Teen Hopes Others Learn From Family’s Tragedy

Two days after her only two sisters were gunned down in her family’s home, 19-year-old Caterina Chimienti stood bravely in the doorway Thursday surrounded by candles, cards and photos from well-wishers.

Although she occasionally sobbed softly as she fielded questions, Chimienti chose not to condemn the former sheriff’s deputy who police believe killed her twin and an older sister before taking his own life.

She instead urged women in abusive relationships to take a lesson from her sister’s slaying and get help while they can.

Chimienti said months ago she saw signs her twin sister Angela might be a victim of abuse at the hands of her boyfriend, 31-year-old Edward Vizcarra.

“Ever since she met him she was a different person,” Chimienti said. “She had bruises on her arm and other places. But whenever I would ask her if anything was wrong, she would say everything was fine.”

Recently, Angela broke up with Vizcarra, but the troubled Newhall man, who took a medical retirement from the Sheriff’s Department in 1995 after an on-the-job injury, kept showing up unannounced at the family’s home in the 20100 block of Devonshire Street.

And on Monday, the day before the sisters were gunned down, Angela called Caterina, frantically asking for a ride home from a restaurant at Northridge Fashion Center where, she said, Vizcarra had threatened to kill her.

Angela knew she needed help, but felt powerless, Chimienti said.

“She was scared because he was a sheriff and she didn’t know what she could do,” Chimienti said.

Angela thought authorities would side with a fellow officer.

“She thought she would call and they would be like ‘whatever,’ ” Chimienti said.

On Tuesday afternoon, while their close-knit family was readying for a Christmas trip to Big Bear, Vizcarra walked into the family’s garage. Chimienti said he was puffing on a cigarette, his shirt was open and a handgun was tucked in his waist.

She was in the kitchen. Angela, coming from inside the house, confronted Vizcarra in the garage, she said.

Chimienti heard her sister say, “What are you doing there?”

Then she heard a gunshot. Her older sister, 25-year-old Serafina, rushed from another room, saw Angela falling and tried to help her, Caterina said.

Vizcarra shot Serafina and then turned the gun on himself. He died at the scene. Serafina died later at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Thursday morning, while friends and family huddled inside the home near Winnetka Avenue, a woman who had been a friend of Serafina’s since the two were teenagers pinned a card and photo of her longtime friend in the door frame.

“To one of my closest and dearest friends that I will miss for the rest of my life . . . I know you can read this from heaven,” Tamy Fawzy wrote to her friend.

While Chimienti hugged the steady stream of friends stopping by, Fawzy crouched down and soaked in the aftermath of her close friend’s death.

“I still can’t believe it,” she said, running her fingers through the assortment of condolences. “It just hasn’t hit me yet.”

Chimienti said she too was still in shock.

“I’ve been through this before when my grandfather died in front of my face,” she said, but “she was my twin sister, and we’ve been together since we were little kids. I just can’t get over that.”

She said she feels a need now to meet with women who have been abused.

“I want to talk to other women and see what my sister was going through,” she said. “Maybe they can get something from this and I can learn from them.”