San Diego

A judge Friday ordered a 17-year-old boy to stand trial in a triple slaying and an attempted murder in Clairemont in which the victims’ bodies were found in separate places.

After a two-day preliminary hearing, Manuel Flores Jr. was bound over to Superior Court by San Diego Municipal Judge Ann Buss.

A Juvenile Court judge ruled last month that Flores should be tried as an adult.

A co-defendant, Christopher Box, 20, a former wrestler and football player for Clairemont High School, is set to go on trial May 1 and could receive the death penalty if he is convicted. Flores, however, is not eligible for the death penalty because he was a minor when the murders were committed Aug. 9 at a Clairemont house.

Killed were the house’s residents, April Gilhousen, 20, her 3-year-old son, Bryan, and Kevin Chandler, 29. The bodies of the boy and Chandler were found a mile apart on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, but Gilhousen’s body was found in her bedroom.

Flores’ attorney, Robert Boyce, urged the judge not to bind Flores over on an attempted-murder charge involving victim Rodney Nicholson because testimony stated it was Box who swung the baseball bat at him after he knocked on the door at the house. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Lorraine Rooney, although conceding that it was Box who hit Nicholson, told the judge Flores prevented Nicholson from leaving the area initially.

Boyce also said Flores should not stand trial on the conspiracy and burglary counts, saying there was no evidence the co-defendants discussed a plan to kill everyone in the house beforehand.

After consulting case law, Buss bound Flores over on all the charges, including robbery.

Flores remains in custody at Juvenile Hall in lieu of $2-million bail.