Charge Reduced for 1 of 2 Suspects in Fatal Beatings

Glendale police on Thursday painted a picture of an increasingly complex and wide-ranging investigation into the deaths of the two boys bludgeoned on a schoolyard, and changed the allegations against one suspect from murder to burglary.

Police said Adam Walker, 19, who had originally been arrested on suspicion of murder in the case, was being held Thursday on an unrelated charge of attempted residential burglary in Burbank.

Glendale Police Capt. Mike Post said he couldn’t explain, without compromising the investigation, why the murder allegations against Walker were dropped.

Before taking Walker into custody on Tuesday, police arrested Michael H. Demirdjian, a 15-year-old from La Crescenta, who remains in jail on murder and robbery charges.

“Information has been developed each day that keeps changing the focus of this investigation,” Post said. “The complexity of this case, the things leading up to this and all the players will amaze you, when we can release all the information.”

Post said that information may not be made public for at least another month. He heads a team of 20 investigators who have spent the past five days scouring the area for clues, with some detectives working 48 hours straight.

The investigative team has questioned more than 60 people, trolled through schools, peered into storm drains, searched three homes and returned repeatedly to Valley View Elementary School in La Crescenta, where Blaine Talmo Jr., 14, and Chris McCulloch, 13, were found dead Sunday evening on a blood-soaked playground.

‘United in Their Grief’

On Thursday afternoon, Blaine’s parents, Alana and Blaine Talmo Sr., and Chris’ mother, Aileen Bristow, appeared together at the school. Tears in their eyes, they viewed the spreads of flowers, rows of candles and notes to the boys arranged on the school fence and sidewalk.

Hugging each other, the parents stepped slowly away from the memorial as a family friend asked reporters to let them grieve in private.

“The one thing they want everyone to know is that they are united in their grief,” said the friend, Brad Welker.

Several teenagers who knew Blaine and Chris said the two friends were skateboarders who had recently shifted toward a tougher group of kids and begun to use and deal drugs.

Drugs may have played a role in the schoolyard killings, said Glendale Police spokesman Chahe Keuroghelian.

“It could have involved drugs, it could have involved robbery,” Keuroghelian said. “This investigation is becoming more and more challenging each day, and it’s been difficult for our investigators to pinpoint a concrete motive.”

Police have remained tight-lipped about what their investigation has turned up, and it’s not clear how police were led to Walker, a recent graduate of Crescenta Valley High School who lived in Montrose.

Burbank Sgt. Kelly Frank said Walker was among a group of six or seven young men that Burbank police officers stopped Tuesday on Glenoaks Boulevard on suspicion of stealing bikes and stereos from homes.

When Walker was questioned about the burglaries, the names of the two slain boys kept coming up, Frank said, without elaborating.

“Obviously this guy Walker knew more about what happened at the school than he was telling us,” Frank said.

Burbank detectives called their counterparts in Glendale, and after interrogating Walker, Glendale detectives took him into custody, Frank said.

Differing Accounts

But a slightly different account was offered by Burbank Police Sgt. Doyle Holm, who said Walker was first arrested by Glendale police and transferred to Burbank later.

Glendale investigators were not available Thursday night to comment on the discrepancy.

Walker was named as a murder suspect Wednesday morning in an official police news release. But a few hours later, Glendale detectives concluded they didn’t have enough evidence to detain Walker on suspicion of murder and sent him back to jail in Burbank on burglary allegations, Frank said.

Walker, who used to be a desk attendant at the Verdugo Hills YMCA, was being held Thursday on $30,000 bail for one count of attempted burglary.