3 Youths May Face Charges of Murder : Slaying: Teen-agers are being held in New Mexico as suspects in killing of woman in Zuma Beach restroom.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives said Friday that they will seek murder charges against three New Mexico runaways who allegedly stabbed a woman to death during a robbery in a Zuma Beach public restroom, then stole her car and used it to return home.

The three suspects--two 16-year-olds and a 17-year-old--were arrested Wednesday near Santa Fe soon after New Mexico State Police discovered Jacqueline Kirkham’s stolen car wrecked on a highway north of the city.

Friday’s announcement capped 10 days of intense investigation into the May 28 daylight slaying of Kirkham, a 43-year-old saleswoman from the San Fernando Valley who visited the popular Malibu beach each Tuesday to lie in the sun and take walks.

All three suspects were held in the Santa Fe Juvenile Detention Center, New Mexico authorities said. The 17-year-old was held by juvenile officials on an unrelated burglary charge, while the two younger boys were held on probation violations for running away from home, authorities said.

“We have considerable confidence that these are our suspects,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Brown, a homicide investigator on the case. “They traveled to California on a bus several days prior to the murder. They decided to return to New Mexico and decided to steal a car. They saw the victim go into the restroom. One followed her in and struggled with her. A second one came in and stabbed her.”

Sheriff’s officials said they felt they had a strong case after showing witnesses photographs of the suspects, interviewing the three youths and compiling otherunspecified evidence in the case.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said during a news conference Friday that because the murder was allegedly committed by suspects who lay in wait for a victim, he expects that the three youths will be charged as adults.

Detectives are still piecing together the odyssey of the three teen-agers, but they believe it began when they came to Los Angeles to avoid being sought as suspects in the burglary of a bar in their rural hometown of Pojoaque, about 10 miles from Santa Fe. The two 16-year-olds were on probation for earlier burglaries, according to Santa Fe Children’s Court Atty. Sheri Weinstein.

Maj. Frank Taylor of the New Mexico State Police described the suspects’ hometown as a mountainous, clannish community of about 5,000 with a population evenly divided among Anglos, Latinos and American Indians.

According to sheriff’s officials, the three youths came to Los Angeles by bus on May 25, trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with relatives or friends that one of them had in Southern California. Brown said it is unclear where the relatives or friends lived or where the teen-agers spent the three days before Kirkham’s slaying.

Block said the three decided to steal a car at Zuma Beach in order to return home. When asked why the suspects chose the beach for a robbery, he said, “If I were a teen-ager from New Mexico, the Pacific Ocean would hold a great deal of attraction for me.”

One of the teen-agers allegedly waited outside while the other two attacked Kirkham inside the restroom, officials said. The youth who waited outside could also face murder charges for being involved in the robbery that led to her death, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Harvey Giss said.

The youths left with Kirkham’s purse and her red Nissan 240SX.

Kirkham’s purse was found near Needles the next day. The youths tried to sell the car upon their return home, but an accident involving the car near Santa Fe led to their arrests.

The break in the case came Tuesday when the suspects let another group of teen-agers test-drive the car. The teen-agers crashed the car into a tree and abandoned it, Taylor said.

The father of one of the suspects, who had seen his son earlier with the stolen car, contacted police after viewing a news report showing the abandoned car and composite sketches of the suspects in Kirkham’s murder.

Kirkham’s fiancee, Steven Williams, said he hopes the three youths will be tried as adults and punished severely.

“This is as bad as it gets, knifing defenseless women in ladies’ rooms,” he said. “There are stabbings every day that don’t receive the attention this has received. . . . The least that can happen is that people become more cautious of the obviously unsavory types that are out there and could prey on any of us and our families.”

The decision whether to file charges will be made next week, Giss said. If charges are filed, extradition proceedings will take between three to six weeks, he said.

The suspects would face a maximum sentence of life without possibility of parole if they are tried as adults, he said.