Cousin Discusses the Condition of Zarine's Parents and Husband

Almost a month after the brutal murders of a mother and her two minor children in the village of Pemzashen, Shirak Region, the relatives are struggling to cope. In an interview with MediaHub.am, the cousin of the murdered woman, Zarine Meliksetyan, named Hovhannes, shared that Zarine's husband is in Pemzashen, in shock, and unable to come to terms with his loss.

“I spoke to Sevak once and I won’t try again. You don’t know what to say to this man,” he said. “What kind of state is this that allows such things to happen? We see nothing, think about nothing, we’ve been deprived of the ability to think. Conflicting information reaches us and that’s the end of it; they take, they bring, announce random things. We hear their names and feel disgusted. I don’t recognize them; I haven’t even seen them.”

The cousin explained that Zarine’s parents were very attached to their grandchildren and are struggling with their absence. “The parents do not exist; they live only physically. They absolutely cannot sleep, day and night they are only naming them and groaning. They were a family like the light, like angels. Zarine was a long-awaited child, the younger sister of two brothers, ten years younger than the eldest and eight years younger than the middle. They dreamed of having a daughter, and they had one…” he narrates with pain in his voice.

Everyone speaks positively about 31-year-old Zarine; her 12-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son stood out in the village with their upbringing and behavior. “Sevak had been in Russia for about five months. They say these criminals were friends with Sevak. What friends? They were just people from the same village, that's all. Both were rejected and ignored people in the village. Some say one is mentally ill; I don’t believe it. They brought evil and chaos; they ended up in the mess. Now Zarine's parents can’t even cry, they want the pain to at least come out a little, to feel better, but no, they can’t do that either,” said the cousin.

Those arrested on suspicion of murder, 32-year-old Vruyr Barseghyan and 41-year-old Arkadi Barseghyan, are relatives. Vruyr gave a self-incriminating testimony days after the murder on November 12, naming Arkadi, but Arkadi denies his guilt, and the case still has not unraveled.