A mother has broken down in tears as she relived the moment she was told her abusive partner was dead and how she felt ‘robbed’ she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him.
Evening gown and wedding dress designer Lena Kasparian, 39, from Sydney, was attacked by her drunk boyfriend Marc Zartarian after a party in her kitchen in 2011.
He repeatedly hit her with a saucepan in front of her two young children, before she picked up a knife to defend herself from his frenzied attack.
Zartarian walked towards her shouting ‘stab me, stab me, just do it’, before stepping into the blade.
It entered his body by just 1.4 centimetres, missing his cartilage but piercing his heart. He died in hospital five days later.
Sydney woman Lena Kasparian broke down as she relieved the moment she was told her partner has died.
Lena Kasparian, pictured at the police station in 2011, told 60 Minutes she regrets picking up the knife to defend herself against her partner
‘I think I fell to my knees, I couldn’t accept it,’ Ms Kasparian told 60 Minutes, wiping away tears.
‘I said, no, you’re lying that he died. I had just lost the man that I loved. I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to him or be by his side, or to say sorry or to say I forgive you. I didn’t get to do any of that stuff. I felt robbed.’
The emotional mother-of-two told 60 Minutes’s Tara Brown she didn’t think his death would result in a murder charge for her.
When asked if her grief was about herself at that point, she replied: ‘No, no, it was about him.’
Evening gown and wedding dress designer Lena Kasparian, from Sydney, was attacked by her boyfriend Marc Zartarian (pictured together) in her kitchen in 2011
This image from the scene shows the saucepan and knife used in the incident in 2011
Her charge was upgraded to murder on the day of Marc’s funeral, which she wasn’t allowed to attend.
‘I was so angry, saying why? Like, he just got buried today, and they’ve come to serve me with murder charges. I didn’t even get to mourn his death.’
She admitted she regrets picking up the knife to defend herself.
‘But then, what am I going to pick up, a wooden spoon?’ she said.
‘If I didn’t pick up the knife, would he have picked up and used it against me? So it was just an instant and maternal instinct. I just wanted to protect my children and scare him off.’
Ms Kasparian came under fire for appearing at court in high heels, sunglasses and expensive dresses – with onlookers saying her stoicism made it seem like she didn’t care
Ms Kasparian was originally charged with murder but acquitted after a jury at NSW Supreme Court found she acted in self-defence.
She insisted that she used no force when she held the knife.
She said she didn’t know if he tripped or missed a step before the knife entered his chest.
Ms Kasparian came under fire for appearing at court in high heels, sunglasses and expensive dresses – with onlookers saying her stoicism made it seem like she didn’t care.
But the designer hit back, saying: ‘Am I supposed to wail and cry like a crazy person to make people feel sorry for me?
‘I’m not going to dress down for the cameras and I’m not going to be someone I’m not just to prove a point.
This image shows the slit in Zartarian’s shirt where the knife entered his chest by 1.4centimetres