After discovering his friend Stuart Herman hiding on the kitchen floor of his Encino home with a gunshot wound to the head, John Berliner tried to revive him for more than five minutes as the 911 operator offered coaching on CPR.
He was heard recordings of Berliner’s 911 call and his chest was compressed, providing an emotional climax for the trial of the man accused of shooting recently, and Hermann died despite his friend’s efforts to save him.
On March 18, a San Fernando Valley jury found Timothy Kirkpatrick killed 80-year-old Herman, a case that police and prosecutors believed was a family burglary. Kirkpatrick was found guilty of all charges: first-degree murder, burglary, assault with a gun and illegal possession of a gun. He and his alleged accomplice Hakop Keloyan were arrested in March 2022, about two months after the killing.
Before the trial began, Keloyan pleaded guilty to two gun charges on March 10 and applied for a non-competitive plea for additional charges including theft, armed assault and identity theft.
The men are expected to be sentenced in April.
Deputy County, Los Angeles. Atti. Ranna Jahanshahi said Herman and Berliner were best friends and met when Herman married Berliner’s sister. Their friendship survived the couple’s divorce, and when the Berliner lived abroad, he returned to Los Angeles to check on his older companions.
Kirkpatrick’s lawyers believe there is no physical evidence to associate his client with the crime. The defense had no witnesses during the trial.
In March 2022, Berliners lived in Herman’s Hersh, on the 4500 block of Densmore Avenue. “They will catch up with these two best friends, saying, it’s been a long time,” Jahansi said.
On the day of the shooting, two friends had just returned from a grocery store when they noticed “unfamiliar in the driveway, brand new BMW,” Jahanshahi said.
Finding this strange, the Berliner told investigators that he continued to inspect the backyard and pool area before entering the home to search for rooms.
Berlin told police that as he walked through the house, he pointed out that many doors were left behind, which was unusual because Herman insisted on blocking the doors from closing to prevent the cat from escaping.
“So every door that John saw opened and he became even more worried,” she said.
Berliner recalled the gun protruding from behind the door, and the male voice shouted “We are police!” and instructed him to be on the ground. When he did, the Gunner pistol whipped him before running downstairs.
A moment later, Berliner heard the gunshots.
“Nothing else. Nothing to say, no scream, nothing.” The autopsy found traces on Herman’s face, torso and arms, indicating that he had been shot.
Berlin told police he tried to take videos of the suspect he saw and accomplices who fled from the white BMW X6, but his hands were trembling so much that he could only take pictures with his phone.
He told investigators that he remembered the Sagittarius being a slim, slim man with beard and tattoo-covered arms.
Investigators obtained an arrest warrant from Google to determine the area’s electronic devices that were in the area when the murder occurred, and eventually brought them to Kirkpatrick and Keloyan.
The men were arrested in late April 2022. When police arrived with a search warrant, Kirkpatrick was detained after placing himself in a house in the Simi Valley. Later that day, Keloyan was arrested in police attacking the Sherman Oaks home, where they found an illegal marijuana cultivation business in the property’s underground garage.
Prosecutors said surveillance video from the Range Rover dealership showed that the incident occurred near homes near Kirkpatrick and Keloyan. They were also captured in video driving the property, which prosecutors said was from the location.
In an interview after the verdict, Jahanshahi announced that the government had “showed it was purposeful and purposeful” based on the brutality of the crime and the close-range murder of Hermann.
She said the jury made the right decision after hearing the evidence against Kirk Patrick.
Jahan Hashi said: “It is unjust to have only one level than one level of injustice, although it will not change the trauma experienced by surviving victims.
