Accused Killer, 12, Emerges in Court as Enigma : Courts: The boy had no criminal record, was not in a gang and had no history of emotional problems. But testimony tells of a youth who killed a popular bicycle shop owner in cold blood.

He is 12 and looks it, with big brown eyes and the smooth face of childhood. Because he is short and small-boned, the orange prison overalls hang long and baggy on his frame.

Last March, he was just another sixth-grader at Santa Fe Middle School in Monrovia. Now he sits silent but alert in Pasadena Juvenile Court, listening as a parade of adults and children testify that he killed a popular bicycle store owner because he wanted to steal a bike.

The boy--who maintains that the gun went off accidentally, and that he left without taking anything--never turns to make eye contact with his parents, transplants from rural Louisiana who settled in the San Gabriel Valley rather than the inner city because they wanted a better life for their children. Polite and well-dressed, the parents sit directly behind their son in court each day, the mother occasionally sniffing into a handkerchief as the father reaches around to comfort her.

Unlike many children who get into trouble, this boy is an enigma to everyone involved in the case. He has no criminal record, is not in a gang, comes from an intact, lower-middle-class family and has no discernible history of abuse or emotional problems, according to psychological tests administered this summer.

But the picture of this handsome child grew more disturbing with each day of the prosecution’s case, which concluded Friday with the testimony of a 13-year-old friend.

In halting tones, the friend said that on March 11 the boy pointed his father’s .22-caliber revolver at shop owner Jung Sam Woo and shot him in cold blood because he planned to steal a bike from the store and did not want the merchant to “see our face(s)” and be able to identify him.

Today, defense attorney Ron Applegate, who was hired by the boy’s parents, will attempt to counter the damaging testimony, perhaps calling the alleged killer to the stand. (The names of all minors have been withheld because of their ages.)

The 13-year-old friend’s testimony capped a week in which Judge Sherrill D. Luke heard from seven witnesses. Two police officers who interrogated the boy described how he calmly denied the crime at first. Even after he confessed, police say, the boy showed no remorse.

A doctor from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office testified that Woo was killed by a .22-caliber bullet that entered his right ear and lodged in his brain. Two 16-year-olds who live next door to the bike shop, Bicycle Sam’s, told the court that the boy bragged to them shortly after he killed Woo, describing how the merchant lay twitching in a pool of blood and urging them to “go get some bikes.”

When they declined, the boy seemed disappointed and asked the teen-agers what he should do, they testified. The boy finally went to Thrifty and called his mother to come pick him up, hiding the gun in his waistband.

In a squeaky voice, the boy’s 13-year-old friend told how he went to the defendant’s house after school on the day of the murder, while the defendant’s parents were at work. He described how the boy took a gun from a shoe box hidden under the parents’ bed and got bullets from a closet. A third boy, who has not been called as a witness, was present.

Because the bullets were too big for the white-handled revolver, the boy went to the kitchen, where he got a pair of scissors and cut off the tips of the bullets “so they would fit in the gun,” the witness testified. Bullets made from soft metal are sometimes trimmed in that fashion.

The boys headed into the streets of suburban Monrovia, where the defendant voiced his intent to “get some money” by robbing and shooting someone, the witness said.

As they walked, the defendant discussed, then discarded the idea of shooting and robbing two men they encountered, the witness said.

The defendant then suggested robbing Bicycle Sam’s, the witness said. Many youths frequented the shop because Woo often gave children free parts and waived charges on small repairs.

The witness testified that he did not believe his friend intended to kill anyone. But after the boys entered the store, the defendant said: “I want this bike right here. After I shoot him, there are some wire cutters there; we can get them and cut down the bike.”

After lingering in the store for several minutes, the two friends walked out, leaving the defendant behind. From a distance of about 25 feet, the 13-year-old turned to tell his friend they should leave.

“I saw him pull the gun out. . . . I saw the gun pointed straight at the man,” the 13-year-old testified. “Then I heard a shot. Then I ran.”

Woo, who was behind the counter with his back turned to the boy, never knew what hit him. The 49-year-old merchant, the father of a 12-year-old boy, fell to the ground, fatally wounded.

Then came the command. “I didn’t shoot him for nothing,” the boy told his terrified friend. “Now go in there and get the bike.”

Stunned, the witness demurred, he said, and told the third boy to call the police. The two friends later went to a pay phone and dialed 911. After being interrogated by authorities, the two friends were released. They have not been charged with any crime.

The decision not to file charges against the other boys has drawn sharp criticism from the defendant’s parents, who maintain that their son did not know how to use a gun and was led astray by his friends. The suspect told police that it was the 13-year-old friend who brought the gun along and proposed robbing the bicycle store.

The alleged killer’s father works in construction. His mother is a hairdresser. The parents said their 16-year-old daughter gets good grades at Monrovia High School and that they spent an hour each day helping their son with his homework, rewarding him for good behavior and spanking him when he got into trouble.

Probation reports indicate that although the boy brimmed with potential, he also fought constantly with classmates and had a long history of school discipline problems, although there was nothing to foreshadow killing someone.

“He has the capability of having others follow him and had a charismatic aura about him and it didn’t get channeled right,” the boy’s fifth-grade teacher told authorities.

The boy’s parents, who often waited in the car to pick up their son from school after detention, believe deeply in the innocence of their only son and used their meager savings to hire a attorney to defend him.

On Friday, defense attorney Applegate complained to the judge that the 13-year-old’s testimony is at variance with statements in the police report. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Silas Davis said most of the boy’s testimony is contained in the police report and the judge allowed the boy’s testimony to be included in the record.