Trial Opens for Man Accused of Killing His Wife and 6 Children

An Armenian immigrant set fire to his Glendale apartment, killing his wife and six children, because he suffered under the delusion that his wife was a drug addict and a porn actress, and was directed through prayers to commit the killings, the man’s lawyer told a jury Thursday.

Deputy Public Defender Stanley Perlo described Jorjik Avanesian as delusional, believing his wife had strayed after coming to the United States and had inducted his eldest daughters into the same unseemly lifestyle.

“There is no evidence that his wife and children [were] involved in drugs or sex,” Perlo told jurors.

Avanesian is charged with seven counts of murder and one count of arson. If convicted, the jury will be asked to decide whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Avanesian intended to die with his family, but after he set the one-bedroom apartment on fire, Avanesian was startled by one of his young children, panicked and fled, Perlo said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor Hunter said in opening statements that Avanesian set the deadly 1996 fire because he wanted a divorce and his wife would not agree.

Hunter said he bought an ax and a knife, planning to kill the youngest children because “he didn’t want them to suffer in the fire.”

Avanesian’s neighbors and a passerby described the family’s screams and their fruitless attempts at saving the victims during testimony Thursday, the first day of the trial, which is expected to last less than two weeks.

Steven David Wilcox, a car repossessor, cried after telling the jury how he tried to get into the burning apartment on Harvard Street as he heard “shrieks of terror” from inside.

He testified that Avanesian walked to the door where Wilcox stood, then turned and walked into the garage, leaving his family to die.

When asked to identify the man, Wilcox, who testified he remembered the fire as if it were yesterday, pointed toward the defendant and said: “That gentleman, well, you can’t call him a gentleman, but that man over there.”

Firefighters told jurors the smoke was so thick inside the burning building that they could see nothing. They had to feel around walls as they searched for victims. They found them in the bedroom and bathroom of the apartment.

Glendale firefighter George Gemind told the jurors he was feeling around when he came across the body of a small child on a pile of clothes. He took the 4-year-old outside and when he returned, he discovered the pile of clothes was actually two more children.

“They were on top of each other, huddled in the corner,” he said. “Because they were face-down, it looked like clothes to me.”

Three more bodies were discovered huddled in the bathtub. Their dead mother was found nearby. The family members all died of smoke inhalation, authorities said.

Avanesian, 43, was dressed in a white long-sleeved dress shirt and green sweater vest. With a salt-and-pepper mustache and beard covering his face, he sat with crossed arms through much of the trial, as an Armenian interpreter translated the testimony for him.

Avanesian’s sanity has been the subject of various court hearings. Pasadena Superior Court Judge Janice Croft at one point declared Avanesian incompetent to stand trial, but she decided that, after some psychological treatment, he could assist in his own defense.