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Bonus: Business Wars & The Zankou Chicken Murders · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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  Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. Business is war and wondering
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  Speaker 1: drops you right in the thick of the battle. With
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  Speaker 1: Business Wars. From Pepsi versus Coke, Netflix versus Blockbuster, and
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  Speaker 1: Marvel versus DC, there have been major, huge corporate battles
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  Speaker 1: the full stories I bet you've never heard. In Business Wars,
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  Speaker 1: the host David Brown brings you the brutal, the unvarnest
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  Speaker 1: truth behind some of history's greatest corporate wars. And in
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  Speaker 1: the latest episode, David tells the story of a legendary
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  Speaker 1: la restaurant chain, Zenco Chicken, which became the source of
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  Speaker 1: shocking and untimely deadly family conflict that threatened to derail
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  Speaker 1: the business for good, and I mean deadly. If you're
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  Speaker 1: a fan of true crime, the Zoncoe Chicken Murders episodes
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  Speaker 1: are for you. Whoever thought there'd be a Zonco Chicken
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  Speaker 1: murder case? But there is. You're about to hear a
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  Speaker 1: preview of Business Wars where you get to meet the
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  Speaker 1: family behind Zencote Chicken Murders and hear how the family
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  Speaker 1: feud turned deadly. But while you're listening, subscribe to Business
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  Speaker 1: Wars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now.
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  Speaker 1: January fourteenth, two thousand and three, a white stucco mansion
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  Speaker 1: high in the hills above Glendale, California, LA's Armenian Enclay,
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  Speaker 1: Fifty six year old Martyrus Iskandarian closes his bedroom door.
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  Speaker 1: He inches down the stairs step by painful step. He
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  Speaker 1: is the founder of the family owned chain of rotisserie
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  Speaker 1: restaurants Zencoute Chicken, an La institution. He's wearing a white
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  Speaker 1: silk suit that hasn't fit him for decades. Several years
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  Speaker 1: battling cancer iff whittled him down from a burly, middle
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  Speaker 1: aged restaurant mobile to a frail, though dapper, invalid. He
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  Speaker 1: walks into the kitchen, where his wife, Rita sits at
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  Speaker 1: the table, sipping a cup of mulberry tea. Rita fell
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  Speaker 1: in love with Mardius in Lebanon when she was just twelve.
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  Speaker 1: Seeing him now, she can't believe how handsome he looks
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  Speaker 1: for a man so sick, so near death. Ah, marders,
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  Speaker 1: you look like a movie star. But where do you
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  Speaker 1: think you're going in that fancy suit. You're too weak.
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  Speaker 1: You haven't been out of the house on your own
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  Speaker 1: in months. Margoros fiddles with the cuffs of his stiffly
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  Speaker 1: starched dress shirt. He looks anywhere but into his wife's eyes.
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  Speaker 1: He knows she can usually see right through him. Don't
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  Speaker 1: worry about me. I feel so much better today. I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to meet Garrow at the restaurant. I haven't seen
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  Speaker 1: him in well forever. Rita doesn't believe him. Mardaros hasn't
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  Speaker 1: met up with any friends since his last round of treatments. Again,
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  Speaker 1: he doesn't want them to see him like this, But
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  Speaker 1: even in his weakened state, her husband is not a
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  Speaker 1: man she can easily control. Mardoros kisses the top of
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  Speaker 1: her head, picks up the keys to the Mercedes from
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  Speaker 1: the hook by the door, and hobbles past the Quoi
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  Speaker 1: pond in front of the house to the driveway. This
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  Speaker 1: is the last time his wife will ever see him alive.
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  Speaker 1: By the end of this day, the business the family
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  Speaker 1: started forty years ago in Beirut Lebanon, re established from
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  Speaker 1: scratch in Los Angeles and made into a California legend,
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  Speaker 1: will be shattered, perhaps beyond repair. The restaurant entrepreneur, respected philanthropist,
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  Speaker 1: and family man is on a bloody mission and one
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  Speaker 1: of the great success stories of the Armenian diaspora will
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  Speaker 1: be forever marked by a terrible triple asterisk, encompassing some
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  Speaker 1: of the worst acts anyone, above all, any Armenian could commit,
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  Speaker 1: because just a few hours after Margaros is Kendarian gently
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  Speaker 1: kisses his wife goodbye, he will kill his sister, his mother,
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  Speaker 1: and then himself. From wondering, this is business wars. I'm
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  Speaker 1: David Brown. While it's a cliche that the history of
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  Speaker 1: every family empire includes scenes of Shakespearean drama, rarely does
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  Speaker 1: a legit enterprise involving something as innocent as take out
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  Speaker 1: Peter wraps engender the kind of violence that has run
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  Speaker 1: through three generations of this family of entrepreneurs who fled
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  Speaker 1: war on two continents, only to see their business erupt
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  Speaker 1: in a bloody climax. This is episode one of Zankou
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  Speaker 1: Chicken Out of Beirut. To understand what happened on that
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  Speaker 1: one fatal day in Glendale, California, two thousand and three,
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  Speaker 1: you have to travel a long way across continents and
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  Speaker 1: far back in time to nineteen sixty two and a
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  Speaker 1: one room storefront in Beirut Lebanon. It's another searing summer
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  Speaker 1: day in the Armenian quarter of Beirut. One room storefronts
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  Speaker 1: line a dusty side street. Between a bakery and a cobbler.
