15-Year-Old Charged as Adult in Boys’ Slayings

Prosecutors charged 15-year-old Michael Demirdjian as an adult Wednesday in the bludgeoning deaths of two La Crescenta boys, and police identified a second suspect as 19-year-old Adam Walker of La Crescenta.

Demirdjian, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, appeared weary as he stood in a Glendale municipal courtroom to face two counts of murder and two counts of robbery.

Demirdjian’s arraignment was postponed until Aug. 9 to allow his defense lawyer to challenge the law that requires the boy to be tried in adult court.

Police say they expect charges to be filed today against Walker, a former YMCA desk attendant, in the killings of Blaine Talmo Jr., 14, and his friend Chris McCulloch, 13, found dead Sunday night on a blood-soaked school playground in La Crescenta.

Authorities would not discuss Walker’s alleged role in the killings or how he was connected to the slain boys or the other suspect.

At Walker’s family home in La Crescenta, a woman who identified herself as his mother said three detectives questioned her Tuesday night after Walker was arrested.

The woman, who would not give her name, insisted Walker was not at the scene of the crime.

“There was no doubt in my mind that he wasn’t there,” she said. “It just didn’t make any sense . . . They [police] better get their story straight.”

Demirdjian’s family could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Neighbors said they knew little about the Demirdjians, who according to property tax records bought the 1,132-square-foot home on Santa Carlotta Street near Valley View School in November. The home was searched for hours Monday evening, and detectives carted off bags of evidence, neighbors said.

In court Wednesday, prosecutors revealed little new information about the case but said that under the newly enacted Proposition 21, which increased punishments for young offenders, juveniles 14 and up must be charged as adults if accused of certain murder offenses.

Demirdjian faces murder charges with three special circumstances: multiple murder, robbery and torture, for allegedly beating the two boys to death. The criminal complaint also says he took personal property from the victims.

If convicted, Demirdjian, who is in custody without bail, could face life in prison without parole.

According to the felony complaint, Demirdjian killed Blaine and Chris sometime Sunday. A man watering his lawn discovered the bodies Sunday evening next to a large rock and a heavy bench behind Valley View Elementary School, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The boys were last seen alive Saturday evening.

Authorities have not discussed what happened in the schoolyard or why the boys were there. Scott Bristow, Chris’ stepfather, said police told him the killings occurred quickly, and there was no sign of a struggle.

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Friends of the boys say the pair had recently begun hanging out with a rougher crowd that was into drugs.

The viciousness of the killings and the age of the victims have disturbed many residents of La Crescenta, a foothills community that is partly unincorporated and partly within Glendale city limits.

The news that two teenagers have been implicated makes it even worse, said Chuck Sambar, a member of the Glendale Unified School District Board of Education.

“What is really shocking about this is these are kids,” Sambar said. “All the people involved are such young people. This is such a horrendous and tragic event.”

At the court hearing, Demirdjian’s court-appointed lawyer, Ronald M. Levine, said he planned to challenge the language of Proposition 21, contending it is unconstitutional. Court Commissioner Steven K. Lubell granted an additional two weeks before the first preliminary hearing.

The state Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Proposition 21 in May, although that petition was based on somewhat different grounds.

“We feel the law is sound and we will use it,” district attorney’s office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said. “This is a case where the defendant should be tried as an adult.”

School officials could not say how long Demirdjian has lived in the Glendale area. His only enrollment in Glendale public schools was at Rosemont Middle School in La Crescenta from November 1997 to February 1999, said Glendale Unified spokesman Vic Pallos.

Demirdjian finished eighth grade at Voyager Charter School in La Crescenta and then was granted a permit to attend John Muir High School in Pasadena. But Pasadena school officials said they had no record that he ever enrolled.

Walker first came to the Glendale district in 1994 as an eighth-grader at Rosemont and spent the next four years at Crescenta Valley High School, graduating in June 1999.

His mother said he had lived with her for several years in an apartment on Fairesta Street in La Crescenta. Earlier this month, she said, he moved elsewhere in the area.

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According to one of the mother’s neighbors, who declined to give her name, Walker blasted music in his car and often peeled out in the street, squealing the tires.

He was fired after 18 months from his job as a desk attendant at the Verdugo Hills YMCA in March after he was late for the third time, said YMCA spokeswoman Joanna Pringle.

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Times staff writer Sue Fox contributed to this story.