Suspect held in Gypsy killing

A fugitive wanted for allegedly killing a Sunset Boulevard fortune teller as part of a bitter feud between two Gypsy families has surrendered to police in Phoenix, Los Angeles police said Wednesday.

Frank Shano Siganoff, 24, is suspected of throwing a burning Molotov cocktail into Rose Marco’s Hollywood storefront last September, setting her ablaze and leaving her with injuries that caused her death six days later, detectives said.

Siganoff surrendered to police after the LAPD made the allegations public last week. LAPD officers will interview Siganoff in Arizona.

The feud began over a broken engagement, police said. A marriage plan had been announced during Easter 2005, but within days, Marco’s relatives canceled the ceremony. The other family then demanded that the Marco clan pay $5,000 for their act of “disrespect” and threatened to harm a member of the Marco clan if they failed to pay up.

Then, in April 2005, a Reseda home belonging to a Marco relative was burglarized and vandalized. LAPD Det. Mike Oppelt said a fingerprint on a bottle inside the burglarized home was matched to Siganoff. He was arrested and charged with the burglary in December 2006.

-- Richard Winton