Two Arrested in Beating Deaths of Teenage Boys

Glendale police arrested a 15-year-old boy and a second male on suspicion of beating two La Crescenta youths to death and leaving their bodies in a deserted schoolyard, officials said Tuesday.

The teenager, whose name was not released, was booked Monday night after detectives searched his La Crescenta home, Glendale Police Lt. Don Shade said.

The second suspect, whose name and age were not released, was taken into custody Tuesday, Shade said.

The bodies of 14-year-old Blaine Talmo Jr. and Chris McCulloch, 13, were found Sunday on the playground of Valley View Elementary School in La Crescenta. They had been beaten to death.

Blaine’s stepmother said that the last time she talked to her son was Saturday night, when he called to say he was going to spend the night at a friend’s house.

“He promised he would call Sunday. He said, ‘I love you, Mom, I’ll call tomorrow,’ ” said Alana Talmo, on the verge of tears. “But I never got that call.”

She said she was shocked that a 15-year-old had been arrested in connection with the deaths.

“I can’t imagine anybody their age could commit such a heinous crime,” she said. “I never thought you’d let your child out in La Crescenta and this would happen.”

Blaine’s family said his biological mother was deceased.

Chris’ mother, Aileen McCulloch, had reported him missing Sunday night. She said Tuesday that she was too upset to talk.

Before the first suspect was arrested, police searched a house on Santa Carlotta Street less than a block away from Valley View Elementary School. A neighbor, Bill McDonald, said investigators “were working over there all day Monday. We watched them carrying stuff out, bag after bag.”

Detectives peered into a storm drain and took several photographs of the front door, the door handle and the screen door, McDonald said.

He said he overheard an officer ask another neighbor “if he heard the kid come home on Saturday night.”

Shade and other investigators declined to discuss motives or how the suspects were connected to the two dead boys.

“We’re still in the middle of the investigation,” Shade said.

The two boys suffered multiple blunt-force injuries, according to a Los Angeles County coroner’s report released Tuesday. Both bodies were covered with cuts, bruises and scratches consistent with an assault, coroner spokesman Scott Carrier said.

Detectives have not said whether they recovered any weapons from the playground. But Frank Hoogenhuizen, who lives near the school and discovered the bodies Sunday night, said a heavy bench was pressed across the throat of one of the boys and a large rock was near the head of the other.

As more disturbing details emerged and the news spread that a teenager and another person were suspected in the vicious beatings, fresh waves of grief stirred La Crescenta, a tranquil, middle-class community nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. At Crescenta Valley High School, where the two boys would have started school in the fall, counselors met with upset summer school students Tuesday.

It was clear from the white ribbons pinned to backpacks and the teenagers signing cards that many were shaken by the killings.

“It’s so hard to deal with this,” said 14-year-old Ashley Penland, who said she was a close friend to both boys. “To know they were killed is so awful.”

Ashley said the boys called her at 10 a.m. Sunday and asked her if she wanted to come over to Blaine’s house. She said she had to go to church.

That would mean the boys were killed sometime Sunday. Police, who have said only that the deaths occurred between Friday night and Sunday night, would not comment on her statement.

Police also have said the beatings were not random, and that Chris and Blaine were specifically targeted.

During interviews Tuesday, friends described their concerns that the boys had recently gotten mixed up in drugs.

Blaine, the son of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant named Blaine, and Chris, a skateboarding buff born in Scotland, recently had shifted out of a skateboarding circle and into a tougher crowd, said Cher Mick, the mother of a friend of the boys.

She said she knew Chris well. “He was a good kid. He just got turned around,” Mick said.

The change for Chris began after his mother separated from his stepfather in February and moved from La Crescenta to a La Canada Flintridge guest house, friends said.

Chris shaved his head, began wearing a different style of clothes and often stayed with the family of his friend Mike Hamami in La Crescenta, said Adnan Hamami, Mike’s father.

Scott Bristow, Chris’ stepfather, also said he saw a change in Chris.

“He was a good kid; he just went through some teenage stuff,” Bristow said. He added that Chris recently had started spending time with the youth minister at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church.

Mike, 14, said he and Chris “were like brothers.” He said he knew Blaine, but avoided hanging out with him because “Blaine used to smoke pot daily and he sold for a little while. He always had $60 to $70 in his pocket.”

Alana Talmo said her son Blaine had “problems here and there” but denied he sold drugs or used them.

Services for Blaine are scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Montrose. A memorial service for Chris is scheduled Friday at 7 p.m. at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church.

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Times staff writers Annette Kondo, Andrew Blankstein and Martha L. Willman contributed to this story.