JURORS FIND MAN GUILTY OF MURDER

A San Marcos man who killed his 20-year-old former classmate — the victim was stabbed 44 times in what prosecutors said was an unprovoked ambush in 2021 — was found guilty this week of first-degree murder.

A Vista Superior Court jury deliberated for less than three hours Wednesday before rejecting Kellon Talib Razdan’s assertion that he killed Aris Keshishian in self-defense. Keshishian was on an evening walk with his dog in his San Marcos gated community when he was attacked.

Razdan, 21, faces 26 years to life when he is sentenced March 10 by Judge Kelly Mok, who presided over the trial.

According to the prosecution, Razdan told deputies he believed someone had been hacking his Snapchat account and was somehow controlling what he saw for more than a year. Razdan said he came to think Keshishian was behind it. The two were acquainted, first meeting as classmates in fourth grade, but as they grew up they did not run in the same circles. Both graduated San Marcos High School in 2019.

Deputy District Attorney Helen Kim said searches of the phones and social media accounts of both men found no evidence of cyberbullying.

Investigators found Google searches made on Razdan’s phone in the weeks before the killing. Among them: “how to remove fingerprints,” and “death by sledgehammer,” and “city that doesn’t solve murders.”

Eight days before the attack, Razdan bought the knife.

Shortly before 7:40 p.m. Aug. 16, 2021, Keshishian snapped a photo of the sunset as he walked his dog Truffle. Moments later Razdan drove up, Kim said in her closing argument Wednesday morning.

A doorbell camera security system on a nearby home recorded sounds of the encounter. Kim said that after Razdan drove up, the struggle started within 20 seconds.

Keshishian fought so hard to get away from his assailant, Kim said, that he wriggled out of his shirt and shorts in the middle of the residential street.

Keshishian ran to a nearby home and collapsed against a wall in the driveway. A neighbor saw the defendant standing over the victim — but she thought the assailant was punching him. Keshishian screamed for help.

The neighbor would later tell authorities that after the attack, the assailant “sauntered” back to his car.

“Tell my mom I love her,” Keshishian told the neighbor while on the ground in a pool of blood. “Tell my family I love them.”

He was taken to a hospital, where he died.

At the same hospital, staffers alerted sheriff’s deputies to a new patient, a young man who had just showed up with his fingers sliced and nearly severed. Back at the scene, deputies found a finger tip.

Razdan was taken from the hospital to the sheriff ’s station in San Marcos and was arrested.

His attorneys told the jury that their client believed he was defending himself in the altercation. “This is not a murder case,” attorney Kerry Steigerwalt told the jury in his closing argument.

After the verdict, defense co-counsel Jay Monico said the case “is a tragedy for both families.”