Father and knife go hand in hand

6 NEWS
The Toronto Sun n Friday, November 5, 2010
BLOODY MESS
Father
and knife
go hand
in hand
BRETT CLARKSON
Special to QMI Agency
STAN BEHAL/ToronTo Sun
Police walk from the blood-stained steps at 10 Greenwood Ave. yesterday after a stabbing incident. Victor Su, right, saw the
altercation and called police. Vakhtang Makniashvile, father of the missing teen Mariam, is charged with attempted murder.
‘I was in shock’
Blood and screams greet stunnned residents of Leslieville neighbourhood
CHRIS DOUCETTE
Toronto Sun
A bloody knife attack, allegedly orchestrated by the
father of missing Forest Hill
Collegiate student Mariam
Makhniashvili, left onlookers
mortified.
Just before noon Thursday
people who live and work in
Leslieville rushed to the aid of
the two victims, identified by
neighbours as David Langer
and his wife, Delores, also
known as Rose.
“I was in shock,” said Victor Su, who works at Chino
Locos.
Su was behind the counter
cooking burritos in the restaurant just down the street when
the violence erupted, so he
only caught the tail end of the
altercation.
But what he did to see left
him visibly shaken.
“I heard screaming, really
loud screaming, like someone in pain screaming,” Su
recalled.
He ran outside onto Greenwood Ave. after hearing the
woman’s blood-curdling cries
for help and immediately
called 911.
By then, there were already
several people around help-
ing the victims, whom
To ro nt o Po l i c e s ay w e re
stabbed out front of their
home.
Su said he could scarcely
believe what he was seeing.
“I thought it was a domestic
dispute,” he said. “Then I saw
“I heard screaming,
really loud
screaming, like
someone in pain
screaming”
victor Su
how much she was bleeding.”
Su said the woman was
wearing only her robe and it
was soaked in blood.
He never saw her husband,
the second victim.
But Su said he did see a man
he believes was the attacker
walking casually away from
the scene.
“He was an older guy,” Su
said, adding the man was
wearing sunglasses and a hat
so he was unable to describe
his facial features.
Police confirmed Vakhtang
Makhniashvili, Mariam’s dad,
drove himself to nearby 55
Division and surrendered
soon after the stabbings.
The victims suffered nonlife-threatening injuries and
are both expected to be okay,
police said.
The Langers’ home at 10
Greenwood Ave. remained
cordoned off throughout the
day as forensics officers gathered evidence.
Blood could be seen on the
front porch and on the sidewalk leading to Queen St. E.
Anyone with information is
urged to call detectives at 416808-5500, or Crime Stoppers
at 416-222-TIPS (8477).
[email protected]
LOS ANGELES — Years
before his daughter vanished
and he was charged in two
separate stabbing incidents,
Va k ht a n g Ma k h n i a s hv i l i
detailed to his U.S. academic
colleagues how he brandished
a knife and took justice into
his own hands in his native
Georgia.
In an interview earlier this
year, L.A.-based scholar John
Quiring said that his then coworker Makhniashvili admitted in a January 2004 letter to
chasing thieves at knifepoint
in his hometown of Tbilisi.
“In Georgia, I always carried a knife. I will tell you
why,” said Quiring, program
director at the Center for Process Studies near L.A., quoting
Makhniashvili’s writing.
The letter described how
Makhniashvili confronted
thieves who had just robbed
passengers on a Tbilisi trolley
in September 2003.
“I was trying to explain both
their existential situation,
and my academic, ethical
argument to convince them
that they were doing wrong
things,” Quiring said, quoting
the letter. “However, as you
may guess, my endeavour was
pointless. One of them lost
patience with my ethics and
I was forced to take my knife
out again.
“This time I was serious.
This was happening outside
the university’s entrance door
(Tbilisi State University, where
Makhniashvili was a lecturer),
always crowded, but no police
or anyone helped.
“The scene is this: I, knife in
hand, run toward one of them,
because they moved in different directions. They run, I’m
unable to catch them.”
Makhniashvili joined the
Center For Process Studies,
affiliated with the Claremont
Graduate University, as a visiting scholar in December 2003
and studied there for three
years, Quiring said.