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On a fall afternoon in 2008, a 12-year-old girl arrived home from school and discovered her father and 9-year-old sister shot to death inside the family\u2019s Hollywood apartment.<\/p>\n
\nEighteen months later, the girl, now 14, came home to an empty apartment Friday night. She got worried when her mother didn\u2019t come home from work, so the girl walked down to the carport looking for her. <\/p>\n
There, she found the body of Karine Hakobyan, 38, slumped in her Honda CRV, with a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
\nOn Monday, a team of Los Angeles police detectives were trying to piece together the three killings, which occurred a few blocks from each other in Hollywood\u2019s Little Armenia district. <\/p>\n
Detectives believe the killings are connected but declined to provide more details. Det. Michael Whelan stressed that police have no evidence that the victims were involved in criminal activities either in the United States or in Armenia, which they left in 2003. The father, Khachik Safaryan<\/a>, had worked as a butcher in Hollywood, and the mother worked as a patient care service aid at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. <\/p>\n Sitting in the family living room Monday next to a shrine of roses and framed family pictures, the girl tried to make sense of what has happened to her family. She told The Times that Friday was a typical day \u2013 she and her mother exchanged cellphone calls throughout the day, and she expected her mother home by 8 p.m. What the girl saw when she got to the carport horrified her. <\/p>\n \u201cI just saw blood,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s when I knew something was seriously wrong.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \nThe girl was surrounded Monday by grandparents, extended family and friends, all wearing black and huddling on a sofa. Amid the mourners, the girl made clear she wants justice for her sister and parents. <\/p>\n \u201cWe just want them to find the people who did this, so they can finally get their punishment,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Detectives said they are keeping a close eye on the girl, making sure she has access to counseling and protection as she deals with the trauma. Whelan described her as good student who planned to go to college. <\/p>\n She\u2019s showing remarkable strength amid the violence that has befallen the family, he added.<\/p>\n \n\u201cShe\u2019s very intelligent, and very well grounded despite of this horrific thing that has happened to her,\u201d Whelan said. \u201cShe\u2019s held up in some regards better than some of the family members around her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n