200 Grieve Over Passing of a ‘Flower’ : Shop Owner Slain by Gunman Is Laid to Rest

With trembling hands, 63-year-old Firooz Roshdieh, still weak from his gunshot wound, sat wrapped in a blanket at his wife’s grave Thursday and tore a white lily into petals that werestrewn on her coffin.

A flower had left the world, as this Islamic custom denoted, when a robber entered a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop in Laguna Beach the night of Feb. 20 and killed the much-loved proprietor, Simindokht Roshdieh, 53.

“Such a jewel, such a beautiful person has disappeared. We are going to miss her very much,” said Mohammad Sarraf, a cousin.

As a Moslem holy man at El Toro Memorial Park chanted Arabic prayers in the rain, tears filled the eyes of Firooz Roshdieh, who had been shot in the chest during the botched robbery and was released from the hospital only two days before his wife’s funeral.

Pinned to the lapel of his dark plaid coat was a tiny gold angel. Another angel was tenderly placed on the coffin by the couple’s 24-year-old son, Nick Roshdieh.

The pins, the family said, were a gift from Nicole Brown Simpson’s younger sister, Tanya Brown. They are similar to the jewelry worn by the Brown family in memory of Nicole.

Tanya Brown is a friend of Nick Roshdieh’s girlfriend, the family said, and Nicole had been a customer at the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor.

The angels and numerous flower bouquets were part of an outpouring of affection from friends, customers and fellow merchants at the funeral and burial service for Simindokht Roshdieh, better known as Sissi.

The chapel at McCormick & Son Mortuary in Laguna Hills overflowed with more than 200 mourners who had grown emotionally attached to the Roshdieh family, once wealthy Iranians who had escaped from their native country during that country’s political upheaval 11 years ago.

Having first moved to Kentucky to be near relatives, the family had settled in the South County neighborhood of Aliso Viejo four years ago to rebuild their lives.

Firooz, known as Fred, and Sissi were a close-knit couple, friends said, who devoted all of their time to their two children and their ice cream parlor, where they could be found serving customers seven days a week.

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Family and friends remembered Sissi as a warm, smiling and generous person who would not have wanted her friends to grieve.

“She was a very giving person,” said Karen Katon, a family friend who remembered that when she was unemployed, Sissi sent cheese and eggs to her home.

“She was just a real delight. One of those people you would cross town to see even if you weren’t buying ice cream,” said a customer, Randy Henckle, 44, of Laguna Beach.

In contrast to the other black-clad mourners, the couple’s 28-year-old daughter, Nilo Roshdieh, a University of Kentucky graduate and mechanical engineer, wore to the funeral of her mother a short, white-pleated dress bedecked with gold chains.

“My mom hated black,” said Nilo, adding that she chose to wear white because it didn’t represent mourning. “I’m not sad,” she said, “because I know she is up there smiling down on us.”

At the funeral service, the slain woman’s brother, “Dory” Montazemi, said: “We are here to say we love her and will hold her in our hearts forever. If she were here she would say something funny to make us laugh or something uplifting to remind us of the good things in life. . . . “

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On behalf of the family, Montazemi thanked the community for the flowers that have been left daily at the locked door of Baskin-Robbins since the shootings, and the candles that have been lit there nightly.

He read passages from the many messages received, including one from a customer recalling when she forgot to bring money to the store and Sissi said, “No problem, take your ice cream and come back later.”

Nilo avowed in her eulogy that, despite the family’s unexpected and tragic loss, “we’re not going to let an incident like this bring us down or make us hateful.”

Among those at the funeral were members of the Laguna Beach Police Department, which is still searching for a suspect in the Baskin-Robbins shootings.

The suspect, described as a heavily tattooed Latino man with bushy eyebrows, is also wanted in connection with armed robberies at an ice cream store in Tustin and a flower shop and music store in Costa Mesa, and police have said he may also be responsible for three earlier holdups in Los Angeles County.

“We are in the process of looking into over 100 leads than have come in on the 800 line,” said Lt. Danell Adams, who is in charge of the investigation for the Laguna Beach Police Department.

“We will be relentless,” she said.

Howard Levin, describing himself as a “chocolate lover,” told the funeral gathering he will be among customers who will volunteer to scoop ice cream when the Baskin-Robbins store reopens today.

The Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce has organized the volunteer effort to get the family’s business rolling once again, he said.