Slain Woman’s Sister Focuses Attention on Domestic Abuse

Two days after her only two sisters were gunned down in her family’s Chatsworth home, 19-year-old Caterina Chimienti urged other women in abusive relationships to take a lesson from her sisters’ slayings and to get help while they can.

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

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

Recently Angela Chimienti 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 their home in the 20100 block of Devonshire Street.

On Tuesday afternoon, while their close-knit family was preparing for a Christmas trip to Big Bear, Vizcarra walked into the family’s garage.

Caterina was in the kitchen. Angela, coming from somewhere in the house, confronted Vizcarra in the garage, she said.

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

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

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