Tay Suspect Grilled About Rumored Earlier Murder : Investigation: Teen at whose home body was found bragged about a killing in fall, detectives say. He told them he made it up.

A suspect in the New Year’s Eve killing of honor student Stuart A. Tay is being investigated in connection with the rumored murder of another person last fall, police here said Saturday.

The investigation involves Abraham Acosta, 16, of Buena Park. Police accuse Acosta of being one of five Sunny Hills High students who brutally murdered Tay, 17, and buried him in a shallow grave at Acosta’s home.

After Acosta’s arrest in early January, teen-age associates told police that he had bragged about killing someone last November. Acosta, however, later told police that the November murder story was not true.

Detective Corey Sianez said Saturday, “He (Acosta) says he made it all up--that it was just something he said to look good in front of his friends.”

Sianez added: “We don’t know if the story is true, or if there is a (murder) victim. But we’re looking into it.”

In an interview, Sianez said there is no tangible evidence of a November murder. No body has been found, and no missing person so far fits the circumstances of the story Acosta told his friends last fall, the detective added.

He said the young associates of Acosta told police that Acosta had bragged about “burying a body somewhere up in the mountains.” The tale allegedly related by Acosta had few specifics, Sianez said. Police have no clues to a possible identity or specific location, Sianez added.

Sianez said that investigators believe that if there was an earlier murder, the victim “was a kid in his late teens or early 20s. It may even have been gang-related.”

Acosta and three other juveniles accused of the Tay murder remain in the custody of juvenile authorities in Orange County. They are scheduled for a hearing Feb. 23 on whether they should be tried as adults.

The fifth high school student accused of the Tay murder, Robert Chien-nan Chan, 18, was legally an adult at the time of the murder. Chan is scheduled to be tried in Orange County Superior Court.