Grieving for family while asking why

Ben Godar & Edgar Melik-Stepanyan

Friends and employees of Margarit Iskenderian remember the Zankou

Chicken founder and her family as hard-working, and could only guess

at what could have caused the shootings that left three family

members dead.

According to police, 56-year-old Mardiros Iskenderian shot his

sister, 45-year-old Dzovig Marjik, and his mother, 75-year-old

Margarit Iskenderian, before turning the gun on himself. The

shootings took place Tuesday afternoon in Marjik and Margarit

Iskenderian’s hillside home above Oakmont Country Club.

Within an hour of the incident, police said it appeared to be a

murder-suicide. While authorities would only say a variety of family

tensions led to the shootings, they added that business concerns did

not appear to be a primary factor.

Friends of the close-knit family said they didn’t know what could

have motivated the shootings. But some said Mardiros was battling

brain and colon cancer.

Anthony Agarharmandyan, who owns Baklava Factory near the Glendale

Zankou Chicken, said he had heard Mardiros was sick. That was the

only reason he could imagine why Mardiros could have turned the gun

on his family.

“If he had a disease and he was suffering, maybe he didn’t want

his mother to see this,” Agarharmandyan said.

Margarit Iskenderian and her husband, Vartkes, opened the original

Zankou Chicken in Beirut, before moving to Los Angeles and opening

the restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in the 1980s. The family would

eventually open four other locations, including one in Glendale.

Ara Arakelian, a 27-year-old Glendale man who knows the family,

said he and his friends often ate at the original restaurant in

Beirut.

“They are a hard-working family who migrated here and worked

really hard to get where they are at,” he said. “It’s a tragic event

not only for the family, but for the whole Armenian community.”

Despite being the founder of a successful chain of restaurants,

Margarit Iskenderian continued to work at the Zankou Chicken in

Hollywood.

“She would work all day cutting meat,” employee Alice Keotunian

said. “Until the last minute, she was sitting here and working.

“I can’t believe it myself, I’m just in shock,” she said.