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Not Guilty Plea for Boy, 12, Charged in Murder

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The lawyer for a 12-year-old boy from Pearblossom in the Antelope Valley accused of murder in the shotgun slaying of a 10-year-old playmate entered the equivalent of a not guilty plea for him Wednesday, saying the shooting was an accident.

At a hearing in Sylmar Juvenile Court, attorney Frederic J. Warner entered a denial of the murder charges in the shooting death of Thomas Hernandez, 10.

The Pearblossom boy was killed Sunday afternoon at the home of the 12-year-old by a blast from a shotgun held by the older boy, authorities say.

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The blond, tanned 12-year-old sat quietly at the attorney’s table, his mother at his side, as Warner argued that after further investigation “it will come to light that this was an accidental homicide.”

Prosecutors filed the murder charge Tuesday, saying they would specify the degree and the type of homicide when the investigation by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies is complete.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Chesley McKay said the case is clearly not one of first-degree, or premeditated, murder.

But, he said, the facts show the boy cocked, pointed and fired the gun at Hernandez. He and investigators have declined to elaborate on what occurred just before the shooting.

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