Friends Can’t See Suspect as Mastermind in Murder : O.C. slaying: Robert Chan had risen above the crowd scholastically and was on the fast track to success.

Like others his age, Robert Chien-Nan Chan faced the usual highs and lows of life as a teen-ager. But unlike most, he rose above the crowd and was often considered among the best.

He traded his eighth-grade violin for cleats to join the football squad his first two years at Fullerton’s Sunny Hills High School. Teammates say he was a mediocre player, but his hard work and determination earned him the respect of the stars on the team.

To his friends, Chan seemed nonchalant about classwork--doing just what needed to be done. But he excelled to the point of becoming a contender for class valedictorian.

The 18-year-old scholar was on the fast track to success.

Suddenly, Chan’s future is uncertain, thrown into a wild spin by his arrest--and those of four other Sunny Hills students--in the New Year’s Eve murder of Foothill High School honors student Stuart A. Tay.

Is it possible, his classmates now wonder in disbelief, that Chan could have been involved in illegal activities? Could he have masterminded the killing because he believed that Tay crossed him while planning a theft of computer parts, as police now allege?

No, they say, it does not make sense that their friend, super achiever and guy with everything to lose may stand trial in one of the most gruesome homicides to rock Orange County and its Asian-American community.

“When you watch TV and read the news about someone normal and quiet, and suddenly that person went berserk . . . maybe Robert was one of those people, but he is my friend,” said Royce Liao, a Sunny Hills High School senior. “Maybe he really did it, maybe he didn’t. I still believe he’s innocent.”

Orange police theorize that Chan and four other students--Charles Choe, 17; Kirn Young Kim, 16; Mun Bong Kang, 17; and Abraham Acosta, 16--participated in the killing of Tay because Chan felt deceived in a scheme to rob an Anaheim man of computer components.

Investigators say Tay was lured to Acosta’s house in Buena Park on New Year’s Eve on the pretense that he would be able to buy a Beretta handgun. But under a plan allegedly devised about two weeks in advance, Tay was beaten with baseball bats and a sledgehammer and then buried in a shallow grave in Acosta’s back yard.

Of the estimated 13 blows delivered to Tay’s head and stomach, police believe that Chan struck the victim at least 10 times, according to court records. Investigators also allege that Chan arranged to pay Acosta for digging the grave, distributed the money found in Tay’s wallet to other accomplices, and made plans to abandon Tay’s Nissan 300 ZX sports car in Compton, providing the driver with plastic gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints on the car.

Chan and his parents have declined requests for interviews, and his attorney did not return telephone calls Monday.

As Chan’s classmates pore over newspaper accounts of the police case; they have trouble making the pieces of the puzzle fit. The Robert Chan they know is not a likely murder suspect.

One of the ironies, they say, is that Chan does not have a sophisticated knowledge of computers--unlike the murder victim and at least one other suspect--and needed “basic” instructions on how to operate a system recently acquired by his father.

“If he were trying to find out about computer parts, I would have known instantly because I know about computers myself,” said Liao, who gave Chan arcade action games like “Wolfenstein 3D” and “Star Control 2.”

And, they ask, wouldn’t someone known for being meticulous in his work and in his dress have drawn a more careful plan?

“Even if it was premeditated and he planned everything, he’s a smart guy,” said one friend who spoke on the condition that he not be identified. “He would not make a plan like that and bury the guy in the back yard.”

The son of an engineer and a homemaker, the shy Taiwan native seemed to have a little trouble fitting in when he first arrived as a seventh-grader at Russell D. Parks Junior High School in Fullerton, one of his friends remembers. His extracurricular activities were not extensive, but he played the violin for the school’s string band.

Joining the Sunny Hills High freshman and junior varsity football squads, he warmed the bench but sometimes played positions on both the offensive and defensive units. Suspect Choe also was on the team.

Chan “was the only one who worked really hard at football even though he didn’t play (on the first string),” said Mark Enrico.

“He was a real nice guy,” said former teammate Kevin Lee. “We always called him ‘Smiley’ because he always had a smile on his face.”

