Woman Who Killed Her Two Children Witnessed Her Mom Murdered When She was 12

Gagik Khachatryan, husband of resident of the Armenian city of Ararat, 34-year-old Rosa Aloyan, who killed her two sons, 6-year-old Vardan and 4-year-old Hayk, on Wednesday then promptly turned herself in, left Aloyan a few years ago. He had noticed “odd behavior” in his wife and decided to leave her with the two children, reports local daily Hraparak.

 

According to Hraparak, in 1989, when Rosa was 12 years old, her father, Hakob Aloyan, killed her mother in front of her and her three siblings. The father was imprisoned for 14 years, while Rosa, with her two sisters and one brother, were taken to the orphanage in the Armenian town of Gavar. Staff noticed developmental disabilities in the brother and one of the sisters, but, according to orphanage director Nikolai Nalbandyan, Rosa and her other sister were fine. Later, the brother ended up in prison where he committed suicide. Until 1995, Rosa lived in the orphanage, after which she went to the Erebuni Medical College for her studies, graduating with a certificate in nursing. She then received a home through a government program. After leaving the orphanage, she met her husband-to-be. The paper reports that psychologists don’t rule out the possibility that her mother’s death had a traumatic effect on the then 12-year-old, which was not addressed over time and might have led her to her recent gruesome act.

 

Hraparak notes that when Ararat police entered Rosa’s home and saw the children’s corpses laid on the sheet, they cried. According to preliminary data, Rosa Aloyan wound a water pipe into a ring, wrapped a sheet around her older son’s neck and hung him. 10 minutes later, he was dead. For two hours, she left him like that. The younger son asked his mother, “Mom, you won’t do what you did to my brother to me, will you?” The mother assured him she would not, and he that he need not be afraid, only to subject him to the same fate soon after.

 

Lowering the two boys, she laid them side-by-side on the bed, after which she closed the door and left. Before leaving the house, she opened a children’s Bible to the page “Christ blesses children.” Ararat mayor Abraham Babayan is convinced that Rosa’s actions were committed on religious grounds. “Police found religious books in this woman’s house — particularly those published by sectarian groups. Thus, I exclude social [reasons for the murder],” said the mayor.

 

After the murders, Rosa Aloyan called her husband and said that she “harmed [the children] a little bit.” The husband became distraught and called the neighbors, asking them to do something until he gets to Ararat from Yerevan. Rosa personally went to the local police precinct, told them her address and announced that she just killed her two children. Local police initiated criminal proceedings under RA Criminal Code Article 104 Section 2 (“murder”).