Victim was found at home
By DAILY PRESS STAFF
NORTH OF MONTANA A 35-year-old artist discovered murdered in his Montana Avenue condominium last week died as a result of multiple stab wounds, according to autopsy results released from the Los Angeles County Coroner on Monday.
Alexander “Sasha” Merman was found dead in a condo complex at the corner of Sixth Street and Montana Avenue on March 19, discovered by a building manager who checked on the Santa Monica resident after receiving a call from his mother, concerned because she hadn’t heard from her son in several days.
Merman, a school teacher at a Los Angeles area elementary school, was the second homicide victim found in Santa Monica last week. On March 16, Santa Monica Police Department officers discovered the body of Juliana Redding in her Centinela Avenue apartment, the 21-year-old aspiring model the victim of an apparent assault. The results of Redding’s autopsy are being held at the request of the police department.
“We’re still conducting more investigation,” SMPD Lt. Alex Padilla said.“The detectives feel at this point they don’t want to reveal the autopsy until they do more investigation.”
Redding’s body was found after officers received a call from the victim’s mother who had been trying to contact her daughter by phone. Police said they were unsure how long Redding, who took several courses at Santa Monica College, had been dead by the time she as discovered.
Investigators do not believe the two homicides, both of which involved victims who lived by themselves, are related. No suspects have been identified in either cases.
There were no signs of forced entry in Merman’s unit, which is located on the second floor of the three-story complex. Padilla said detectives have not been able to determine if anything is missing from the condo, citing the difficulty of figuring out what he owned because he lived alone.0 Merman was born in Moscow,Russian on Oct.24,1972,moving to Los Angeles with his mother in 1985, according to his Web site, sashas-illusions.com. The site, which includes biographical information, mentions that Merman enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1992 and received a bachelor’s degree in 1998 from Otis College of Art & Design.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 27, 2008. Read the original PDF.