in Redondo Beach on Jan. 24, and two other Conroy’s stores in Redondo Beach and Hawthorne were hit in similar robberies 17 minutes apart on Feb 7.

A surveillance camera photo, taken during one of the Los Angeles County robberies, is similar to a photo taken Feb. 20 during one of four armed robberies in Orange County that culminated in the fatal shooting of Simindokht Roshdieh, 53, at a Baskin-Robbins in Laguna Beach.

“There is a striking resemblance to our suspect,” Adams said. “We’re combining some of their information with our information.”

The lone gunman in the Laguna Beach shooting is believed to have hit a Conroy’s and a music store on Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa before robbing Baskin-Robbins stores in Tustin and Laguna Beach.

Roshdieh and her husband, Firooz Roshdieh, were closing their store at 247 Main St. after 9:30 p.m. when the gunman walked in and demanded money, a witness who was at the back of the store told police.

The suspect was described as a Latino male 19 to 23 years old, with bushy eyebrows and heavy tattoos that include a teardrop under an eye and English-style script on his neck.

To earn money for the family, members of the community plan to reopen the Baskin-Robbins store on Friday.

After the chamber of commerce asked for volunteers to help scoop ice cream, office manager Jan Jurcisin said she received more than 100 calls on her telephone answering machine between noon and 3 p.m. Tuesday.

Jurcisin said she expects the shop to be staffed with volunteers from about 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. Friday through March 12.

Simindokht Roshdieh’s funeral will be Thursday at 11:30 a.m. at McCormick & Son Mortuary at 25000 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills. She will be buried at El Toro Memorial Park at 25751 Trabuco Road in Lake Forest.