Youths Held in Slaying to Be Tried as Adults : Crime: The two 17-year-olds are accused of fatally stabbing a woman inside a public restroom at Zuma Beach.

Two New Mexico teen-agers accused of fatally stabbing a Northridge woman in a Zuma Beach restroom in May will be tried as adults, a juvenile commissioner ruled Monday.

Concluding a hearing to determine whether Guillermo Bustos and Michael Loretto, both 17, would be tried as juveniles or adults, Sylmar Juvenile Court Commissioner Jack Gold said the youths were unfit to be tried as juveniles because of the gravity and sophistication of the crime.

The youths, scheduled to appear at a hearing Jan. 30 in Malibu Municipal Court, face first-degree murder charges with special circumstances that could earn them a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, said the prosecutor, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Harvey Giss.

“I’m very satisfied,” Giss said after the ruling. “It was the correct decision.”

Los Angeles County Deputy Public Defender Mark R. Frazin, one of the attorneys defending the youths, said he was considering an appeal.

Investigators said they believe that Loretto and Bustos, along with another friend, Jason Alexander, 17, ran away in late May from New Mexico and took a bus to Southern California to avoid a burglary investigation. After a brief stay in Los Angeles, Loretto and Bustos allegedly accosted and stabbed Jacqueline Kirkham, 43, in a public restroom at the beach, took her car and purse, and returned to New Mexico. The three were arrested June 5 after Kirkham’s wrecked car was found on a highway north of Santa Fe. Alexander was not charged in the slaying.

During the hearing, a Sheriff’s Department homicide detective testified that he was told by Bustos during a June 7 tape-recorded interview that he stabbed Kirkham twice while Loretto immobilized her with a chokehold on the restroom floor.