What Are People Saying in Pemzashen 15 Days After the Horrific Murder of a Mother and Her Children? New Suspicions and Theories

The horrific murder of 31-year-old Zarine Meliksetyan and her two minor children, a 12-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son, continues to haunt the residents of Pemzashen. Unlike the first days following the tragic incident when villagers were willing to talk and share with the media, almost all doors in the village are now locked, and people are rarely seen on the streets. They are in shock, questioning why such wonderful, innocent beings were killed.

Aravot.am visited the village yesterday and found that a substantial police presence was tightly monitoring not only the crime scene but also the homes of the suspects.

According to villagers, 24-hour surveillance is in place, with police officers often spending the night in their vehicles as they work tirelessly. Opinions among the Pemzashen residents regarding the resolution of the murder case are mixed; some refuse to believe that the perpetrators could be from the village, particularly as they cannot fathom why an entire family would be exterminated for theft.

“You know that one of the suspects is Vruyr. He’s just an ordinary thief who might take something small like a phone or shoes, but we can’t imagine he would commit such a serious crime. We aren’t saying he’s innocent; time will tell, but it's hard to picture. He didn’t appear capable of killing Zarine. Even if he had tried to approach her, she could have easily pushed him away,” said some women from the village, expressing their confusion over the situation. They also remarked that Vruyr didn’t have any notable characteristics that would suggest he could commit such an act, and his family is relatively well-off.

Some villagers, however, shared alternative opinions, stating that Vruyr Barseghyan’s great-uncle had previously killed two wives and was mentioned in a book by a prosecutor about murders. While they attempted to respect the presumption of innocence, they did not rule out the possibility that genetics might play a role in the behavior of the 32-year-old man.

“There were no traces of the murder; it seems as though Zarine and her children’s bodies were washed, the blood rinsed away, indicating a professional job. Vruyr doesn’t have the intellectual capability to do this alone; he must have had someone guiding him, and that will be revealed by the authorities. It’s also difficult to say anything definitive in Arcadi’s case, as he works in Russia and had recently taken his family on vacation. He has a beautiful wife, and Vruyr’s wife is also a decent person—quite intelligent, from a nearby village. They have three children, the youngest just recently born. The claims about Vruyr’s aunt, who supposedly went to clean up the crime scene, seem a bit implausible; Vruyr’s family and aunt live in the same yard, but they stopped communicating after the grandmother’s death,” remarked a local resident.