N. Hollywood Restaurant Owners Slain

NORTH HOLLYWOOD — A 22-year-old Sylmar man was arrested Thursday in connection with the fatal stabbing of an elderly couple, the owners of a popular North Hollywood restaurant who had hired him to install a floor in their home, police said.

Israel Cabrera was arrested on suspicion of stabbing and beating to death Sabato and Eugenia Russo, both 73, at their home in the 6300 block of Bellaire Avenue early Wednesday, police said. Robbery is believed to have been the motive.

Cabrera was part of a three-man work crew that had finished installing a wooden floor at the Russo home earlier in the week, Det. Vince Bancroft said. Cabrera is believed to have returned to the house alone Wednesday morning, Bancroft said.

Several items taken from the ransacked house were found at Cabrera’s residence, as well as two knives believed to have been used in the slayings, authorities said.

Devastated friends and family members of the couple spent Thanksgiving Day trying to come to grips with the slayings.

One person described Sabato Russo as a person with a generous heart, who would often feed the homeless around his Sylvan Street restaurant.

“They were good people,” said Joseph Iacobellis, 21, whose mother is a veteran waitress at the couple’s business, Sabatino’s Italian Bakery & Restaurant. “They didn’t deserve anything like that.”

The Russos’ casual Italian restaurant, with its red-checked tablecloths and friendly atmosphere, has been a fixture at the same location in North Hollywood for nearly two decades, longtime chef Juan Jimenez said.

Sabato Russo, a native of Naples who went by the nickname Sabby, greeted patrons at the door and employed a number of friends and family members. The eatery is popular with a broad group of regulars, including police, entertainment industry types, boxers from a nearby gym and Italian American families looking for a little tradition.

The Russos had gone into semi-retirement in recent years, leaving much of the day-to-day operation to their daughter Rosanna Tolino, 33, and her husband, Antonio. But Sabato still kept his hand in the business operations, his daughter said.

“He was very sweet and trusting,” she said.

Tolino and her husband began worrying about the Russos on Wednesday afternoon when Sabato failed to show up with a delivery of extra pie boxes, she said.

Her husband decided to go to the house to check on the couple, Tolino said. On the way, he flagged down a police car, Bancroft said.

Fire Department personnel who were summoned found the bodies after forcing their way into the residence, Bancroft said. Police found no evidence of forced entry at the home.

Jack Basmadjian, a longtime Bellaire Avenue resident, said neighbors were stunned by the killings.

“It’s a nice, very quiet block,” he said. “This is the first thing that’s happened like this, and I’ve lived here 13 years. It’s really a shame.”

Sharon Simon, the couple’s next-door neighbor, said her husband and son were home Wednesday morning, but did not hear any strange noises coming from the Russos’ house.

On most Thanksgiving eves, Simon said, she would walk over to the Russos’ and Sabato would give her a pie from the bakery. This year, she said, there were firetrucks outside, and she wound up watching the grim proceedings through her bathroom window.

Simon said the neighborhood would not be the same without Sabato Russo, whom she described as “very hospitable, very Old World, very Italian--and just very nice.”

Rosanna Tolino said it would be difficult to carry on her father’s business without him.

Sabato Russo and his wife, a native of the Bronx, came to Southern California in 1956, and Sabato worked for many years as a chef at the now-defunct Villa Capri in Hollywood, which was co-owned by his uncle, before opening his own place.

“He just did everything,” Tolino said. “I don’t know how we’re going to make it through. I don’t know if I can fill those shoes, but I have to try. . . . That’s all I can do.”