By John Tozzi
A park ranger found the body of Arman Sadaniantz, an Armenian born in Bulgaria, face down on the rocks about 300 feet south of the Bayside Marina around 10:30 a.m. Saturday, police said. He had slipped away from his family's home near Crocheron Park the day before, his daughter said. Police said there was no sign of foul play, and the city medical examiner will determine the cause of death.Sadaniantz had been in good health until four years ago, when he stopped working as a jeweler in Manhattan, his daughter, Nadia Yeghiazarian, said Monday. She said her 82-year-old father loved to go to the marina to fish until he had to stop driving two years ago.After Sadaniantz was diagnosed with dementia, his family kept a close eye on him and would not let him go out on his own, she said. He lived in a house near Crocheron Park with his wife Julia, Yeghiazarian and her husband and their two sons.Yeghiazarian said Sadaniantz was acting strangely Friday morning before he disappeared.”He seemed uncomfortable like something was bothering him,” she said.He had been sitting in the backyard, as he often did, in the afternoon when he disappeared around 2:20 p.m., Yeghiazarian said. “I didn't think he was going to go far because he had only a thin jacket and his backyard shoes on,” she said.She searched nearby Crocheron Park, where Sadaniantz used to walk and play with his grandchildren. When Yeghiazarian did not find him, she called the police and reported her father missing.”Sometimes he would get disoriented, he'd think that he was in Astoria,” where he lived after coming to the United States in 1975, his daughter said. He later moved to Bayside in 1984, when Yeghiazarian and her husband came to America.On Friday night she and her husband searched the park, and she said she saw police helicopters looking for him as well. When they could not find him, Yeghiazarian said, she and her husband thought he might have boarded the Long Island Rail Road, perhaps confused and thinking he was going to work.”He needed to be in a warm place for him to survive,” she said.Detectives told her Saturday morning that they had discovered Sadaniantz's body at the marina.Yeghiazarian marveled that her father had found his way to his old fishing spot even after dementia had taken a toll on his mind.”He remembered how to get there,” she said. “Sometimes he wouldn't remember if he was upstairs or downstairs in the house.””When he was able to drive, he would go there every day,” she added. “He would get up 4 a.m., 5 a.m.”Sadaniantz is also survived by two brothers, his wife Julia, another daughter Ani Glaser, five grandsons and two great-grandsons.Reach reporter John Tozzi by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300 Ext. 188.
