15-Year-Old Charged as Adult in 2 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 appeared weary as he stood in a Glendale municipal courtroom to face two counts of murder and two counts of robbery.

His arraignment was postponed by court Commissioner Steve K. Lubell until Aug. 9 to allow his defense lawyer to challenge the law that requires Demirdjian be tried in adult court.

Prosecutors said Demirdjian, of La Crescenta, robbed and tortured Blaine Talmo, 14, and Chris McCulloch, 13, before he beat them nearly beyond recognition last weekend on a deserted schoolyard at Valley View Elementary School in La Crescenta.

Glendale police said Walker was arrested Tuesday night and was being held Wednesday in the Glendale police station jail. Police would not disclose Walker’s suspected role in the crime.

Walker, who graduated from Crescenta Valley High School in 1999, is expected to be charged today, police said.

At Walker’s family home in La Crescenta, a woman who identified herself as his mother but would not disclose her name said three detectives questioned her Tuesday night.

She said Walker moved out of their apartment about a month ago but still lived in the area. She insisted that 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 sense. . . . They [police] better get their story straight.”

Members of Demirdjian’s family could not be reached for comment. Neighbors said they knew little about the Demirdjians, who according to property tax records bought their home on Santa Carlotta Street near Valley View School in November 1999.

Prosecutors revealed little new information about the case except that under newly enacted Proposition 21, which increased punishments for young offenders, any juvenile 14 or older must be charged as an adult if accused of certain murder offenses.

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

According to the felony complaint, Demirdjian bludgeoned Blaine and his friend Chris sometime Sunday. A man watering his lawn discovered the bodies of the two boys Sunday evening on a blood-splattered playground behind the elementary school.

“What is really shocking about this is their ages,” said Chuck Sambar, a Glendale Unified School District Board of Education member.

At the hearing, Demirdjian’s alternate public defender, Ronald M. Levine, said he planned to challenge Proposition 21 as unconstitutional.

“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.”

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

Walker came to the Glendale school district in 1994 as an eighth-grader at Rosemont Middle School. He graduated from Crescenta Valley High School in June 1999.

Times staff writer Sue Fox contributed to this story.