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  Speaker 1: There's a narrow glass fronted business with a bright blue awning.
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  Speaker 1: The sign on it reads Zencou Restaurant in white Arabic script.
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  Speaker 1: A white friend cadillac pulls up in A man jumps
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  Speaker 1: out of the driver's side and darts into the store.
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  Speaker 1: He calls out a greeting to a plump woman in
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  Speaker 1: an apron cleaning a pile of garlic clothes at a
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  Speaker 1: table by the front window. Hello, my cousin and his
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  Speaker 1: family drop by, and all they can talk about is
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  Speaker 1: your chicken and garlic paste. Margaret is Kandarian looks up,
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  Speaker 1: smiles briefly, and returns to her garlic. She spends hours
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  Speaker 1: a day whipping up tomb a paste of raw garlic
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  Speaker 1: that will eventually lure customers from all over Beirut. Margaret's
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  Speaker 1: recipe will eventually draw not just their Armenian neighbors, but Arabs, Christians,
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  Speaker 1: and many other people who make up this cosmopolitan city
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  Speaker 1: known as the Paris of the Middle East. The customer
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  Speaker 1: Samir rushes over to the two rotisserie ovens that take
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  Speaker 1: up nearly the entire store. There are no tables, no chairs.
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  Speaker 1: There isn't even a cash register. The owner, Margaret's husband Barcas,
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  Speaker 1: turns the golden chickens on their spits and welcomes his
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  Speaker 1: regular customer with a smile. Samir or gutisi, how many
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  Speaker 1: do you need? Three? Please? An extra tomb? My cousin
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  Speaker 1: eats it up with a spoon. In just moments, the
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  Speaker 1: chickens are in a paper bag, and Bartkass stuffs a
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  Speaker 1: few more bills into the wad of cash in his
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  Speaker 1: left shirt pocket. Samere maneuvers his oversized American car down
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  Speaker 1: the narrow alley and heads home from his second visit
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  Speaker 1: that week to Zancou's, But in his haste, he didn't
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  Speaker 1: check his order. If he had, he would have noticed
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  Speaker 1: that Bartkas had forgotten the extra dallops of garlic sauce
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  Speaker 1: that often happens when Barcass is drinking, and Barcass is
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  Speaker 1: often drinking. When he's sober well, he's as smart and
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  Speaker 1: generous as they come. In fact, the idea for the
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  Speaker 1: restaurant came to him during one of his longer experiments
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  Speaker 1: with abstinence. He was visiting a friend back in Armenia
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  Speaker 1: and took a walk along the Zancou River. A family
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  Speaker 1: was barbecuing chicken over a wood fire on the river bank.
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  Speaker 1: The smell of roasting meat and the laughter of the
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  Speaker 1: children made Barcass smile. He decided right then and there
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  Speaker 1: to open a rotisserie chicken restaurant back in his home
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  Speaker 1: in Beirut, the haven where his parents settled after fleeing
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  Speaker 1: the Turks during the genocide of nineteen fifteen. That was
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  Speaker 1: before his thirst got the better of him. Now he
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  Speaker 1: sometimes disappears on a bender for days. If it weren't
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  Speaker 1: for Margaret's excellent cooking in her almost maniacal capacity for
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  Speaker 1: working fifteen hour days, Zenkou would have folded in its
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  Speaker 1: first weeks. But thanks to her, the story is thriving.
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  Speaker 1: It supports them, their three children, and Margaret's mother, another
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  Speaker 1: genocide survivor. It's hard punishing work these early years of
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  Speaker 1: the business, and Bartka's love of Ogee Armenian vodka only
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  Speaker 1: makes it harder. And when the family does take time
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  Speaker 1: to gather and have a meal, Margaret's mother often chooses
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  Speaker 1: those moments to tell vivid stories about the genocide, the
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  Speaker 1: forced arts through the Syrian desert, the starvation, random violence,
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  Speaker 1: mass executions, all of the horrors she witnessed in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifteen during her flight to Lebanon, reminding the family never
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  Speaker 1: forget the Eskandarians hardly need the admonition. In fact, these
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  Speaker 1: stories will come to haunt them in unique ways for generations.
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  Speaker 1: That was just a preview of the latest from Business Wars.
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  Speaker 1: To hear the rest of the Zancou family story, subscribe
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  Speaker 1: today on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.