Murder Suspect Accidentally Freed From Jail

A woman awaiting trial on charges of killing a rival Glendale travel agent was accidentally released from jail Friday and her absence went unnoticed for three days--while she took a brief vacation in Las Vegas and then vanished--officials involved in the case said Tuesday.

“She could be anywhere now,” Glendale police spokesman Chahe Keuroghelian said of alleged killer Anait Zakarian.

Prosecutors say Zakarian and her older brother Garen, 31, found out this month that they face the death penalty if they are convicted of shooting Benita Mikailian in a business dispute at her travel agency in October.

A pretrial hearing had been scheduled for Anait Zakarian in Pasadena Superior Court today. She worked in a travel agency specializing in charter flights between Los Angeles and her native Armenia.

Malcolm Gusserian, an attorney for Anait Zakarian’s brother, said family members told him that Anait Zakarian seemed to think her release meant that the charges against her were being dropped.

Gusserian said authorities told him that Anait Zakarian’s name was accidentally placed on a computerized list of prisoners to be released.

Zakarian, 22, walked out of the Sybil Brand Institute for Women, a massive holding facility east of Downtown, at 12:40 p.m. Friday, Sheriff’s Deputy James Hellmold said. She caught a cab home and spent the weekend in Las Vegas celebrating her freedom, Gusserian said family members told him. He said he is unsure where she is now.

Anait Zakarian’s attorney did not return phone calls from The Times.

Hellmold said officials at Sybil Brand take head counts of prisoners more than once a day, but Zakarian was not reported missing until 9:30 a.m. Monday. He said they were investigating why no one noticed her absence for three days.

Sheriff Sherman Block called the release “human error. . . . A computer didn’t make a mistake. A person made a mistake.”

Garen Zakarian remained in the North County Correctional Facility in Saugus, where he was placed in high security detention after his sister’s release, officials said.

Police say the Zakarians, who ran Econo Trans Travel at 1220 S. Central Ave. in Glendale, shot Mikailian in her nearby offices and stole $100,000 worth of one-way airline tickets from Paris to Los Angeles on Oct. 5. Glendale Police Lt. Ray Edey said the Zakarians apparently committed the crime because they did not have enough money to pay for a business transaction.

Keuroghelian said Anait Zakarian was later spotted by police looking for a bag containing the weapons believed used in the slaying--a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a .45-caliber submachine gun--near the place where they had been dumped. Police had already discovered the guns in bushes in a neighborhood near Mikailian’s agency and were watching the location.

Gusserian contends that the Zakarians were framed for the shooting, which he said was probably done by a professional assassin.

Gusserian said the Zakarians’ travel agency, which Anait operated with Garen, specialized in charter flights from Los Angeles to Armenia by buying plane tickets in bulk, a practice the attorney said competitors wanted to stop because it brought down air fares.

He said Anait and Garen Zakarian were at their travel agency when the shooting occurred. “She was an essential part of our defense,” Gusserian said, saying he was baffled as to how she could have been released.

Times staff writer Ken Reich contributed to this story. Riccardi is a Times staff writer and Ryfle a special correspondent.