A dramatic SWAT team standoff turned deadly for one 57-year-old nurse who was shot twice through the wall of her West Hollywood apartment. Larisa Pereshivaylova immigrated to the U.S. from Russia 22 years ago and has been working as a nurse ever since. She was standing in the kitchen of her apartment on April 7 when gunfire exploded through the walls.
The local police department said one of her neighbors, 31-year-old Joshua Findley, who lived across the hall opened fire in his apartment, and two of the bullets struck Pereshivaylova.
“She was making breakfast at 8 a.m. and she was shot through the wall,” said her 21-year-old son, Max Buydakov. “She was shot through her liver, through her right kidney and the bullet got lodged in her spine.”
Another bullet hit the nurse in the neck. But she was still able to call 9-1-1. The paramedics soon arrived on the scene to rush her to the hospital. That’s when a SWAT team showed up at the apartment complex with a helicopter to hunt for Findley, who managed to escape. It led to a nine-hour standoff that eventually ended with Findley’s arrest.
She was treated for her wounds at the hospital. Her son hoped that she was on the mend after she was released from the facility, but she soon had to be readmitted.
“She was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer while she was hospitalized for the shooting,” Buydakov explained. As her condition worsened, he slowly lost hope that his mother would live.
“We couldn’t even start any treatment because her condition was not stable from the shooting,” her son explained. His mother eventually passed away from her injuries on Sunday night. He described her as compassionate, loving, and full of life.
“I don’t think there’s any sort of prep course or anything like that could have prepared me for what I have dealt with,” he said. “She was my pillar of support, both mentally, emotionally, financially.”
Buydakov has since started a GoFundMe to help pay for his mother’s funeral expenses.
“The emotional scars run just as deep,” he wrote on the page. “The violation of feeling safe and secure in one’s own home has left both my mom and I traumatized.”
Findley is currently in custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for unrelated charges including a parole violation and illegal possession of a firearm.
“We still have to pay rent and I’m unemployed. I am a full-time student and I have been since I enrolled in school, and now I have to cover the cost of funerals, of burials, of all sorts of legal things,” Buydakov said.
