4 Youths Tied to Secret Club Seized in Killing

Four Long Beach high school students, allegedly members of a secret “super-militaristic” organization, were arrested Friday in connection with the execution-style murder of a fellow student who apparently violated the club’s loyalty oath by cooperating with police on a car burglary investigation.

In early morning sweeps of some of Long Beach’s most exclusive neighborhoods, detectives arrested Schuyler MacPherson, 18, two 17-year-old boys and a 16-year-old boy, all of whom are students at renowned Polytechnic High School.

The names of the juveniles were not released, but police said they will ask prosecutors to charge them as adults because of the seriousness of the crime and its alleged premeditation. All four students are expected to be arraigned Monday on murder charges, although police believe the actual strangulation and fatal stabbing were committed by one juvenile, said Detective Larry Kallestad of the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau Homicide Section.

Police would not say whether any of the students had confessed to the murder. Kallestad said that their responses to the arrests had “run the gamut from remorse to stonewalling.”

The arrests culminated a four-month investigation into the strangulation and stabbing death of Alexander Giraldo, a 16-year-old Polytechnic student who allegedly was a member of the secret club, known as the Ace of Spades. Giraldo’s blood-covered body was discovered by a jogger in thorn bushes early on the morning of Feb. 2 near Paseo del Mar, an oceanfront thoroughfare along the bluffs in San Pedro.

Kallestad said police believe Giraldo had been killed the night before by his fellow club members because he “made the mortal mistake” of telling police about a series of auto burglaries he and another unidentified club member had committed that night. Giraldo admitted to the crimes--and implicated the other club member--after being arrested in December for breaking into a car, Kallestad said.

“We had an indication it was this bunch from the very beginning, and we’ve just been piecing it together,” Kallestad said. “That appears to be the reason he was killed. He violated the loyalty oath to the group.”

Kallestad said there were “military aspects” to Giraldo’s death, but he would not elaborate.

Margaret MacPherson, Schuyler’s mother, denied that her son had anything to do with Giraldo’s death. Fighting back tears in her home in the exclusive Virginia Country Club section of North Long Beach, MacPherson said her son telephoned her from jail and said he had never even heard of the Ace of Spades club.

“Alex was a friend of Schuyler’s,” said MacPherson, whose home is just blocks from the Long Beach home where Giraldo lived. “Schuyler would never do anything to hurt Alex. Losing Alex as a friend is sad. Being accused of his murder is horrible.”

Police said Giraldo had been harassed and “beaten up” three times by club members after his arrest in December. Long Beach police said they had been investigating an assault against Giraldo and had been contacted by Giraldo’s parents about threats against their son.

Giraldo’s parents--who have since moved from Long Beach--were so fearful for their son’s life that they had ordered a bullet-proof vest for him to wear and had disconnected their telephone, Kallestad said. School officials said Giraldo’s father, Luis Giraldo, complained in January about his son being beaten up outside his home and later notified them that the family continued to receive threats even after Alexander’s death.

Police and school officials had sketchy--and conflicting--information about the Ace of Spades, which several students said was established by some current and former members of the school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. Principal H. J. Green said Giraldo had been involved in the ROTC, but said MacPherson never belonged to the group. Police, however, said MacPherson had been enrolled in the ROTC but recently dropped out.

Police said the secretive club had about a dozen members who were avid would-be soldiers. Kallestad said they enjoyed military war games--including shooting guns loaded with paint darts at each other, dressing in camouflage outfits and participating in mock military “missions.”

Kallestad said he believed this was why Giraldo and the unidentified teen-ager were breaking into cars last December. Both came from what he characterized as “upper-middle-class” families and stole mostly for the thrill.

Club members in general, he said, “anticipated military careers, maybe even becoming military leaders of the country.” Barry Baker, Giraldo’s school counselor, said the boy talked about attending USC and studying psychiatry.

Kallestad said the multiracial group was “more militant than the ROTC would like them to be.” An ROTC representative on campus said the club had nothing to do with the ROTC. Margaret MacPherson said her son never participated in ROTC programs.

“We didn’t know who was in the club except by rumor,” said Green, who said the only real evidence of the club’s existence came last fall when someone spray-painted an ace of spades on the gymnasium wall.

A 16-year-old sophomore said the club had about 15 members of various ethnic backgrounds who kept to themselves. “They go out and party with each other,” he said. “They hardly even spoke to anybody but themselves.”

Giraldo was last seen alive Feb. 1 when he was “enticed” by other club members to go out for the evening, police said. Giraldo had been beaten up at least three times in the previous five weeks, and Kallestad said police have reason to believe he may have known he was walking into a deathtrap.

“I think he knew, but I don’t think there was anything he could do about it,” the detective said.

Police would not disclose details of the murder, but an autopsy report by the coroner listed “ligature strangulation and stab wounds to the left neck” as the official cause of death. It also reported “blunt force trauma” to Giraldo’s head and torso.

Giraldo’s body was found in blue jeans and a white T-shirt in a ravine near a baseball field, not far from Royal Palms State Beach in San Pedro. A “deep jagged-edged puncture wound” that perforated his left jugular vein was found on his throat, according to the autopsy report, and wood splinters were recovered from the wound. Kallestad said police believe the stabbing was done with a stick.

Toxicological tests showed no evidence of alcohol or drugs in Giraldo’s system, the report said. Police recovered two pieces of “piano wire” at the scene--apparently used in the strangulation--as well as nail and hair samples. The autopsy report said that Giraldo’s body had been dragged along a dirt path for about a third of a mile and thrown over the side of the cliff, coming to rest in thorn bushes about 12 feet below.

“Police kept referring to the wire as ‘piano wire’; however, the wire was a piece of steel-like wire, wrapped with another piece of wire, and more resembled the string from a bass violin or cello,” the autopsy report said. “One piece of the wire found on the trail had a flat washer tied to one end. Both pieces displayed what appeared to be blood.”

Kallestad said police found musical-instrument wire in the home of one of the juveniles arrested Friday, but he would provide no other details.

Police first arrested MacPherson, who was scheduled to graduate Thursday, about four months ago--within a week of the murder--but did not have enough evidence to keep him in custody, police said. The case now “is much stronger,” said Kallestad. “They probably thought they had gotten away with it.”

Even in the early stages of the investigation, Kallestad said, police focused on the Ace of Spades members. “And it was just a matter of cracking the silence,” he said.

At Polytechnic High School, word of the arrests spread quickly. Students said they were shocked, even though rumors about Giraldo’s killers had been circulating since his death.

Classmates of MacPherson described him as someone who did well in school and lived the good life because his parents “bought him anything he wanted.” Police said MacPherson drove a late model Mitsubishi sports car--a birthday gift from his mother.

“He is a well-mannered, Clark Kent kind of guy,” said William Ashley, a 17-year-old senior who sat behind MacPherson in history class. “Like Mr. Rogers’ grandson.”

One of the 17-year-old suspects arrested Friday was identified on campus as among MacPherson’s best friends. Students said he was smart, laid back and very interested in computers. According to school records, the student--also scheduled to graduate next week--had a stellar 3.82 grade point average.

Since MacPherson’s first arrest in February, rumors had linked him to the death of Giraldo. One classmate said he used to joke about it with MacPherson in auto shop class.

“I always used to joke around with him, like, ‘What’s up murderer, you killed anyone lately?’ ” said senior Jason Bayer. MacPherson’s response, he said: “No, sorry, it was a holiday weekend.”

Times staff writer Roxana Kopetman contributed to this story. It was written by staff writer Dean E. Murphy.