Friends believe that it was during this time that Chan briefly courted Jennifer Lin--the girl who was dating Tay at the time of Tay’s death. She was the only girl Chan is known to have dated, and his friends say she broke it off.

While the private detective hired by the Tay family initially speculated that the dispute between Chan and Tay may have involved the girl, police quickly dispelled that theory, and so do Chan’s friends.

“There’s no way for (the killing) to be over her,” said another friend who spoke on condition that he not be identified. “Even when (Chan) was going out with her, it was not that big of a deal.”

Chan’s list of accomplishments during his high school career earned him the nickname “Super Scholar,” though he seemed embarrassed whenever anyone would call attention to his intelligence.

As a member of the International Baccalaureate program--a fast-track honors regimen, Chan planned to submit in February a required 4,000-word research paper on the arts and mythology. He was enrolled this year in the honors arts class, with studies ranging from portraiture to darker themes, including a much-talked-about painting of samurai warriors plunging swords into a planet with blood coming out.

He also was among the top tier of the school’s nine-member Academic Decathlon team and had done extra work for teammates by preparing study guides on Taiwan. The team placed fourth last November in the regional contest, and Chan came in fifth in the fine arts category. As a freshman, Chan impressed the judges with a speech on rap music, although he was known to prefer New Age.

He was unsuccessful in his bid to become president of a campus environmental club but was an officer this year of the German Club.

In an application for a contest that won him a nine-day trip to Singapore last year, Chan listed among his career ambitions “doctor, businessman, body-builder, actor.”

Like Tay, Chan had planned for what seemed to be a college career at Princeton University.

But unlike the murder victim, Chan was not known to court the favor of his teachers, nor was he inclined to provoke intellectual discussions in class.

“He is pretty quiet (in class). He answered questions when he was called upon,” said a senior student who shared some of Chan’s classes. Another honors student described Chan as being “sort of lazy” in class while maintaining excellent grades. “If he was told to take charge, he would do it, but if he was not, he would not care.”

Yet others remember Chan as having a stronger ego, trying at times to set the agenda for others to follow.

“He liked to take charge of a lot of things. He was never a follower, that’s for sure. A lot of times, he never got to the place he wanted to get. . . . He pretty much went out of his way to be a leader.”

And there were other contradictions. His usually even temper, acquaintances said, could give way to anger.

“He would get absolutely livid if anyone accused him of cheating, so we basically stayed away from that subject with him,” said one student, adding that he would get worked up in debates outside the classroom, particularly on issues involving ethnic pride.

He was not known to go out on dates and was rarely even seen talking to girls on campus. But in his application for the Singapore trip, he boasted of himself, “I’m too sexy for Singapore!”

He did not get into fistfights on campus, and friends say they did not take him seriously when he tried to talk tough. But Fullerton police now say Chan was one of the suspects last year in the beating of a teen-ager. The victim declined to press charges, police say, but investigators believe that Chan and others attacked him for bad-mouthing the Wah-Ching Gang, the infamous Chinese Mafia.

Greg Temesvari, a Sunny Hills senior who was friend to both Tay and Chan but was unaware that they knew each other, said of Chan: “Everybody thinks he’s smart and a good kid and stuff, but he’s not. He’s involved in stuff he shouldn’t be doing.”

One close friend who asked not to be identified said he spoke to Chan on New Year’s Eve and again the next afternoon--before and after the homicide. They spoke of unfinished class assignments and of what they had done during the holiday break. “He sounded perfectly normal,” the friend said.

And when the students returned to campus Monday, classmates say Chan was himself--neatly dressed in dark baggy pants and a white shirt buttoned to the collar. His only concern during first period--philosophy--seemed to be the need to complete a homework assignment due the next day. During the next hour, one classmate noticed that Chan had dozed off as his calculus class wound down.

No one detected anything unusual until a vice principal pulled Chan out of his fifth-period honors English class. “Later the vice principal came back and got his bag,” a classmate said, “and we knew he wasn’t coming back.”

Times staff writer Jodi Wilgoren contributed to this report.