Man Held After Fire Kills 7 at His Apartment

In one of the grisliest fatal arson cases in Los Angeles County history, police arrested a 40-year-old Iranian immigrant Tuesday on suspicion of killing seven members of his family by setting fire to their Glendale apartment.

Glendale police said Jorjik Avanesian surrendered at the office of a Persian-language newspaper in Encino, where he had gone to tell his version of the story in his native language.

Avanesian called from a pay phone shortly after the fire and asked to be picked up and taken to the newspaper’s office, saying, “I want to tell you the horror story before I tell the police,” said Homayoun Houshiar Nejad, publisher of the daily Asre Emrooz.

Avanesian then confessed that he set the fire out of jealousy, because “his wife was involved with drugs and had been with another man,” said Nejad, who tape-recorded the interview for use in a story to be published today.

Nejad said Avanesian told him he intended only to injure his wife, Suzana, and did not know until he learned from a radio newscast--after he was interviewed but while he was still at the newspaper office--that his wife and six children, ages 4 to 17, had apparently perished in the blaze.

“He was very upset,” Nejad said, because his daughters had pleaded with him not to start the fire.

“They said, ‘Daddy, no, don’t,’ ” Nejad quoted Avanesian as saying.

Police said Avanesian, who was being held in the Glendale jail on suspicion of arson and seven counts of murder, also made incriminating statements to officers after his arrest, but did not confirm details.

The death toll in Tuesday’s blaze apparently is the second highest for an arson fire in the county’s history. Twenty-five residents of the Dorothy Mae Apartment Hotel in downtown Los Angeles died in a 1982 fire set by a 21-year-old man in a dispute with an uncle who managed the building. Humberto de la Torre is serving a 625-year sentence in that fire.

About 120 residents of the Harvard Terrace apartments in the 1300 block of east Harvard Street found their way to safety after flames burst from the Avanesians’ first-floor apartment before 6 a.m. and spread from their balcony to the two units above. Residents said they thought there had been an earthquake until fire alarms began ringing and they smelled smoke in the hallways.

Cesar Gonzaga, 70, said a cloud of black smoke blew into his apartment when his wife opened their door immediately across the hall from the Avanesians’. Fighting panic, he rushed to get his family, including his visiting daughter and 4-month-old granddaughter, to safety over the balcony.

“I was so scared. I was just trying to carry the baby down the ladder, and my pants were falling off,” Gonzaga said. “Then somebody took the baby from me, just before I fell off the ladder.”

Ernest Badounts, 16, a classmate of one of the Avanesian children at Glendale High School, said he helped two elderly people out and then jumped out of a first-floor window.

Eventually, everyone escaped except the Avanesians, officials believe.

“You could hear the screams,” said Carlos Flores, who was awakened in his next-door apartment by the blast from the fire. “It’s something I’m going to carry all my life.”

Fire officials said they could not explain why the Avanesians became trapped in their one-bedroom apartment.

Three bodies were found in the bathtub and another on the bathroom floor, Glendale Battalion Chief David Starr said. The bodies of two small children and a teenager were found in the bedroom, he said.

Officials said the victims apparently died of smoke inhalation. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office is investigating.

Fire officials were unable to conclusively identify the dead Tuesday. But police said they were presumed to be Avanesian’s wife and the six children, based on reports by neighbors and the building management.

Investigators concluded that the fire was caused by arson after detecting a smell similar to that of gasoline.

Almost immediately, Glendale police pinpointed Avanesian as the prime suspect. Investigators said Avanesian, who has been unemployed since arriving in the United States in October, had been arrested in November on suspicion of using excessive force in disciplining a child. His wife complained that he threw a chair at one of their children and brandished a knife, police said. Avanesian served no jail time but received counseling under the direction of the district attorney’s office.

On Tuesday morning neighbors saw Avanesian running from the three-story building with burns on his hands, they told police.

Police handed out Avanesian’s photo about 10:30 a.m., asking for media help in apprehending him.

By then, however, Avanesian already had gone to a phone booth at Brand Boulevard and Milford Street in Glendale, called the newspaper and was talking to Nejad.

During the interview, Avanesian made no mention of deaths in the fire, Nejad said. “He told me: I think maybe my daughter was burned on the leg, but that’s it.”

Nejad said he was unsure what to do after hearing the story. “So I just listened to him,” he said.

About 30 minutes after the taped interview concluded, an employee of the newspaper heard on the radio that the family was dead.

“I was very scared then,” Nejad said. “So I called police.”

Los Angeles police from the West Valley station arrived minutes later and arrested Avanesian.

Nejad said he is publishing the interview in today’s edition of his newspaper.

Administrators at John Marshall Elementary School, a few blocks from the apartment, said three of the Avanesian children were students there--brothers Romic, 6, and Rodric, 8, and their sister, Ranika, 10.

“They were darling children,” said Nancy Jude, principal of the school, who added that all three were working hard to learn English.

The two eldest girls, Rita and Roobina, attended 10th and 12th grade, respectively, at Glendale High.

Neighbor Robert Manasyan, 16, said: “They were just nice girls. You didn’t ever hear them talking loud. They were nice people.”

About their father, he said, “You wouldn’t think he was a bad guy or a killer. The father was nice too.”

Social workers at Glendale’s Armenian Relief Society said they could understand how the pressures of assimilation could push a new immigrant to the breaking point.

Parik Nazarian, a social worker there who immigrated to Glendale from Iran 15 years ago, said she sees people like Avanesian come into her organization for counseling almost every day.

“The older Armenians have little luck finding jobs because of the language barrier,” Nazarian said. “I see how it affects them, especially if they have a family to support. They feel worthless.”

Times staff writers Efrain Hernandez Jr., Margaret Ramirez, Nicholas Riccardi, Beth Shuster and Frank B. Williams and correspondent Steve Ryfle contributed to this story.